Direct Trenitalia Route From Fiumicino (FCO) to Venice

PWMTrav

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Staff member


Trenitalia has introduced a direct train line from Rome’s Fiumicino airport to Venice, and that is great news for travelers entering Italy through its busiest airport. If you’re from the United States, just about all direct routes to Italy serve FCO – other than the very competitive JFK-MXP route – and many are headed to other cities within Italy. This news brings what I find to be the most convenient option to the mix.


While Rome has perennially huge tourist numbers, Venice and Florence are right up there as well. Previously, the way to get to those places was to generally fly direct to Rome or Milan and either connect to another flight or board a minimum of two trains to either destination. At Rome, this would involve taking the Leonardo Express to Roma Termini, then transferring to either a high speed or regional train to Venice or points in between. Now, travelers heading from FCO to Florence, Bologna, Padua or Venice can instead skip the Leonardo Express and hop right on a high speed Frecciargento train to those cities.


Florence in 2 hours, Venice in 4, on a very comfortable train


The schedule isn’t quite frequent yet, but they happen to be well timed for most transatlantic travel. As these destinations operate on one line, there are two scheduled departures and two scheduled returns each day. For now, you can board this route out of FCO at 11:08am and 3:08PM. Trains return to FCO at 9:52am and 1:52pm, with the departure on that return trip obviously depending on the city you’re starting from.

The (warning: PDF link) timetable does reveal one potential inconvenience. The early departure from Venice, arriving at 9:52am at FCO, departs from Venezia Mestre and not Venezia Santa Lucia. Venezia Mestre is actually located on the mainland and requires a train ride or water taxi of its own to get to, so if you are planning to fly from Rome, you might want to book a later departure if the plan is to spend your last day in Venice and get to Rome on the day of your return flight.

Trenitalia high speed trains – le Frecce, or arrows, are bookable online, from the United States, using American credit cards at their website. That didn’t used to be the case, so I’ll simply mention that and am happy to answer questions in the forum or the comments.

I had not seen this news picked up by many English-language travel websites or blogs, so even though the route is a couple months old I thought it’d be something informative to write about. I am certain to be on one of these trains the next time we go to Italy. I’ll always take a train over a connecting flight, and these particular trains are both convenient and extremely comfortable.

Continue reading...
 

PWMTrav

Moderator
Staff member
this is helpful, as I will be traveling to venice and rome in april.
Glad I could help. As I said in the post, a lot of blogs and English travel sites in general haven't picked it up. In my opinion, it's a pretty big deal to be able to skip the Leonardo Express and transferring trains at Termini - it's one less connection to manage and one less time to drag your luggage around. Termini itself is a pretty easy train station, but when you haven't slept but 4 hours and have 3 bags, it's going to be really nice to get on the Frecciargento right at FCO and arrive at Venezia S.L. (or more likely for me, Firenze SMN).

For anyone reading this post or this thread, would it make sense for me to do a post on the basics of train travel in Italy? I'm not sure what the perception of the Italian train system by non-Italian speakers is, but I think the Italian rail system is pretty friendly to tourists. Except when your train to Venice decides to end its run in Mestre and you have to figure out how to get across the lagoon yourself. That sucks, whether you're Italian or not.
 

MickiSue

Level 2 Member
OTOH, it's nice to have a stopover in Amsterdam, when flying DL or KLM, and then on to VCE (DD lives near there.)

But avoiding the stinky train to Rome Central Station is lovely, certainly!
 

PWMTrav

Moderator
Staff member
OTOH, it's nice to have a stopover in Amsterdam, when flying DL or KLM, and then on to VCE (DD lives near there.)

But avoiding the stinky train to Rome Central Station is lovely, certainly!
If you know what you're doing, I'd agree AMS is a nice option for entering Europe. It's an efficient airport, certainly less of a cluster-F than FCO. But the "know what you're doing" part is a big deal. I don't think most tourists, especially first time visitors to Italy, would prefer arriving at VCE even though it's called Venice's airport. It's on the mainland and requires transferring yourselves (and luggage!) to either the train, a water taxi or the Alilaguna line across the lagoon.

For me personally, I'd rather take a direct flight to FCO and transfer only once to the Frecciargento that takes me right to Venezia Santa Lucia.
 

