train from Venice to Basel in early Dec

Hi Peter. This is a long but easy journey. 7 to 8 hours total. See bahn.de for schedules. Simplest would be take the 7:50 train from Venice S.L. station (no need to go to Maestre), arrives Milan 10:25. One hour to stretch your legs; then direct train leaves Milan at 11:25, arrive Basel 3:29 pm. Regular fare is 120 euro, but if willing to lock in your date / time, you can buy in advance on trenitalia.com for as low as 38 euro. Enjoy your trip!

Thanks, didn't realize that I didn't need to go over to Mestre.

The route Bob suggests is probably the simplest, with a single change at Milan, but it is much less scenic than an alternate with takes the same about of time, with one additional change. Both are 7.5 hours. The direct Milan to Basel train goes via two long tunnels, the Simplon and the Lötschberg Basistunnel, under the Alps. The alternate Gotthard route heads to Zurich, with an extra train change there. This route has tunnels, but most are short, and even the longest is short in comparison to the Milan to Brig route. You will see a lot more of the scenery if you go via Zurich on the Gotthard route.

Thank youm for that idea. travelling by train during the day and not by air is intended for the scenery and I had no clue about the tunnels

You can see the tunnels (shown as dashed lines) on this map of the Swiss rail system: http://www.swisstravelsystem.co.uk/download_sts/uebersichtskarte_en.pdf Note that the Gotthard route (look for the line from Chiasso through Bellinzona and Arth-Goldau) has some spirals. Those are used to gain elevation as the train climbs up into the Alps. These are short tunnels too, and when in them you don't realize you are doing a spiral, as the train is going pretty slow. But wiht the map you can track your progress and you'll know. You'll see the other tunnels on th emap too. The Lötschberg Basis tunnel starts at Raron, just east of Visp (look for Brig). It goes under the older Lötschberg tunnel (lighter dots on the map) and comes out north of Frutigen, 37 km later.

That advice from Lola is spot on, said far better than I would have. You may find a connection which has a short time between trains in Milano. I would agree with Bob about having a decent length layover in Milano. It is a terminal station so to change tracks you have to walk all the way to the front of the train, walk in front of the ends of all the platforms and then back up the length of your new train until you find your assigned car (reservations required in Italy on that type of train), and all this can take a little while particularly if the station is unfamiliar to you. If you go via Gotthard you will get better scenery.

Thank you to all and particularly Lola. Wow,I'm extremely impressed and very thankful. Sounds like a great trip. Hope the weather cooperates. This entire trip is a surprise for my wife's 50th birthday and we've never done this type of trip before. Have to say I'm getting increasingly excited about it.