In just a few weeks we'll be starting our 11 week trip through Italy. This will be our first time traveling in Italy.

For much of the time we will have a car, and these arrangements are all made. But after the first week of our trip (on Lake Como), we will drop off our car in Milan and then take a train from Milan to Venice. After a week in Venice, we'll take the train from Venice to Rome for a week there. At that point, we get another car for the remainder of our time in Italy and onto Austria.

When should I buy the train tickets for the Milan-Venice and Venice-Rome trips? I will be at our address in France for another 15 days, so could potentially order tickets now (how best to do this??) and have them delivered here.

Or, can we just check schedules now and buy tickets at the station on the day of travel?

Thanks for any advice--

Kathy

For Venice-Rome, you might try to book early and see if you can get a promotional fare of 15 euros on an Intercity or 29 euros on a Eurostar. For the Milan-Venice trip, you could get a small savings on the Intercity. If you can't get these fares, it's fine to reserve the trip a day early or so. If you're more comfortable booking the trip from the computer you're using now and don't want to spend time in Italy doing this, that's fine. Consider whether you want to commit to specific trains now, and watch for any strike dates, such as are listed here; I see that a strike is scheduled for April 11, starting the previous night.

You don't need to have the tickets delivered to you. Some trains allow a ticketless option, where you just show your confirmation printout on the train (and some people have posted warnings about this); otherwise there's a self-service option, where you get a code that you enter on a machine to get your tickets, or you can show the code at a ticket window to get them issued.

I am a big fan of the fairly new "Ticketless" system which is offered on Eurostar, InterCity Plus and InterCity trains. Essentially this is electronic booking, you book and pay by credit card online and just show the confirmation number to the conductor. No need for paper tickets to be delivered or picked up, and no need to validate a ticket at the station.
There have many quite a few recent threads about this - read this one on The Dangers of Going Ticketless
To purchase tickets on the Trenitalia website you have to register with a user name and the system will e-mail a password to you; after that you can go ahead with the reservation and purchase. Just remember that the date is input in the European way (date/month/year). Also, trust me on this, 2nd class is fine on the Eurostar, although if you can get one of the promotional fares in 1st class, so much the better.
If you don't care about promo fares and want to be more flexible with travel time, you can certainly wait until after you arrive in Italy to buy the tickets, either at the train station (in a self-service machine to avoid long lines) or online if you will have computer access.
- Marie

Hello Kathy,
yolu can buy your tickets online at www.trenitalia.it and choose the ticketless solution... you will be provided with a reservation code you will indicate when you get on the train... this is necessary if you will be travelling with the Eurostar trains otherwise there's no need for reservations... you just buy your tickets when you get to the train station. Ciao and see you in a few weeks on Lake Como

"welcome to Lake Como... welcome to the land fond of life!"
www.lakecomo.biz

Also, for some odd reason, the Milano-Venezia line offers Eurostar tickets that are not more expensive than Intercity + reservation tickets. let me say it again: going from Milano to Venice or any destination in between you don't save a penny by going Intercity.

I just got back from a week in Italy and used the trains as my mode of transportation in between cities and it was great! (Specifically, Eurostar.) We used the automatic ticket stations to purchase our tickets.

But, there is one thing you should be aware of when you use the automatic ticket stations, at least for the Eurostar trains. (I can't say about the other trains because we didn't take them.) Even if we selected to sit together (the 4 of us wanted to sit together), it never worked. When you're in the train, you'll notice that there is a very strange numbering system for the seats. There are 4 seats on each side and they're numbered something like 21, 22, 25, and 26 on one side and 23, 24, 27, and 28 (or something like that) on the other side. So if you pick seats 21-24 thinking that you'll all be sitting together, that won't happen. My friends and I could not figure out the reasoning behind the numbering system of the seats.

I'd suggest that if you want to ensure that you sit together, to wait in line for a ticket agent and have them do it for you because even when we had a train station employee helping us with the automatic ticket station, we still didn't sit together, even though we selected seats next to each other!!!

We bought our tickets the day before we left and had no problems.

Do make sure to get to the train station about 15 minutes before your train leaves, especially if you have luggage with you. We arrived at the Venice train station mere minutes before the train left (vaporetti took far longer than we thought) and were instructed to board Car 12 because the train was departing shortly. Our tickets were for car 6 so we ended up having to haul our stuff through almost 7 cars and that was a major pain for everyone we passed! I felt badly for them!

Also, from Venice to Rome, if you plan on buying lunch on the train, make sure you go as soon as they announce that food is being served, because the later you go, the less selection you'll have! (Food is served on Car 5, if I remember correctly.)

And remember, "Un treno pulito e piu bello..!" (A clean train is a nicer train!)

Thanks everyone for the guidance on buying train tickets in Italy. My nature is oriented toward getting this done in advance and having our schedule fixed, so I am on the Trenitalia site this morning to see if I can figure it out.

I am having a hard time understanding if there is a reduced fare for a child, like there is here in France and other parts of Europe. (Our daughter is 11.) I clicked to look at other fares and discounts, and saw an option for a Young Person's railcard. I couldn't find any info about what this is, and suspect it's a card bought in advance rather than a cheaper child's fare.

Does anyone know anything about children's fares or the young person's railcard?

Thanks-- Kathy

Kaydee, you may have already seen this. Alice has a great guide to Italian train travel on Slow Travel website. It sounds like your daughter may be able to travel for free if you are all three traveling together. There is a family offereing (see bottom of page linked above). I am not certain how to book it so I hope Alice sees this thread and can clarify the option.

Added after original post: Here's a post that mentions the offering.

I am speaking from experience here, if you are going now, booking a train in advace is not nessecary. The main holiday season is in August and that is when you have to book way in advance. Getting tickets is very easy on the sites mentioned above, but I suggest getting a Europass. You can also get discounts for children and also if you have 3 or more people in your group. You can get the tickets at the train station also. If you want to get one car to yourself, you can specify that with the ticket office and they will make sure to do that for you. Children under the age of 11 get half price tickets and seniors get a good discount also. We went to several different countries and got the Europass.. it was great. For a set amount of money you can travel either by time or by distance. GL and have fun. The train is great to travel by. You can get off and on with the Europass.

The family option refers to children aged up to 11 or 12 traveling with two adults (not necessarly the parents, a parent and an older brother, a couple grandparents or just a couple of friends aged over 12 will do!). The child gets a free ticket, and only has to pay (on Intercity trains) the optional seat reservation (3 euro). The offer can be asked on purchasing the tickets anytime prior the train departure.

Thanks for the advice Marta, Samantha and Alice. I think I am figuring this out!

Kathy