Northern Italian city with good connections to Munich?

try www.tuifly .com from Venice Marco Polo to Munich.
www.whichbudget.com gives poss other options. realize it does not incl all budget airlines like Ryan ait , easyjet...

whichbudget.com will include ryanair and easyjet, if they fly those routes...but they don't. Unfortunately, it's only about 500 kilometers (315 miles) in a straight line between Florence and Munich...not long enough to make it worthwhile for an airline to fly out of a relatively small city. You will likely have to go to Milan and take Air Berlin (but it's not direct), or come back to Rome and take either Air Berlin, Condor, or Germanwings....Condor the only one with direct flights. The two daytime trains listed take 8 1/2 to 9 1/2 hours....probably the same amount of time if you went to Milan or Rome then caught a flight. Or you could take the overnight train and save yourself a night in a hotel.

Actually, there is a seven hour (13:28-20:26) IC train from Venice S.L. to Munich. If you book far enough in advance you can get a €33 fare from DB. Don't be fooled by "published" time and fares by air. You have 20 minutes by bus from Venice Marco Polo and 40 minutes by S-bahn from MUC into Munich (along with fares) plus preboard time. It's likely to take you nearly as long by plane as by train, plus you miss the views of the Alps over Brenner Pass.

BTW, according to the Tuifly website, the closest they come to Munich is Stuttgart.

Since it can take between 90 minutes and 2 hours to get from Bologna to Venice, and 2 1/2 to 4 hours to get from Florence to Venice, you might as well take the train directly from one of those two cities to Munich.

I picked Venice because I assumed you would be traveling around cities of interest in Italy and wanted to know the shortest time from one of them to Munich. There are actually six direct day trains for which you can get German Rail's Europa-Spezial-Italien fare of €33 to Munich. One leaves Milan at 7:05 Another leaves Rome at 7:42 and stops in Florence (9:57) and Bologna (11:22). The third one leaves Venice at 13:42. All three above go through Verona. There are also three more direct day trains with that fare leaving from Verona.

If you are going to see Venice anyway, that is from where you should leave for Munich, but Verona is the best place overall because all six trains to Munich stop or originate there.

Thanks for the info. Its beginning to sound like the train might be the way to go from most cities, though its 8-9 hours. BTW is there a website that shows the main rail routes? I've been doing hunt & guess, typing in city pairs and seeing times. But it would be better if I knew the main routes; from what Lee posted, for example, it sounds like Verona is on it.

Although I did a little more poking and found a roundtrip 1-hour flight on Lufthansa Milan <-> Munich for $117 and I could just throw away the return portion (one way is $600+). If I figure 2 hours early to get the flight and 1 hour from Munich airport into town thats a total of 4 hours, so I'm saving 5 hours at a cost of around $50 which seems reasonable.

Mike...if you're in Milan, that flight sounds like a pretty good deal! I'm surprised one of the major carriers would offer such a deal where there's no competition from discount airlines...it's not like them! :) As for trains, there's a half-decent interactive map at http://downloads.raileurope.com/map_europe/europe.html. Of course, I don't know your itinerary, but I don't think you' save much by aiming for any specific city to leave from, since you'll still have to pay to get to that city in the first place....it'll all add up to about the same in the end. However, there is a fast train that leaves Bologna shortly after 11 am and only takes 7 hours to Munich (EC 84, which actually leaves from Rome around 7:45 and passes through Florence)...it's offering fares from 33 Euro from Bologna, Florence AND Rome. Find it at bahn.de

Mike, does that 2 hours early include the 50 minutes on the bus to get to Malpensa. If not you are looking at 4 1/2hr to Munich downtown (a little more if you include time to get off the plane and find the S-bahn). The train takes 7:22 downtown to downtown, so you are saving less than three hours, maybe closer to two.

In addition to $117 airfare you will have $21 for the bus to Malpensa and S-bahn to Munich - That's $138. That €33 train fare is only from Verona, so you have another €14,50 fare on the same train, Milan to Verona, €47,50 total or $70.

So, with the train you spend less than 3 hours more and spend $68 less. That's the real trade-off.

I used the Rick Steves planning map. It shows the rail routes, but you can really tell the route from the info on Bahn.de. The train from Rome goes through Arezzo, Florence and Bologna, then to Verona. The train from Milan or Venice goes to Verona. From Verona all trains go up through Trento and Bolzano to Brenner Pass and through Innsbruck and Kufstein to Munich.

Lee, I hadn't included the 50 minutes bus time; thanks for pointing it out. As for departure city in Italy, I'm pretty flexible on that. I like Italy and haven't been to that many of the northern cities, so I'm planning right now to pick a city that leaves me positioned to move on to Munich.

BTW now that I know Verona is a good departure city I looked on the DB site and saw a train from Verona Porta Nuova to Munchen Hbf leaving every 2 hours and taking about 5:30. Savings fares look like they're available for 33E. Is Munchen Hbf in downtown Munich?

Hbf is the abbreviation for Hauptbahnhof, which means "Main Station". Yes, the Munich Hauptbahnhof is right downtown, a short walk from Marienplatz.

Actually, you really only need to be at the airport about an hour before takeoff, since it's a "domestic" EU flight. I think the deadline in Milan is 40 minutes before flight time to guarantee your departure, and they have self-service kiosks for those who have an e-ticket booked via the web. Again, though, plan your itinerary based upon what you want to see, not where the cheapest departure point is...that could be anywhere from Verona to Rome. Since, for example, you'd have to pay extra to get to Verona from Milan for the train to Munich, it'd be cheaper to leave from Verona, Bologna, Florence, or indeed Rome. But if you really want to visit Milan, then it's worth the extra couple of Euro you'll spend to get there.

WhichBudget will list Ryanair and easyJet flights!

Try this direct link for airlines flying to Munich:
http://www.whichbudget.com/en/cheapflights.php?to=MUC

Then just pick your airport from the list of Italian airports.

Verona is probably the most convenient to the Brenner Pass, where most of the North South traffic runs. It's also a surprisingly good place to visit. We skipped the Romeo and Juliet stuff but were very impressed with the old city, colliseum, squares, old wall, bridges, etc.