Help! My family of 5 wants to get from Munich to Rome in April although we are NOT sure of our exact date of travel...we only know the week we want to go (reason for this is hard to explain). I know the rail passes are expensive but it does offer the flexibility we need. We'd like to do the overnite train...but do you think it'll be booked up in April with only a day's advance reservation? Any other secrets for a cheaper trip? i.e. busses?
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19268 posts
I just checked on the German Rail website for tomorrow's night train from Munich to Rome, and there were no cabins available and only seats for 3 people. I would expect the situation to be tighter for April. About 10 years ago, a woman wrote to the website because she had tried to book that train a month in advance and they were completely sold out.
On the other hand, they are still accepting bookings and reservations online for the Munich to Bologna EC (leaves Munich at 9:38, arrives Bologna at 14:51).
There are 5 ECs per day that go from Munich to at least Verona. You'd have to take Italian trains from there to Rome, but I'm sure the Reisezentrum in the Munich Hbf can find seats on at least one of those trains and connections from there a few days in advance.
A ticket on the daytime EC would be about 470€ for five people. (OTOH, if you could book 3 months in advance, there are tickets to Bologna for 39€/person). Rail passes are for multiple days. If you have a lot more train travel in Italy, a rail pass might save you overall, but if your travel is just from Munich to Rome, no rail pass would be cost effective.
Eurolines does run buses from Munich to Rome, but at 87€/adult you're not going to save a huge amount of money. They only have 1 or 2 buses per week. I would think that the chance of two relatively small buses per week selling out as opposed to 5 trains per day would be pretty high.
Posted by
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
425 posts
You could drive it. It's only about 10 hours. Rental cars are usually available at a moments notice. I picked one up in Munich and drove to Siena with a two night stop in Venice in 2011. Mine where shorter periods, but I have driven 11-12 hour drives in the US. It can be done.