“Can you let us know where there is a travel agency open?” she asked our Italian friends.
“Why?” they replied.
“I need a train ticket,” we said.
“But everyone uses the Internet. You don’t get train tickets at a travel agent any more…”
They were right. Travel agents don’t sell train tickets any more, even those tricky ones from one country to another. For most tickets, it’s easy to get them online. Otherwise, you will need to get them at the train station.
The website for locating Italian rail schedules and (in many cases) buying tickets online is www.trenitalia.com. Nowadays it opens up the web site for the holding company Ferrovia dello Stato (www.ferroviedellostato.it) but it works the same way.
Click on the ‘english’ link if you don’t want to see the Italian version, and from there it’s quite simple. Enter the cities of departure and arrival and the day and time of your trip and click ‘Send’. You can then see all of the train schedules in the time range you have asked for.
Look in the “Buy” column to see if you can purchase tickets online. If it is too close to the time, you won’t see the shopping cart icon and you can’t get them online. It is possible on this site to pay by credit card. Instead of printing a ticket online, you may go to one of many ‘self service ticket distributors’ and get your ticket by entering your first and last name. These are not offered at every station, so be sure to check to list of stations that offer this.
Look in the “Buy” column to see if you can purchase tickets online. If it is too close to the time, you won’t see the shopping cart icon and you can’t get them online. It is possible on this site to pay by credit card. Instead of printing a ticket online, you may go to one of many ‘self service ticket distributors’ and get your ticket by entering your first and last name. These are not offered at every station, so be sure to check to list of stations that offer this.
G
ood luck and happy train traveling!
Find Yourself in Italy 
I find that a travel agent is the easiest way to buy train tickets if you are traveling within Italy. They can sell regional tickets and Eurostar tickets. It is much better than waiting in the lines at the train station. I did run into a problem at a travel agency in October when I wanted to buy a ticket from Milan to Cannes, France. The agent was not able to sell me a ticket for a destination in France. This is hard to believe but I was told that the point of sale systems for each country are incompatible. Travel agencies that are authorized to sell train tickets have a sign indicating “FS Ferrovia Train tickets sold here.”