We are going to be in Europe for 3 weeks in July with our two kids ages 6 and 8. We have plane tickets into London and out of Paris. We will be in London for 4-5 days and Paris for 3-4 days. Between we want to stay in Switzerland (either Bern or Lucerne) about 4 days, Venice for 2-3 days and try a farm stay in N Italy (maybe near Verona?) for 4-5 days. I'm having trouble figuring out the best route to take. We would much prefer trains over flying and would really like to take a night train for one of the longer journeys. Any advice on the best way to go?
Posted by
Minneapolis
1260 posts
Hi Shannon. Might fly from London to Venice, then work your way back via train to N Italy, then Switz, then Paris; those are nice train trips. (As far as night trains, search on this site for previous posts; some people like them, but many also say 'never again'.) Sounds like a great trip - enjoy!
Posted by
Green Bay
21108 posts
The City Night Line 2013 brochure is showing an Innsbruck-Paris train. CNL is operated by DeutscheBahn and is pretty good and they have family compartments available. I think it is worth it to do it once for the experience. In the end, you're paying for a fairly expensive hotel room for the night and middling train fare (with no connections to worry about.) It looks like they are having difficulties negotiating track rights in Italy right now. So if your air itinerary is set, you could work your to Venice via Lucerne, and back track to Verona for an agriturismo stay then north to Innsbruck. There are lots of fast trains running between Verona and Innsbruck. Or you could do the same journey in the other direction.