night trains from avignon to munich

Penny, Is this a particular train or train route that you've read about? Because I cannot find a direct overnight train from Avignon to Munich. By at least one online calculator, it looks like you might take six separate trains over 15 hours to get there (via Switzerland.)

This is one which is going to involve either a long daytime journey with several changes, stopping along the way, or flying. Looking at WhichBudget.com, I see that GermanWings flies Marseille to Munich which would be worth looking into (although I warn you that the budget airline terminal at Marseille Airport is horrible).

I don't think you'll find a direct, overnight train from Avignon to Munich. It's a misconception, fostered in part by 'the master', that night trains run from everywhere to everywhere. You can find schedules on the Bahn website, http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en, but it will generally only give you the fastest route. It might take a bit of finagling to find all of the routes. I found one leaving Avignon at 5 minutes after midnight and getting to Strasbourg at 8:30 in the morning. The rest of the trip would be by TGV and ICE, getting to Munich at 13:33. That's probably the fastest route. I think there are also night trains from Milan and Zürich to Munich, but getting to those trains might take to long.

As for flying, I think the general consensus here is that a direct flight (no connections) is going to take 6 hours total, by the time you get to an airport with several hours for check in and security, flight time, getting to ground transportation and into town from the airport (about an hour in Munich). So to get up in the morning in Avignon and arrive at MUC by 12:30 would mean getting up at around 7:30, if the schedule flight were at the right time. A night train uses otherwise unused time. [INVALID]: GermanWings has three connections per week between Marseille and Munich, all connecting through (2 hrs) Cologne-Bonn. Total time MRS to MUC is 4:45 min and doesn't include getting to MRS (1 hr), preboard (1-2 hr), or from MUC (1 hr). So you will have 8-9 hrs of awake time dedicated to the flight.

The route listed by Lee looks to be the fastest to me, too. You would travel in France and Germany. I assume that you asked about countries because you are thinking about buying a railpass. When are you taking this trip? If you book well in advance, you can get discount fares for point-to-point tickets that will be cheaper than a railpass. If you want to know more about how to do that, just ask. According to the Germanwings site the route from Marseille to Munich requires a connection in Cologne-Bonn. Flights are limited to Tuesdays and Thursdays and there are no flights November-March.

I can do you a night train. 20:20 CityNightLine from Paris Est to München Hbf arriving 07:16. Any TGV from Avignon TGV to Paris Gare de Lyons, RER a couple of stops to Gare de Nord and a brief walk to Gare de l'Est. The 16:00 arrives 18:41; the 16:30 arrives 19:11 would both work. ¶ So there you go, one late afternoon train, one sleeper train, and one RER to tie them together....

6 hours for a intra-European flight departing a medium city/medium airport? NO WAY. 4 hours is a good call for intra-European direct flight, in an average basis.