Trip to Europe

You could save some time and cost by flying "open jaw" into Munich and out of Venice, or vice versa. The "multi-city" option on a search engine like kayak.com, or an airline's own website, would give you choices for this. However, renting a car in one country and dropping it off in another would mean a hefty additional fee, and it looks like you've got a very good price for that car already.

I urge you to drop the car when you arrive in Venice (or don't pick it up till you leave, if you decide to reverse your route), rather than pay to have it parked for a few days. And don't stay on the mainland, stay right in Venice itself, where you can appreciate that beautiful city before and after the day-trippers arrive.

You don't want to feel rushed, but eight days including two major cities and "small towns along the way" will be a pretty fast pace, at least it would be for me. I haven't been to Munich but I'd think it would be worth at least a couple of days. I know Venice is worth at least three. Your drive time between them would be seven hours or longer, i.e. a full day, according to viamichelin.com, with no stops and no allowance for traffic. Taking two days each way under the round-trip plan leaves just a couple of days in each big city, and your first day is likely to be jetlagged.

Since you are planning to do a lot in a relatively few days, traveling by car gives you the time and route flexibility you will need. Don't for get an IDP for the drivers, they are required in both Italy and Austria. IDPs only cost a few bucks and you will probably never need to show it, but if you ever need one and don't have it things get very ugly very fast. If you can arrange pick up and drop off at the airport, it will save you the 'fun' of driving in Munich. You want a GPS that you know how to use with a European map card as well as some good paper maps. The GPS is good at showing where you on the small scale but not so much when you want to know where you are on the large scale.

I don't know how much time you will have for small towns but Castelroto Italy is not far off your route on the way to Bolzano.

Rather than day trip Venice, I would park at the Tronchetto car park and spend one or two nights in Venice. Al the other place you are going have their merits but Venice is the one and only. Also if possible rather than taking suitcases, put the absolute minimums in a day bag as dragging a suitcase around Venice is not fun. The best part about staying overnight is that once the day trippers leave, the evenings are a lot nicer. Take some time to wander around off the beaten path and see where the real folks are.

Have fun.

Thanks for the great suggestions. I'm still in the thinking out loud stage as the trip is nine months away. Your comments add some good food for thought. We have motivation to fly into and out of Munich due to wanting to use FF miles on a particular airline that flies that route non-stop from our nearby airport (7 1/2 hour flight) from East coast. I spent some time in Germany when I was in my 20s and briefly visited Munich and would like to see it again. We will definitely get International Driver's licenses through AAA. I can't drive a manual so it may just be my husband driving (I have driven on the autobahn before, but I rented an automatic which was hard to find at that time). I think we will spend the first two nights in Munich and the last night there. If we spend two nights in Venice, that will leave three nights at places in between at locations that are TBD. The distance between the two cities is about 330 miles, so we feel it shouldn't be too taxing to drive between them. I like the idea of driving a bit...our last trip we took trains and walked everywhere (and used city buses) and it got tiring :). Plus it's kind of nice to be able to store things in the car if needed. We could possibly add one more day to the itinerary.

I realize that with 5 people a car seems like a good idea. But this seems like an epic family trip that won't be cheap even with FF miles. It just seems like a waste of fun travel sights to have to hurry all the way back to Munich for a car rental return at a reasonable rate. And, The cost for the car you quote doesn't include the very high diesel prices in Europe (1.2 Euro per liter this summer). Using the bahn.com and trenitalia.it /en websites it seems that one way tickets (saver fares booked early) Munich to Bolzano ( 4 hours; 30 Euro each) , Bolzano to Verona (less than 1 hour; 10 euro each ) and Verona to Venice (80 minutes; 20 Euro each) would price 5 sets of tickets to be less than what your car will cost without fuel costs. Then open jaw tickets even with FF miles to Munich and back VCE - Usually Frankfurt - East Coast (or through MUC) would work.