MickiSue

Level 2 Member
I agree--and, actuallly, I usually get curb to curb service at VCE, because we head straight for DD's house. OTOH, a very little knowledge of Italian, and a slightly greater knowledge of Trenitalia auto-kiosks got me from MXP to Vicenza, alone with my luggage, in Oct 2013.

Knowing upfront that the kiosks will "talk" to you in English means that you don't need to find, and stand in the endless line, for a human to get your tickets.
 

PWMTrav

Moderator
Staff member
I agree--and, actuallly, I usually get curb to curb service at VCE, because we head straight for DD's house. OTOH, a very little knowledge of Italian, and a slightly greater knowledge of Trenitalia auto-kiosks got me from MXP to Vicenza, alone with my luggage, in Oct 2013.

Knowing upfront that the kiosks will "talk" to you in English means that you don't need to find, and stand in the endless line, for a human to get your tickets.
Curb to curb service in Venice sure is nice :D Where does your daughter live?

In addition to the kiosks, Italians themselves are pretty friendly to tourists. I'd be willing to bet a lost American could go up to an Italian, ask nicely for help and receive it. That presumes that you don't just run into another lost tourist, then you just get to be lost together :D
 

MickiSue

Level 2 Member
They live in a suburb of Vicenza, so VCE is the closest airport, by far. But when our grandson was due, it was high season for Venice tourism, so I flew into MXP, instead. Anything to fly up front instead of cattle.
 

InstinctX

Level 2 Member
But avoiding the stinky train to Rome Central Station is lovely, certainly!
+1 Visited Rome last fall, and cities along the Amalfi coast (Postiano, Capri). We took the Trenitalia to Naples (super fast and clean). I wish the US had similar type of fast rail service (Amtrak Acela doesn't come close).

But then we had to take the commuter train to Sorrento -- I don't know about others' experiences, but those are sketchy trains. We had already read how those trains are prime targets for pickpockets. We were carrying all our luggage and had to keep close eyes on everything.
 

PWMTrav

Moderator
Staff member
+1 Visited Rome last fall, and cities along the Amalfi coast (Postiano, Capri). We took the Trenitalia to Naples (super fast and clean). I wish the US had similar type of fast rail service (Amtrak Acela doesn't come close).

But then we had to take the commuter train to Sorrento -- I don't know about others' experiences, but those are sketchy trains. We had already read how those trains are prime targets for pickpockets. We were carrying all our luggage and had to keep close eyes on everything.
Unfortunately, as you go south of Napoli, Italian infrastructure starts to suck in a bad way.
 

InstinctX

Level 2 Member
It took almost a day to get to the Alfami coast with the trains and bus ride (Sorrento to Postiano). We stayed a night in Capri - which looking back, it would have been better to have spent more time in Postiano & Sorrento and just spend the day in Capri. We took ferries from Postiano to Capri, then to Sorrento which was much much faster. But still had to take the commuter train because we wanted to do a drive-by tour of Pompeii (it felt like the Amazing Race...we spent less than 2 hours there because we didn't want to miss the last train from Naples to Rome).
 

MickiSue

Level 2 Member
If you have the time to research trains from other stations, you may find a fast commuter train from a neighborhood station in Rome near the end of the day, to Venice or, possibly, Milan, as it's closer to Rome.

There are once a day trains, very reasonably priced, that run early morning into Rome (not the central station, but easy to change trains) and end of the workday from Rome to smaller cities all over the country.

When DD lived in Bari, I could take a train at 5:30 AM for 10 euros to a smaller Rome station, and then for maybe 4 more, to the central station. If I'd been going back to Bari, the same route ran at about 5:30 pm for the same price.
 

MarkD

Level 2 Member
I've just started researching our options for getting from Rome to Naples (and then to Sorrento) in July.

Anyone have any opinions on Italo versus Trenitalia? The Italo website sure is nice and easy to understand - which is half the battle.

It looks like they have some options from Roma Termini that will fit our schedule nicely for 19.50 euros one way.

Good to hear about the sketchy trains from Naples to Sorrento. I might look into a ferry instead now.
 

MickiSue

Level 2 Member
If you can schedule the train for peak commuter times, they're not so sketchy, because most of those riding are boring commuters, and the pickings for thieves not so good.

Also, depending on your destination, you might be better off on s bus. A lot of trains have multiple stops along the way, whereas a bus, not so many. They're less expensive, as well.

IME, the bus stops tend to be very close to the train stations, so pretty convenient.
 
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