Train - Catania to Milan - Sleeping options?

This is the only direct night train still running: https://i.postimg.cc/RFygS0vQ/Immagine-2026-01-01-223607.jpg

I would call it neither a luxury way of travelling nor a memorable experience, it's a state-subsidized train for those on a budget who can't afford to fly.

You must enter +2 passengers and then select this fare to get a private cabin: https://i.postimg.cc/44p0fzh3/Immagine-2026-01-01-224217.jpg
I picked June 12 as day of travel because the schedules after June 14 will be uploaded in the coming months.

So is it not like Amtrak where you have a small but functional cabin? Something like this:

https://www.amtrakvacations.com/sites/amtrak/files/styles/scale/public/media/images/Amtrak-Roomette-couple.png

All we really need is 3 places to sleep laying down (instead of propped up in chairs). A private bathroom would be nice but isn't a must (we're used to staying at backpackers).

Does such a thing exist, or are those rooms tiny compartments designed for 1 person at a time?

Is there a more comfortable and memorable way to get from Catania to Milan in less than a day? Flying isn't memorable, and driving in Italy isn't my idea of comfortable! :) Is the bus more comfortable than the train? I can't imagine a 15 hour bus ride being very fun. Already did that several times in the US (from coast to coast and then from SE Alaska to the interior) and I'd prefer something where I can get up and walk around! Besides, railroads often have better scenery than highways.

There are lots of videos on YouTube about this trip…I found one that’s four months old, most are about a year old, but give you the general idea.
I believe there is no food service on these sleeper trains though………could be wrong.

What makes the train memorable is that it is now the only one in Europe to travel on a train ferry (across the Strait of Messina), and that is why it is on many people's (including mine) bucket list.
It's a train I would do tomorrow if I got the chance.
This is what The Man in Seat 61 says about the train (including how to book it)- https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/trains-to-sicily.htm#Sleeper_trains

Yes there are 3 berth sleeper cabins (as well as couchettes/'bunk rooms'), bring your own food (and wine) for the evening (and/or have a snack during the ferry crossing, when you can go out on deck, as opposed to staying on the train), but there is a light breakfast included in the morning.
Unlike the Amtrak trans-continental trains the cars are single deck cars.

Yes there are through sleeper cars from Catania to Milan, as well as Catania to Rome.

So is it not like Amtrak where you have a small but functional cabin?

Sorry, I have no idea what a functional cabin is on Amtrak trains, but the cabin on Trenitalia's is well described in the 2nd screenshot I linked above. It also explains in detail what's in the included breakfast and mentions a trolley selling drinks and food.

Thanks so much for the responses. That 61 page helped me figure out how to book a sleeper.

My dad recommends breaking up the train trip into multiple segments. So instead of going directly from Catania to Milan, he says we should pick a couple places to explore briefly, like the Naples/Sorrento area, Rome, and maybe something in Tuscany (we'll be visiting Florence with my parents so there's no need for us to see it on the way up).

What are your recommendations in terms of places to stop on the way up? I'll be with my 2 teenage daughters (who are not very interested in history), will depend on public transportation (no driving in Italian cities for me!), and will just want to spend at most a night in each place, or even just part of a day (if we arrive in the morning and catch an evening train out). It would actually be nice if we could sleep on a train each night, so that we keep moving north as we sleep.

Thoughts?

I took that night train from Rome to Catania back in 2015 in a couchette berth. It was memorable alright, but in a very negative way. The carriage jerked constantly from side to side, so I was never able to fall asleep. I collapsed when I got into my Catania hotel room and was effectively jetlagged for the next two days because my sleep schedule was so messed up. I originally assumed the problem was the railbed, but I've seen one or two more-positive comments about that night train here, from people who had sleeper cabins. Perhaps the problem was lack of shock absorbers on the couchette car rather than the railbed itself.

Still, my takeaway from that 2015 experience is that if the higher power wanted us to try to sleep on a train, s/he wouldn't have invented cheap hotels and airplanes.

I've had no problem sleeping on ferries, so if I wanted to avoid flying, I'd research the ferry options. You might find something from Livorno or Genoa to Sicily. There wouldn't be a great deal of scenic variation, but you might arrive a lot more rested rather than losing the next day or two to something akin to jetlag.

I found this video extremely helpful at showing what the sleeping compartments are like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul1_uRWgylQ

Even the creator (TrainViking) says that even though one night on the train was okay, multiple nights would be tough to endure.

So I'm now thinking of doing something like this:

Catania to Naples (8 hrs) - Could be an overnight but isn't the whole point to see the ferry? So it'd probably be a day trip, meaning no sleeper. There's one which arrives in Naples at 4:16pm. We'd stay somewhere near there, with the location and duration depending on which option we take next:

OPTION 1:

Naples to Milan (5 hrs) - My parents get to Milan around 4pm, so we'd need to catch the morning fast train early enough for account for an hour or two of delays (yeah, I'm being optimistic). If we stay in Naples, then an evening and part of a morning might feel like enough... But I think we're more interested in seeing the coast, so I'm thinking heading over to somewhere like Sorrento. That adds another couple hours of transit time, so I'm thinking we'd want to spend 2 nights in the area instead of 1, so we have at least a full day to explore.

OPTION 2:

Naples to Rome (2 hr) - We could take a late morning train to Rome and still have the whole afternoon and evening there. This might make 1 night in Naples (or Sorrento) tolerable. Might. Maybe it will still feel too rushed.

Rome to Milan (3 hr) - We'd want to leave around noon, so we'd have most of the morning to see another little slice of Rome.

This idea of rushing through bucket list areas makes me cringe (since I prefer slow travel), but the goal here is to make the Catania to Milan trip memorable by letting the girls (and me) sample bits of mainland Italy on the way up.

Thoughts?

I just talked to the girls and they have no interest in Rome, Naples, or anything other than "Amalfi Coast" (and that's one of them; the other one doesn't care about any of it). So I'm thinking we'll skip Rome and just take a take a morning train from Campagna to Milan.

We could actually go from Catania to Salerno (arriving 3:36 pm) instead of Naples. Then we can pick anywhere on the Amalfi Coast to stay, probably for 2 nights. Suggestions?

There are other long distance ferries, such as Palermo to Salerno (Grimaldi Lines) or Palermo to Naples (Tirrenia, Grimaldi and Grandi Navi Veloci) or Palermo to Genoa (Grandi Navi Veloci),

or it should be possible to get a ferry from Palermo or maybe Trapani to Cagliari (Sardinia) then train across the island for a ferry from one of the north coast ports to Genoa.

There are also ferries from Palermo to Civitavecchia (north of Rome, better known as a cruise port) then the train up the coast to Milan (change at Genoa).