Furst, thanks in advance for any help!!!
I will be traveling with my family 2 adults/2 teenagers from Rome to Innsbruck in early/mid- July, 2017. Does anyone have general advise about what trains to take, etc. Here's more specific questions:
There is pretty much only one practical route. Rome to Florence to Bologna to Verona to Innsbruck. Rome to Florence is nice, Florence to Bologna is effectively one long tunnel, Bologna to Verona is the "flat as Iowa" Po Valley. Verona to Innsbruck is the deep Adige Valley, then over the alpine Brenner Pass and down into the Inn Valley.
Look at http://www.trenitalia.com/tcom-en for the schedule. You must use the Italian name "Roma" as the starting point. There are a couple of trains with only one connection in Bologna.
My grandson and I recently went from Rome to Munich. We took Italo (which I generally prefer over Trenitalia) from Roma Tiburtina (which I much prefer over Termini), leaving 08:55 and arriving at Bologna Centrale at 11:00. We connected to the EC84, operated by the Austrian OEBB company, leaving Bologna at 11:52. It stopped at Innsbruck Hbf at 16:36.
As mentioned above, the scenery is pleasant between Rome and Florence (what you can see of it at 250 km/hr), but from Florence to Bologna is mostly in tunnel. Soon after leaving Verona you enter the Adige Valley, with interesting views of sheer granite cliffs, endless vineyards and the occasional medieval castle. My preference is the left side of the train for the northbound trip. Look for a spectacular view of the Europa Bridge and the Sill River valley a few miles before arriving in Innsbruck.
Thanks and I look forward to additional replies. I duplicated this one by mistake though have more specific questions in the later one.
The international section of the trip are Austrian/German trains running over Italian rails; if you buy the ticket from Oebb (Austrian railways) at oebb.at it could be cheaper than buying it from Trenitalia. Most of these services are Verona PN-Innsbruck, a few Bologna-Innsbruck so you have to reserve two different tickets, one from Roma to the connecting station, one from there to Innsbruck.
I would avoid the slower trains connecting at Brennero as the trip is long enough on fast trains.
