Planning to go to Rome, Venice, Florence, Interlaken, Vienna

Hey there,

Need some advice regarding my upcoming trip to the above mentioned cities in mid-June.

Rome for 3N 4D
Florence, Venice, Interlaken for 2N 3D each

We'll be traveling everywhere by rail, all by night trips so that we can sleep while traveling, saving precious time.

We also decided to add in another city as we had a couple of extra days, so we still haven't decided on Vienna or Prague. I think Vienna seems the more likely choice as it is nearer to Interlaken.

I have some questions that I hope someone can answer..

1) What is the best way to inter-city travel?

2) Do you think that it is necessary for me to pre-book our rail travel around these cities? Because the thing is that we would like to have some flexibility as well. Prebooking our rail travel would strip us of this flexibility. However, we are worried that as we're going during the peak period, we might get stuck in a situation whereby we are unable to get the trains we want. Any opinions?

3) Are there any particular trains to avoid/or any trains that are recommended?

Thanks for any help in advance

1) Train. Renting a car is not very practical in Italy and with the distances involved flying is out.

2) Night trains should be pre-booked or you could get into trouble when trying to board the train. Night trains have only a limited number of sleeper seats, couchettes and beds, you need to reserve in advance and pay the appropriate surcharge for the seat, couchette or bed.

But your plan to travel by night train does not work, Rome-Florence and Florence-Venice is only 2 hours by fast Eurostar train and 4 hours by slow regional trains.

You can look up travelling times and schedules for trains in Europe here:

http://www.reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

And you can buy tickets for trains in Italy and international trains leaving from Italy here:

http://www.trenitalia.com/

If you buy in advance you can get cheaper tickets.

3) Reservation is mandatory for Eurostar trains in Italy. They are more expensive than the slow regional trains, but more comfortable too. You can buy tickets or reserve a seat right before departure, so it is not necessary to buy in advance, but recommended. You can buy either over the internet or at the ticket counter in the train station (Roma Termini, Firenze SMN, Veneza S.L.) one or two days before you travel.

TIP: If you are in any other country in Europe before coming to Italy (Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, etc) you can buy one international ticket Rome-Florence-Venice-border to Switzerland. This will be cheaper than buying seperate tickets Rome-Florence, Florence-Venice, Venice-Interlaken in Italy.