Thanks for the input. It's early so we are open to other ideas. We did not buy train tickets in advance for our trip to Italy in May and ended up spending more on train tickets than we expected. We spent $80 euro a piece for train tickets from Florence back to Rome airport (in business class) as that's all that was available to make it to our flight on time. We left Florence the morning of our flight home and had to catch a 3 pm flight in Rome. We had booked accommodations in advance but didn't realize we should book train tickets in advance too. So it was a learning experience. I guess it depends if we want to book all of our trains in advance. It's possible open jaw could work, but I haven't explored that with our airline yet. We have enough miles for two economy class RT tickets and I'm seeing RT tickets at $800 for non-stop to Munich and back taking us to roughly $2400 for 5 RT tickets. My preference is non-stop because I've had flight delays cause a missed connection when I was going to Warsaw (but the airline paid for my hotel and i got to spend a nice evening in Frankfurt so it worked out).

There are some very reasonably priced hotels in Bolzano (Bozen) that makes it a good mid-way point. The town itself is pleasant, but the Otzi Museum is wonderful and the town is the jumping off place for the Dolomites. We took the bus to Compatch and then the aerial tram to Alpe di Suisi. Wow! Incredible scenery and lovely meadow trails. Bolzano is a treat food-wise...you can find both Italian and Austrian cuisine and great beer! Three days in Venice would seem like the minimum to tour the Doges Palace, the Cathedral, Murano, etc. Even though it is a small city, you can get in a lot of walking!

Thanks for the suggestions catrinatravels. I will get the kids and the hubby in on the planning too to see what they want to do. I was just trying to rough out an itinerary first. We may be able to work out staying three nights in Venice if they want to do that. My husband and daughters love to hike so I know the Dolomites will appeal to them. If we drive, he is the only one who can drive a manual transmission in the family. I regret not learning when we were first married and his car was a stick shift.

If you are going to stop in Bolzano/the Dolomites you may want to check out Gillian Price's several Walking/Trekking Guides for the Dolomites.

Will order this book. Thanks for the suggestion!

I forgot to mention that buses into the Dolomites, particularly Castelrotto and Val Gardena all leave from the Bolzano main train station.

https://www.suedtirol.info/en

https://www.transitmap.net/sudtirol/

Thanks. I've started a spreadsheet to organize all of this information. It's quite a puzzle to try to optimize everything. We all agree that we should add an extra day or two to our itinerary. I'm pleasantly surprised to find lodging rates for 5-6 people together that are reasonable (compared to the US). The US hotels have never accommodated families of more than 4 very well.

After reading the above post from doug.spindler, I advise the OP that no one can pour bird seed into your hand unless you cooperate by cupping your hand. Wave your hand at them instead.

Thanks for the heads up about the bird seed scam. We fell victim to the bracelet scam our first day in Rome...a very friendly man tied a bracelet tightly around my husband's wrist so we couldn't easily remove it to give it back once he demanded money. Once we knew what to look for we kept a watchful eye and we were able to avoid the people with bracelets and roses the rest of the trip. Would have been nice to have a head's up though. Never thought to download a map...I was considering adding a GPS to a rental since it is around 35 euro a week and I wasn't sure about cell phone reception. Will check out the Rick Steve's audio tours. We really wanted to see the Tuscan countryside on our trip (San Gimignano, Montefioralle, Greve) and the only way we were able to do it was to book a pricey wine tasting tour out of Florence. It was just us and another couple chauffeured in a minivan. I was more interested in seeing the medieval villages than the wine tasting to be honest, so I wished we had a car. Loved seeing the beautiful countryside.

I don't know my cars so I just googled that car, so bear with me... Is there room for your luggage to be hidden and seat your adult children comfortably? You want your luggage hidden in the car before you park and leave it. Even if everyone had just one international sized carryon, will they fit...hidden? Does the driver and navigator want to forgo a lot of the relaxed viewing that your travel could afford and drive instead? These are a couple of things to think about.