You do NOT need ANY sort of rail pass if this is the ONLY rail trip you are planning to take; a pass will not save you any money in the long run.

How far in advance from your departure from Paris to Florence are you going to be IN Paris? If you are there far enough ahead you could probably buy the tickets when you first GET to Paris.

Someone here will give you the link to the website you can use to book tickets over the internet.

Again, you do NOT need a pass and do not buy your ticket through Rail Europe which is the North American marketing arm of the French National/Swiss Federal Railways; they almost inevitable mark up prices over what you would otherwise pay.

No for just two train trips the France-Italy Eurailpass will be way overkill - rather go to www.voyages-sncf.com for French discount tickets and www.trenitalia.com for Italian discount tickets. These tickets are sold in limited numbers so must be booked really early - like as soon as they come on the system sometimes months in advance and are either impossible to change or refund or difficult to do so so have your train times locked in stone.

If you just want to show up and buy tickets you should always be able to do that - especially Firence to Rome as there are zillion of daily trains - thru train from Paris to Milan are much fewer - you will have to change on day trains in either Turin or Milan - only the direct Thello overnight train goes direct (www.thello.com for others but you say day only, which is a long long day of several hours and with scenery that is largely ho-hum escept for bits of France around Burgundy and when the train goes thru some low Alps around Modane.

For lots of great stuff on Italian and French trains I always spotlight these IMO fine sources - www.seat61.com - great info on using www.trenitalia.com (which does flummox many novice users as proven by innumerable 'frustrated wityh trenitalia.com posts here); and www.ricksteves.com and www.budgeteuropetravel.com.

According to the detailed timetables on the German Rail site (bahn.de), your fastest route (9hr21min) is Paris-Milano Porta Garibaldi-Firenze.

If you're willing to ride an hour longer, the site gives two routes that go through Switzerland: Paris-Zuerich-Milano Centrale-Firenze and Paris-Basel-Milano Centrale-Firenze. Click on "Show intermediate stops" for each route and you'll see how they differ. The first stays well east of Bern and the second goes through Bern.

Book either Paris-Zuerich or Paris-Basel on tgv-europe.com. Book either Zuerich-Milano or Basel-Milano on sbb.ch. Book Milano-Firenze on trenitalia.com.

You can get good discounts on Paris to Milan from www.voyages-sncf.com and then from Milan to Florence on www.trenitalia.com - leave a lot of transfer time in Milan for trains to be late and to navigate this humongous chaotic station - the route via Switzerland I believe has less discount possibilities in Switzerland itself - that route may cost a lot lot more and also involves three train segments rather than two.

But Switzerland is gorgeous - why not break your trip say in the Interlaken area for a day or two - it may be the highlight of your whole trip, if time allows.

"We would like to travel during the day and have the most direct and scenic route."

You simply cannot mean something so patently absurd.

It's an absolute law of life that the fast route is NEVER the most scenic. This law applies to all forms of human endeavour, and it beggars belief the poster has learned to type without discovering it.

The quickest route is Paris-Turin-Florence, which is now 8 hrs 20. Turin's main station is relatively small, compared to Milan or Basle, so the connection is likely to be easier.

By high speed train, the journey through most of France is visually ho-hum, the journey through Italy is mostly a display of the country's inept and corrupt mismanagement of the lanscape landscape along the Milan-Naples railway corridor, and there's disappointingly little of the Alps on display (much of it, whether changing in Milan or Turin, totally obscured by the tunnel you're in on the direct route from France into Italy)

The good stuff is along the old, slower, routes via Domodossola or Basle, which both meander through Switzerland, and involve a much lower tunnel: mountain view ratio. To see these, there's a really strong case for making it a two day journey.

Life is about choices. You can have the fast route or the scenic route. You can't have both at the same time.

Agree with FlannerUK. The "quickest" way won't have any charm or stunning scenery or have the romantic charm of taking the older trains through the slower routes. (Which is what I think when "taking the train" over the alps.) I have done this route, from Paris to Milan (by way of interlaken, bern, spiez, through domodossola, and it's a LOOOONG train but stunning beauty through the alps and the charm of travelling in the older trains. Scenic but slow. We stopped overnight in Interlaken, but had we not I believe it would have been close to 8-10 hours of travel (just to milan.) It's another 2 hours (after a transfer) to Florence.

I think it's hard to make a recommendation to you because it's not clear what you're trying to get from that route. Are you just trying to get from A to B? (If so, then why not just fly?)

If you're trying to experience the train route and see some of the countryside, you might want to look at the rail routes (google France or Italy rail map) to see where along that route you might be able to stop and spend a night or two.

Good luck.

The good stuff is along the old, slower, routes via Domodossola or Basle, which both meander through Switzerland, and involve a much lower tunnel: mountain view ratio>

could have been true a few years ago but now the main route from Basel to Domodossola goes thru the new and very long Lotschberg Tunnel so the previous awesome views of the Alps on the older Lotschberg Tunnel route - a portion much less in tunnel and providing fantastic views is now a side rail line that would take much longer - the new tunnel route lets you see very little of the high Alps.

Yes if going via Switzerland then a stopover is required or you will be wasting your time IMO for what little glimpse of the Swiss Alps you now get.

The poster -- who writes in fine English -- didn't say anything absurd at all. FlannerUK is probably Fodor's most disgusting poster. He works at it!

"I want the best and cheapest meal" does not mean one wants the best meal and one wants the cheapest meal. It means that one wants the best meal available at the cheapest price.

"I want the most off-the-beaten track route and interesting historical monuments" does not mean one wants the most uncrowded places and the most number of interesting historical monuments. It means that one wants to an off the beaten track route with the maximum of historical monuments with the givens.

" We would like to travel during the day and have the most direct and scenic route" means just what it says it means: If one route is not scenic at all, they don't want it -- unless the scenic route is 4 days long.

What an infant FlannerUK is.

By the way, I've never taken the route through Torino but others who have has described it as scenic.

Man in Seat 61 has pictures.

By the way burnstock,

You really don't need to put up with this abuse if you ask your questions on Frommer's message board, where you will get more accurate information about train and other travel logistics from younger people who just aren't interested in insulting you or chiming in to offer you an opinion about a train ride they never took based on agreeing with somebody's else's froth-at-the-mouth political ideology.

FlannerUK answers every post his sees about Italy with an anti-left rant, and others apparently think it's awesome. Your trip, but I'd be looking for some serious info.

I meant to include the link to the pictures of the Paris-Torino route from the Man in Seat 61

http://www.seat61.com/Paris-to-Milan-by-TGV-train.htm#.URAwTu0qNok


and while I'm at it, a direct link to where you can get civil answers to perfectly intelligent questions, without a laughable lecture on government morality from the UK:

http://www.frommers.com/community/forum.cfm/europe/general-multi-country

By the way, I've never taken the route through Torino but others who have has described it as scenic.>

Yeh anytime a train slices thru the Alps it has to be called scenic - folks that pan this route probably are coming from the fact that this gap the train goes thru is one of the lower parts of the French-Italian Alps - that is why the train takes that route - you do not see awesome snow-capped peaks but a nice mountainous area - yes it is scenic but not dramatically so - not like going thru Switzerland!

Thank you to those that are helpful while being polite and to those who aren't...you're not with the effort.

Life is about choices. You can have the fast route or the scenic route. You can't have both at the same time.>

Rubbish - I can think of many mainline rail routes in Europe that are both the fastest route and the most scenic. Drivel, complete drivel from someone who obviously has not been on trains or driven around Europe very much.