Getting to Florence by train: tickets, prices, times and stations

Arriving in Florence by train is almost always the right call: Santa Maria Novella station sits inside the historic centre, the Duomo is 10–12 minutes on foot and a car in this city is good only for collecting fines. Rome is 1 hour 30 minutes away, Bologna 37 minutes, Venice about 2 hours. High-speed fares start at €9.90 on the Bologna–Florence run and €14.90 on the Rome to Florence train, but only if you buy weeks ahead.

How long it takes and what it costs from Rome, Venice and Bologna

The journey times below are those stated by the carriers; the fares are the lowest prices published at the time of checking, not the ones you will find on the day.

On the Rome–Florence route Trenitalia states more than a hundred connections a day, with departures from 5:10 to 21:48: this is the route where you never need to plan the exact time months in advance, you need to plan the price.

Pisa and Lucca are reached on regional trains, with a fixed and non-dynamic fare: there is no advantage in buying early, other than finding a seat at weekends. If you are thinking of a day out of the city, the comparisons between train, bus and organised tour are in Tuscany day trips.

Trenitalia or Italo: how the choice is really made

On the main routes the two carriers take the same time, leave from and arrive at the same stations, and the real difference is the price on the day you need. Check both, always.

Trenitalia has far more departures and runs the regional trains, so it is the only option for Pisa, Lucca, Empoli and Poggibonsi. Italo covers high speed only, with lead-in fares that are often lower and fewer services at quiet hours.

The pricing rule. Trenitalia’s Super Economy and Economy fares and Italo’s Low Cost and Economy fares are the ones that generate the “from €14.90”: they sell out first. A Base or Flex ticket bought on the day usually costs two to four times as much.

Tickets, changes and refunds

The mechanism is the same on both carriers: the lower the fare, the less you can change it. Cheap fares generally allow only a paid change within tight limits, while Base fares stay the most flexible, and that flexibility is what you are paying for.

On Trenitalia, in concrete terms: Base can be changed an unlimited number of times before departure and once afterwards, within an hour, and is refunded before departure with a 20% deduction. Economy can be changed for date and time only, paying the difference up to the current Base price, and is not refundable. Super Economy cannot be changed or refunded: it can be bought up to midnight on the ninth day before travel at the latest. Changing the passenger’s name, by contrast, is always allowed.

On Italo: Low Cost can be changed up to 72 hours before by paying 60% of the ticket plus any difference, with no refund; Economy allows unlimited changes up to 3 minutes before with a 20% supplement and a 40% refund; Flex unlimited changes and an 80% refund; Super Flex a 90% refund.

One detail that costs dearly: with Economy and Super Economy, boarding a train other than the one you booked counts as travelling without a ticket.

Two practical points. First: buy on the carrier’s own site or app, so that you handle any change yourself rather than an intermediary. Second: if your flight time or museum slot is uncertain, the gap between Economy and Base can cost less than a paid change plus a new ticket.

Regional trains: compulsory validation and four hours of validity

This is the rule that catches out the most travellers. A paper regional ticket must be validated at the machines before boarding; from that moment the journey must be completed within 4 hours. Validation is possible up to 23:59 on the day printed on the ticket.

The Biglietto Elettronico Regionale bought in the app, by contrast, is not validated: it activates by itself at the time of the train you chose and is valid for 4 hours from departure. Trenitalia says so explicitly on its Regionale page.

Boarding without validation is expensive, and in Tuscany the amounts are written into Trenitalia’s regional tariff: the full ticket price plus a €60 penalty if you pay the conductor straight away or within fifteen days of notification, €120 from the sixteenth to the sixtieth day, €360 beyond that.

There is a way out, though, and it is the reason to move first: if you tell the conductor as soon as you board, it is not a penalty but a regularisation, and you pay the full-price ticket plus a €5 surcharge. The surcharge does not apply if the station has no ticket office, if it was closed or if the validating machines were broken. If you have made a mistake, find the conductor before the conductor finds you.

The three Florence train stations, and which one you need

Before you pay, check that your ticket says “Firenze S. M. Novella”. Campo di Marte and Rifredi often appear among the cheapest results, but the saving is eaten up by the time and cost of a second connection, above all with suitcases.

If you arrive in the morning and your room is not ready, the official left luggage office is inside the station: prices, opening hours and alternatives in the centre are in luggage storage in Florence.

