Travel by train from London to Venice

Hi,

Yes, the traveling days in Europe in the '70s, those were the days, weren't they? I've done part of you trip, ie not all the way to Venice. You can indeed go from London to Venice by train. It depends what you are willing to cope with or not, sacrifice, tolerate, etc. and if you decide to break up the route. If no break, the way I would suggest is EuroStar London to Paris Nord by the late afternoon. Dinner at Nord or one of the restaurants across from the station. Then walk over to Gare de l'Est to take the Paris Est to Munich Hbf CNL night train. You arrive a bit after 0700 Then you take the Munich-Venice EC train.

I would suggest breaking the route up by staying a night in Paris or Munich, Munich being more convenient of the two. Now, if it's matter of comfort over time, you can do this entire route by day, avoiding any night trains. it just takes longer. I prefer using one night train option, no problem with that. It's a matter of preference and weighing the different variables...price, comfort, flexibility, time, etc.

Hello Traveler,
As I am sure you have guessed this will be a very long haul. Your fastest/cheapest option would be to take a flight down to Venice from London. However, if you must do this by day train, here is how it could be done with out being a terrible 20ish hour experience. First take the Eurostar down to Paris the day or night before your long day of train travel. You will want to give yourself time to get picnic style food/snacks before you get on your train so keep that errand in mind. To figure out what trains you will need to advance book I recommend using Deutsch Bahn (we provide links from the Travel Tips tab). You will see in your searches that you will likely be routed through Switzerland to get to Venice depending on the time/route you choose. There will be anywhere from 1-3 train changes if you do not take the night train. Keep in mind that every train change means disembarking with luggage, finding your platform and boarding your next train. Most of these trains will be high speed and in the case of Switzerland will likely be going through a lot of tunnels; this may effect how much scenery you actually see, fyi. This will be a very long day and in my opinion more work than sleeping on a night train (which I have used many times and liked). I hope this helps! Bonne Chance / Buona Fortuna!

Well, it can be done in 15 hours, but you will need to be on the 5:40 am Eurostar (check in at least 30 minutes before departure). You'll arrive Paris Nord at 9:17 and have 1 hour and 20 minutes to get to Gare de Lyon on the RER D. The train connection itself is only a matter of minutes, but getting off the Eurostar, getting your bearings, finding the RER platforms underground, buying tickets, waiting for the train is liable to eat up 30 to 40 minutes. At Gare de Lyon, you'll take the 10:41 TGV to Turin. You'll get to Turin at 4:18 pm and have 1 hour to change to a Freccia train to Venice at 5:19, arriving at 9:40 pm, exactly 15 hours after leaving London. One long day.

Take the Eurostar to Paris...spend a few days in Paris...fly from Paris to Venice. OR take the 3 hour TGV ride (to see the scenery :)) from Paris to Aix en Provence, shuttle bus to Marseille and then fly to Venice. Here is info about flights from Marseille to Venice. Just a couple of suggestions so that you aren't spending seemingly endless hours on trains.

I'll be doing this route again in a few months and it works for me.

Taking the 2nd or third Eurostar from London (check in a minimum of 30 minutes before travel mandatory, 45 to 60 is safer) to Paris Gare du Nord, in the about an hour between trains in Paris walk the short distance to Gare de l'Est - down the stairs if no luggage, around the front if you have luggage.

3 hours to Strasbourg and connect to the old TER train to Basel.

Have a lovely night in the fabulous and often missed by Americans city of Basel.

Up the next morning for the scenic ride (4 hours) across and through the mountains (via Zurich) or under many of the mountains (via Bern) to Milan.

Change in Milan to the fast train to Venezia Santa Lucia.

Hey Presto.

Or you could fly and be there in 2 hours.

Me? I usually take the train but that's me. And no night trains....

We did this trip last summer. Eurostar to Paris, 7 nights there, then the bullet train Paris to Lausanne, in Switzerland 10 days (rented a car), then Lausanne to Venice. On return we undertook the night train Venice to Paris and never again. Horrible. But rest of trains were fine. We used RailEurope for all trains and everything worked out great. Their small service charge was worth it. You don't have to book all these trains by yourself when RailEurope can do it for you and you can print all the tickets from home. So easy. We did remark the next time we'd just fly however.

Patricia,

"We would like to see the scenery on the way to Venice"

If you decide to take night trains, you won't be seeing much scenery and it may be a long travel ordeal that you regret. Also, as Sara mentioned, you need to choose night trains carefully, as some have multiple changes in the wee hours of the morning. If you choose the wrong trains, you probably won't get much sleep and will arrive in Venice an exhausted wreck!

My suggestion - it would be a more efficient use of your valuable holiday time (and probably cheaper) to take a budget flight from London to Venice. For example, EasyJet offers two flights a day from Gatwick (and a few from Luton) to Venice (flight time 3H:05M, current prices as low as £39.99 PP in July, but be sure to book EARLY to get the best price).

Use the time that would have been spent on the rail journey for sightseeing around Venice prior to your cruise - there's LOTS to see! In addition to the usual Venice sights, there's also the very scenic Murano or Burano, or you could take a day trip to Padova or other places in the Veneto).

Hi,
Both the day and night routes Munich-Venice have a direct connection. The day route on the EC gets you in Venice at ca 6 pm. The CNL night train also direct , no need to transfer at all.

Thank you all for the useful information. We have decided that flying to Venice will make the best sense for us based on what we have learned. We will wait for the next trip to Europe to spend time seeing the countryside.