best & most economical mode of transportation for family

Cindy, it looks like you are looking at RailEurope for your fare costs. It does not cost $400 for four to travel by train from Venice to Rome. Different classes of trains have different prices. The fastest and most expensive ride is the Eurostar. For four adults (you didn't say the ages of the children), the fare is 247.20Euro ($346). That's close to $400. However, if you ride the ICPlus train that takes an additional hour of travel time, the fare for four adults is 162Euro ($226.80). You can ride the Regionale (R) trains for about $180 for four but this will take even longer and you will have more train changes.

For the rental car from Venice to Rome, you can expect about 120Euro in tolls and fuel in additional to your rental and drop-off costs according to viamichelin's website.

We travel as a family of jour and usually rent a car. And most of the time it is more economical even after factoring in gas (get a diesel!) and parking. Not IN a place like Rome or Venice but especially if you're exploring the country.

In addition to saving on the cost of transportation a rental car also allows you to book your accommodation outside more touristy and often more expensive centres. We would have not been able to find accommodation in Siena or Florence at 80 Euro/night total for 4 - including a pool! But a rural agriturismo accessible only by car easily delivers. And parking is free there.

However, if you plan to mostly travel in large centres like Rome, Florence or Venice your car may end up costing you more because you pay a fortune in parking every single day.

We planned our Italy trip with an itinerary that started out in Rome with no car for the first 4 days. On day 5 we picked up the car and started travelling to the Amalfi coast (we stayed in Torca and not in a place like Positano that's a headache for cars), Tuscany (in an agriturismo and NOT in Florence or Siena wich we reserved for day trips) and La Spezia from where we took the boat into the CT. That way we had the car for 2 weeks and payed a total of about 30 Euro total in parking - about 2 days worth of parking fees in Calgary ...

That said, the decision about renting a car or not should not only be based on financial aspects. If you've never driven a car outside Northamerica before be prepared for quite a different traffic environment that can be very stressful for a newbie. We've driven in a number of different European countries but Italy was by far the most stressful experience. A GPS will make travelling a bit easier but it doesn't help you much with Italian drivers that have a more aggressive driving style than you're accustomed to. And it doesn't widen those incredible narrow streets either.

For a visit that long you might want to check out leasing a car, rather than renting one. We leased through Auto Europe. You have to lease for a minimum of 17 days, but the cost includes all insurance, taxes and fees. It is paid in U.S. dollars. Arrangements are made in advance and you should make your reservation at least a couple of months before you leave. When we drove to a city we would leave the car parked while there. In Amsterdam we stayed outside of the City Center at a place next to a train station. Then we just trained into town. Driving allows more flexibility and as a previous poster said, you can stay places a little further out that costs less.

We just did the night train from Venice to ROme, was very comfortable. Left at 11:30, and arrived at 7:00AM. $75 USD each for our own room - a 4-person couchette. The two bottom beds were comfortable for people of any size, and the top ones were good for most adults.

Parking at the hotel or parking garage was about 13EUR/day on the average as of last week.

If you are going to do long term car rental, check out leases. Anything over 17 days qualifies, and the rates are dramatically lower.

Leasing never even occurred to me! Are there certain companies that you would suggest?

I used Auto Europe and would certainly recommend them. I think Europcar may do leases too.

Just got back yesterday from first trip to Italy for 40th wedding anniversary. We combined train and rental car. I wouldn't accept a car in Venice, Florence, or Rome even if free. But loved the schedule flexibility and stop-whereever-looks-interesting in Tuscany. We last drove from Pompeii and returned at Ciampino airport to start our 4 days Rome visit. Rental can be cheaper for 4 if you plan your trip so the rental days are concentrated.
We didn't find driving there more difficult from driving in strange towns in the US. And I'm from China only know 5 Italian words
I wouldn't trouble too much about the exact cost comparison between driving vs train (it'll be minor, less than 1% of the trip cost). Focus on what you and your family enjoy and how to get there.

By the way, lodging and food for a family of 4 on a month long trip in Italy would be considerable. Check out the postings here for some great cost-saving advice.

For my family a leased vehicle was the best option. Since you're on the ground more than 17 days, consider it. Both Renault and Peugot have lease programs. They add pick-up/drop-off charges for outside of France but it still beat a rental. I think ours was about $1,400 for a month including the pick-up/drop-off charges and full CDW.

Even with the leased car I wanted my family to have some train experience so we took advantage of special family tickets in Germany. I'm not sure if those are available in Italy.

We picked up our car in Amsterdam and dropped it at the Rome airport after a day at Ostia Antica before our first night in Rome.

Some lessons we learned along the way:

Don't park in Venice. It's too expensive and time consuming to get in and out of. Park on the mainland and take the train in. For you, picking up a car inland may save money.

We parked in a parking garage about a mile or so outside of Florence center and walked in with our bags to avoid fines. We didn't get fined but found the lodging in downtown Florence is expensive and not that great. Next time I would stay outside the center at a place with public transport into town for the sites (Fiesole maybe?).

Cars are small. We got a seven passenger Renault Grand Scenic II. It was perfect for us (wife, myself, 16 and 12 boys plus 8 year old girl and one carry-on each). If we were bigger or had more luggage this would have been cramped.

Diesel is better than gas. It's cheaper and the mileage is great. We also chose a standard transmission. It's cheaper and IMO better for smaller cars.

Bring a GPS. We didn't because we had driven in Northern Europe with no difficulty. Roads rarely have signs and even the autostrada is more likely to list a town you never heard of than the road name at an exit. We survived but would have saved a lot of time and headaches with a GPS.

Driving in Italy is very similar to driving in a crowded beach resort, narrow roads, lots of traffic, rare parking.

For CT, we parked (free) near the navy base in La Spezia rather than near the train station. Parking near the station didn't look very safe.

We survived the trip without a scratch or dent. It was a great trip and except for losing a lot of time without a GPS, a fun trip.

When we got home we bought a TomTom 920 to save time and get where we wanted to go. It works great. I survived without it but I can thrive with it (and my wife can nap rather than navigate).

PS Our trip was four weeks but our lease was for 22 or 24 days. Picked it up after A-dam and dropped off before Rome.

Cindy, leasing a car is a wonderful idea. You can also save some big bucks, and, if you stay out of big cities, and use a GPS, manage the driving quite easily, once you figure out how to handle the Italian drivers.

One more tip. If you are going to stay in any one location for more than a few days, look at at renting an apt. We have done this all over Europe with great results, and have saved lots of money.

We just got back from Paris, and rented an apt there for 5 nights. We use VRBO.com and Homelidays.com to find our apts.

Even if you are only in a place for a couple of days, you may be able to get an apartment. We travel outside of summer to get cooler weather and less crowds. We very rarely make advance reservations but call ahead in the morning to find lodging. We were able to find apartments in some places, because they were vacant, even though we were only staying 2 or 3 nights. Usually to book ahead online they want you to commit to a longer stay.