Completely new to Public Transport

If you book well in advance (up to 90 days allowed) at www.bahn.de, you can get Europa-Spezial Schweiz fares for Muenchen-Zuerich as low as €39. The standard 2nd class fare is €64. These tickets are for a specific departure date and time and are non-exchangeable and non-refundable.

For Zuerich-Venezia Santa Lucia I suggest that you book the direct Zuerich-Bologna Centrale night train well in advance on the Swiss Rail site. When you arrive in Bologna, buy your tickets for Bologna-Venezia Santa Lucia.

If you buy your Venezia-Roma tickets a day or two in advance, you may be able to get Amica fares (20% discount). If any of the allotted number of seats are still available, you can get Amica fares up to midnight of the day before departure.

There is a direct Roma-Muechen CNL night train. If you book well in advance at www.bahn.de, you can get discount fares. If you want to travel all day, you could buy Roma-Bologna tickets in Roma and book Bologna-Muechen tickets well in advance at www.bahn.de to get Europa-Spezial Italien fares as low as €53 (the standard 2nd class fare for Bologna-Muenchen is €97.90).

Kelsey, it's unfortunate you couldn't have arranged open-jaw tickets for the small group that will be heading to Venice and Rome. An outbound flight from Rome would have been much easier than returning to Munich. The fact that you only have 4-5 days for this part of the trip makes it especially challenging.

The only way I can see for this to work would be to drop Venice and focus on Rome. Take a budget flight from Zurich to Rome (try Air Berlin as they have flights to Rome/FCO from Zurich). Your cost for the flights will depend on what day you're travelling. Note the usual restrictions with these carriers - restrictive baggage limits and tickets that are usually non-refundable and non-changeable.

On the return trip, use a budget flight from Rome to Munich (again, Air Berlin. The cost of the flights will add somewhat to your travel budget, and of course there may be a concern in getting seats for all of your group.

Another option would be to drop Rome and focus on Venice. Travel by train from Zurich to Venice is about 7 hours, minimum one change, reservations compulsory. The trip from Venice to Munich is also about 7 hours, again minimum one change and reservations compulsory. Even travel by train between Zurich-Venice-Munich is going to use pretty much two days of the 4-5 days you have for that part of the trip.

Hope this helps? Good luck!

Munich has excellent public transportation (S-Bahn, U-Bahn, streetcars, and buses). They should go almost anywhere you want to go. With a Partner Tageskarte (day ticket), up to five people have unlimited use of the means of transport within Munich for an entire day. A Partner Tageskarte for the Innenraum (inner zone) , which includes almost everything you might want to see, except Dachau, is €9. So, 5 Tageskarten, for €45 total, €2,15 per person, would cover your entire group. If you wanted to go to Dachau, a Munich XXL Partner Tageskarte is €11,80 (€59 for five, €2,81 per person).

See www.mvv-muenchen.de/en.

You may not even need to use public transportation within Munich, depending on where you stay and what you want to see. Most of the sites of interest to tourists lie within or just adjacent to the relatively compact city center. Of course, you stated that you will visit several businesses, so this may take you all over the city. I refer you to Lee's post on the public transport options.

Another option you could look into would be bicycle rental. Munich is one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in Europe. This may or may not be feasible depending on the locations of the businesses you had in mind.

For twenty-one people you might want to consider getting a tour bus with a driver. I have no idea what the cost would be for it, but at least it would help to coordinate a group of that size.

I thought of mentioning a bus, but for only €45-€59 for a day, I doubt that you could get a bus and driver.

If the group wants to go to Füssen (Neuschwanstein), that is outside of the Munich metro (MVV) district. However, the Bayern-Ticket is essentially like a Partner Tageskarte (up to five people, all day after 9 AM workdays, unlimited rides on regional trains for €28 (€6,67 pP).

The Bayern-Ticket has to be signed by one person, who will always be with the group, so you would have to set up groups of 4 or 5. I don't think the MVV Partner Tageskarte has to be signed, so I suspect that the group leader could just carry the five TK, as long as the group stayed together. You should ask about that at an MVV ticket counter.

Will you be going to Italy from Munich or Zurich? Will you start in Venice and end in Rome?

To expand Lee's remarks about the MVV: the penny-pinching variant for 21 people for one day would be four Partner-Tageskarte (4x€9) and one Single-Tageskarte (1x€5) for a total of €41 or €1.96/person/day.

The downside would be that the group could only split (e.g. in the evening) into four five person groups and a singleton. Lee's method (or buying 21 Single-Tageskarte; 21x€5) would be more flexible.

Both tickets (Partner-Tageskarte and Single-Tageskarte) have also three day variants (€21 and €12.30). So for three days: 5x€21 = €105 = €1.67/person/day or 4x€21+€12.30 = €96.30 = €1.53/person/day...

We begin our trip in Munich, plan to take a train to Zurich. (Which is another issue I'm not certain about) Then from Zurich, I'll head to Venice and then Rome. We will have to return to Munich to depart for the US.

If you're totally new to public transportation, may I suggest a weekend trip up here to Chicago? (I don't know how extensive Indianapolis's transit system is.) Spend a day learning how to read a subway map, how to connect from one line to another, how to recognize when your stop is coming up so you're standing by the door, ready to exit the car. None of it is complicated, but if you're not used to it, it could be rather daunting to figure all of this out AND shepherd a group of 20 other people around.

You might check with the Munich transportation to see if they offer a group ticket. I would imagine that they would, as most German cities do. It is usually for groups of 20 or more and needs to be ordered ahead of time. I would check on their website.

Jo, I looked for that on the Munich metro (MVV) website, www.mvv-muenchen.de, but couldn't find anything except Partner Tageskarten. Heck, for five people in the inner zone for €9,00, €1,80 per person for an entire day, slightly more if your group is not divisible by 5, you couldn't do much better.

Yep, I couldn't find anything either.