Hello,
I am looking to see if there is a way that we can take a train from Rome to Frankfurt by train. Our hopes are that 1) We can stop in an affordable but lovely place to stay in the alps for one or two nights 2) The train would be affordable.
I have searched but I keep finding direct routes and I am unsure on how to find cities along a train route that would take us from Rome to Frankfurt.
Has anyone done this?
Hi Rebecca. Yes, this is definitely doable. There are two routes thru the Alps - via Milan and Switzerland or via Verona / Brenner pass / Austria. Go to bahn.de and put in Rome to Frankfurt to see the choices. Once the choices appear, click on 'show details', then click again on 'show intermediate stops', and you will see all of the stops along the way. Train fare if bought well in advance likely would be 100-150 Euro depending on route and where you stop. For instance, I see Roma - Innsbruck if bought well in advance on trenitalia.com for 64 Euro; Innsbruck to Frankfurt on bahn.de for 39 Euro. As far as affordable places to stay, Switzerland will be more expensive than the route thru Austria. Enjoy your trip!
As a start, you can go to the Deutsche Bahn webpage, enter ROME as the origin and FRANKFURT(MAIN) as the destination, choose an appropriate date (at least same day of week as you intend to begin your trip, if it's too far in advance), and change the time to something like 0700 so you'll see connections starting at 7 AM.
For each time-appropriate itinerary, click on "Show Details" to see where you'll change trains and how long you'll have to complete the transfer. From the train descriptions in the right-hand margin you'll generally be able to figure which rail company (DB, SBB, TrenItalia) operates that segment. You'll need to look elsewhere to determine the fare (which you won't know until tickets for the date you want to travel actually go on sale), but this is a convenient way to figure which trains you want to take.
To go beyond information on transfer points--which you'll probably want to do, since you'd like to have a nice stopover, not just break the trip at any old place--click on "Show Intermediate Stops". Now you see a list of all the places you can reach on that itinerary without changing at some point to a regional train. You may want to do the latter, probably somewhere in Switzerland, to reach an especially nice place.
Swiss trains are expensive on a per-mile basis, so you may want to choose a stopover point that's not too far from one of the direct lines between Rome and Frankfurt.
It appears that the quickest route goes through Milan-Brig-Visp-Spiez-Thun-Bern-Basle. Thun is fairly near Lauterbrunnen, which is often recommended as a good area for seeing the Berner Oberland (though many people choose to stay at one of the nearby mountain villages like Murten or Wengen).
Another route, somewhat slower, goes through the Brenner Pass (Bologna-Verona-Bolzano-Innsbruck-Munich-Nurnberg). Since this itinerary skirts Switzerland, it may well be less expensive. You could get off the train at Bolzano and head up into the Dolomites (perhaps to Ortisei) for a couple of days.
Note: I'm assuming you are planning a summer trip. If you're traveling at another time of year, you may want a stopover that is not way up in the mountains.
I am not knowledgeable about Swiss or German railway deals; it's possible that there's some sort of deal that would help with the cost of one or both of the routings I found.
Edited to add: You can get fare information for dates in the next few months from trainline.eu. You'll see a variety of prices. I was wrong: The trip over the Brenner Pass through Austria is more expensive than the trip through Switzerland. If you set Rome as your origin and Frankfurt as your destination, you'll get prices for a single journey. I'd expect it to cost somewhat more to buy two separate tickets so you can break the journey. Once you figure out where you might like to stay, make two separate requests and add up the two fares.
For whichever itinerary you choose, unless there's some sort of deal you qualify for (let's see what the experts say) the lowest fare will come from buying non-changeable/non-refundable tickets when they initially go on sale. As your travel date approaches, the fare can go up. A lot. If you want to see that in action, compare prices for this week to those for early March.
I see prices for this week of 149-264 euros for December 7 vs. 69-129 euros for March 7.
You detour off the route to get to the Berner Oberland (Wengen, Lauterbrunnen, Muerren) or an alternative, Kandersteg in a high alpine valley by taking an alternate train on the direct route.
Day 1: Rome to Milan to Brig to Kandersteg. 80 EUR Rome to Brig plus 23 CHF Brig to Kandersteg. 6+ hours
Continuation: Kandersteg to Bern to Basel to Frankfurt. 80 EUR in 5 hour 40 minutes.