From the airports: Peretola, Pisa and Bologna

Florence Peretola (FLR). The T2 “Vespucci” tramway links the Aeroporto terminus to the Unità stop, beside Santa Maria Novella, in about 20 minutes. A city ticket costs €2.00 and is valid for 90 minutes on buses and trams: it recently rose from €1.70, so ignore guides still quoting the old price. Buy it at the stop machines, with the at-bus app or by tapping contactless on the validators; by SMS it costs €2.40 and a book of ten rides €18.20.

Pisa (PSA). The automatic PisaMover shuttle runs from the terminal to Pisa Centrale in five minutes, from 6:00 to midnight, and until 1:00 from 1 June to 30 September. It costs €6.50 one way and €13.00 return: the table on the website is an image, but the same figures are written out in full in the operator’s service charter. From Pisa Centrale to Florence there is the regional train, about an hour at €9.80.

Bologna (BLQ). The Marconi Express monorail links the airport to Bologna Centrale in 7 minutes and 20 seconds: €12.80 one way and €23.30 return. Watch out for a widespread misunderstanding: the €2.30 you see quoted around is not a child fare but the price of the short hop between Bologna Centrale and the intermediate Lazzaretto stop. A single child fare does not exist: there is the Family ticket, €25.60 one way and €48.90 return for a maximum of two adults and three children aged 5 to 16. From Bologna Centrale to Florence is 37 minutes.

A private transfer makes sense in three cases: a night flight, a family with a pushchair and plenty of suitcases, accommodation far from the tramway. Otherwise the tram beats everything on cost and predictability.

Luggage on board

The limits Trenitalia announced on the Frecce — two pieces with combined dimensions within 161 centimetres in Standard — were suspended after protests and are not in force. The old practical rule applies today: hand luggage free, with no formal numerical limit, as long as it goes in the overhead racks, the gaps between seats or the racks at the end of the carriage, under the traveller’s responsibility. The General Conditions of Carriage in force contain no limit on the number or size of hand luggage: they say that easily portable bags and items are carried free “provided they are placed in the dedicated spaces”, and tolerate excess as long as it does not obstruct other passengers or staff. Two real limits do exist, but they concern something else: a bicycle, dismantled or folded within 80×110×45 cm, one per passenger, and a pet carrier within 70×30×50 cm.

On Italo luggage is included with no supplement and no limit on pieces; the only dimensional guidance is for Smart class, up to 75×53×30 cm. In both cases the big racks are at the ends of the carriage and fill up in the first three minutes: if you are travelling with a large case, board early.

If you arrive by car: the ZTL and park and ride

The centre is a Limited Traffic Zone. Sectors A, B and O are active all year Monday to Friday 7:30–20:00 and Saturday 7:30–16:00; on Sundays and public holidays they are not. From April to October the summer night ZTL is added, across all sectors, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights from 23:00 to 3:00. Some gates are off limits 24 hours a day.

The cameras do not forgive and the fine arrives at your home address. If you are sleeping inside the ZTL, have the hotel or host register your number plate: it is the only way to enter legally.

The sensible solution is to leave the car in a park and ride outside the ZTL and finish the journey by tram. The two that matter are not run by Firenze Parcheggi, which handles the garages in the centre, but by different operators.

Villa Costanza, at the T1 terminus with a direct exit from the A1, is open 24 hours a day: first fifteen minutes free, €0.50 up to an hour, €2 from one to four hours, €5 from four to ten, €7 from ten to twenty-four; season tickets from €20 for seven days. From there it is 22 minutes by tram to Santa Maria Novella, with departures every 6–8 minutes.

Guidoni, on the T2 towards the airport, is also open 24 hours: €1.50 up to five hours, €2.50 from the fifth to the twelfth — which together make €4 for half a day — and then €4 an hour, charged in half-hour units. It is that third band that makes Guidoni a terrible idea for a long stay: two days runs into four figures. To get around the city, in any case, the tourist bus is of little use: the reasons are set out in hop-on hop-off in Florence, while the best way up to the viewpoint is in Piazzale Michelangelo.

Tourist tax

It is paid at the property, per person per night, for a maximum of 7 consecutive nights.

Exempt are children until their twelfth birthday, students of the University of Florence, patients and their companions, and people with serious disabilities with a companion; school groups and under-16 athletes pay half. Budget for it: two people in a three-star for four nights is €48 that no booking site shows you at the time of reservation.

Before you travel, book the museums

You will almost always find a train to Florence. A slot for Brunelleschi’s Dome or the Uffizi on the right day, no: from April to October the best time slots sell out weeks ahead. Buy the museum tickets first and fit the train around them, not the other way round: the full picture of official and online prices is in Florence tickets, the day-by-day itinerary in things to do in Florence and the calendar of closures and events in when to visit.