Travel Tips: What's the best way to travel between cities in Italy?

FAMILY OF FOUR INCLUDING 80-YEAR-OLD GRANDMOTHER ARE FOLLOWING MY SON'S MUSIC TOUR THROUGH ROME, FLORENCE, VENICE, BLED AND VIENNA. ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR GETTING BETWEEN CITIES? L. LEE, KINGSGROVE

Rome, Florence and Venice are no problem, and train is the obvious and only practical choice. However Bled is another matter, very tough to get to from Venice unless you're driving. According to Rome2rio (rome2rio.com/) a bus will take over seven hours. Flying is impractical, there are no airports close to Bled. The drive is less than three hours but the prices I'm getting for a Venice-Vienna hire are over $300 a day for the smallest vehicle.
Another option would be to take the train from Venice to Klagenfurt in southern Austria, which takes about 3½ hours, pick up a hire car there, make the one-hour drive to Bled and return the vehicle in Vienna.

However none of these options are ideal, and probably not something you'd want to inflict on an 80-year-old. It's understandable that you want to take in each of your son's performances but for the sake of all concerned you might have to give Bled a miss.
Venice to Vienna will take about 8½ hours by train and it's a really lovely journey. You could also fly in just over one hour although the price of the cheapest air ticket is about $150 more than a discount train ticket.

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