Check the website:

www.trenitalia.com

which has an English-languge version you can access with a button in the upper right hand corner on the home page.

The last time I checked, the only direct train - where you don't have to change is the Palatino night train which leaves Florence's Campo di Marte station at about 20:45 and gets to Paris Berci at about 9:30.

You might find that the cheapest way to do it is by Easyjet from Pisa to Paris. The Pisa airport is just over 1 hour from the main Florence railroad station by direct train, and the airfare can be amazingly low.

The least expensive for the night train mentioned above is the Smart Price for 55Euro, 2nd cl, 4 berth couchette. If you are alone, I prefer the bottom bunk. Booking tickets in advance for a night train through trenitalia.com might be more difficult than the trip itself.

You can't get the Smart Price unless you buy well in advance (I think maybe a month in advance), and it's almost impossible to do that from outside Italy. The regular Flexi2 price is 105 euros per person (in a C4 4-person couchette). You can get flights cheaper than that.

Here is a good web site for finding cheap airfare in Europe:

http://www.skyscanner.net

For the best bargains, indicate that you want to see prices for the entire month. Sometimes you can save lots of money by moving your dates just a little. Your best starting point would be Pisa, if you're leaving from Florence.

One advantage of the train is that you can take as much luggage on board as you can carry, while cheap airlines are beginning to be very tight with baggage limits. You sometimes end up paying more for your baggage than the ticket price.

Thanks for the advice. We are travelling as a group of three. If booking a ticket is difficult outside of Italy...a better question is then, can you book only a week before and be guaranteed seats? Perhaps we can book when we first arrive in Italy 2 weeks before we get to Florence? Are they heavily booked and crowded? We like the sound of train travel through that region.

I booked our Eurostar tickets from Milan to Florence through Trenitalia's website back in '06 before we left the States. We were on a night train from Germany and only had 10mins to board the connecting train at Milan.

My first Visa credit card was denied - more like it was not accepted. Then I used my Visa bank card (linked to our checking account) and my purchase went through. Received my electronic PNR number in my email.

There are many posts about Trenitalia not accepting overseas credit cards. I'm not sure how things have changed in 2 years. All I can say is to try first. If you wait until you arrive in Italy to buy those train tickets, I would guess you would be paying the standard fare even if you purchase them the day you arrive into the country.

Suburbanite: I had no problem using my US credit card on the trenitalia site until about a year ago. Since then, I've never been able to use it.

Wooly, the train George suggested is an overnight train. The seats fold down to become bunk beds. If you want to see scenery, especially passing through the Alps, you would want to travel in the daylight hours, and I would suggest leaving early in the day. On the trenitalia site, they will ask you which station in Paris you want to arrive at. The overnight trains only go to Bercy, while the day trains go to Gare de Lyon. As George said, you would have to change trains somewhere if you take the day train.

You can buy your tickets on arrival in Italy, and in fact the sooner the better.

bvlenci,

That's really disappointing to hear. It kind of makes me want to try myself.

woolly46,

There are also the 3rd party booking sites like www.italiarail.com but you will be paying a premium. Travelling 11-12 hrs during the day is a long day. If you can, I would go first class. The little extra room makes a difference. Though, there is nothing wrong with 2nd class should that be your only option.

Thanks everyone...will research a few of the suggested options.

There is also a bus that runs from Florence to Paris (overnight). In 2004, our intent was to take the train but there was a rail strike in France, so the bus was our only low cost option. This would not be a primary choice, but think of it as a backup plan.

Suburbanite: I think it has something to do with Verified by Visa. My card got the Verified by Visa treatment about the same time it stopped working on Trenitalia. I went to some trouble to track down why the transactions were blocked, and learned that Verified by Visa approved all of the transactions, but that they never got passed through to my bank. I called Verified by Visa and they say that the transactions should have gone through, as they had passed them on. For some reason, they appear to trenitalia as rejected. My bank checked for me, and they say the transactions were not rejected; they simply never arrived. I don't know what path they take after Verified by Visa, but somewhere along the line they disappear into the ether.

I also called trenitalia, but they don't seem to consider it a problem. They told me to use raileurope instead; when I told them I couldn't, because I live in Italy, they told me to buy the tickets some other way, then. In fact, there are other ways to buy tickets in Italy, such as Postoclick, where you reserve the ticket online and then pay for it within 24 hours, at a post office, a lottery ticket vendor, or at an ATM. The 24-hour limit makes this impractical for people outside of Italy, though. I think trenitalia prefers people to use the foreign ticket agents if they're not in Italy, because they probably make more money off them. So I don't think they're in any hurry to fix the problem.