Flying within Italy~

[dajop]

We booked train tickets for travel earlier this year on the above linked Ferrovia (Trenitalia) website. There was a suggestion that some foreign credit cards won't work, and IIRC, I did have a problem with one CC, but the next one I tried worked. Printed out barcoded ticket/seat allocation- all very easy, even changed one of the reservations we made over the net (to a train one hour later) using the booking reference and one of the ticketing machines at the station - no problems.

 

[Flashback]

I'll second using the trains. Prices don't seem to vary much between buying early and buying on the day.

We booked train tickets for travel earlier this year on the above linked Ferrovia (Trenitalia) website. There was a suggestion that some foreign credit cards won't work, and IIRC, I did have a problem with one CC, but the next one I tried worked. Printed out barcoded ticket/seat allocation- all very easy, even changed one of the reservations we made over the net (to a train one hour later) using the booking reference and one of the ticketing machines at the station - no problems.

I tried my Wizard MC, Platinum AMEX C/C and Citibank Visa and none of them would work. This was 1 month out from day of travel. Posting a question regarding this on FlyerTalk suggested that this is a common problem with Trenitalia.

On arrival into Venezia we simply purchased our Venezia to Florence and Florence to Roma tickets from the station, and the cost was the same so luckily we didn't end up losing out money wise.

 

[sunbeamrapier]

Definitely take the train. I have done the Florence to Naples part of the trip a couple of times. You can just buy your tickets from a machine at any railway station, either on the day or in advance. The machines take credit cards, have multi-language options and full timetable information. Couldn't be easier...

The trains run on time irrespective of fog, snow and other issues which cause flight delays and you don't have all the hassle of check-in. You can arrive at the station 1 minute before your train and still get on - not that I recommend that you do...