Point to Point Trains

For long distances, where high speed trains (EC, IC, ICE) are a definite advantage, if you can commit in advance to a specific high speed train (day and time), then advance purchase tickets, such as SparPreis (Savings Fare) tickets for the Bahn, offer a price advantage. For instance, on a certain day, a SparPreis ticket on an ICE from Berlin to Braunschweig is €57,50 full fare but only €23,90 for Super SparPreis. Full fare tickets can be used on any train of the same class or lower on that route that day, and can be refund or exchanged up to the day of travel. Super SparPreis tickets are absolutely non-refundable after purchase. For a few euro more, you can get a regular SparPreis ticket, which is refundable to a voucher after paying a fee up to the day before travel.

For Munich to Naples, there are five connections a day using an EC from Munich, but the EC only goes as far as an Italian city (Bologna or Verona). From there you need to use Italian trains. The Bahn will sell SparPreis ticket for the entire run of the EC, but you'll have to buy the Italian trains separately.

Find your connections and look up the comparative prices on the Bahn query page.

Go to the very easy-to-use Deutsche Bahn website for schedules/fares/tickets between Berlin Hbf and Braunschweig Hbf. The various departures take between 1-1/2 and 2 hours. I simply choose on the basis of duration, time of departure and fare. You can potentially save quite a bit by buying this ticket soon if your departure date and time are rock-solid; the cheapest tickets cannot be canceled. It looks as if today's price for many May 24 trains is 30 euros. Buying at the last minute could cost your around 80 euros.

The trip from Munich to Naples will take 11 hours or longer. You can see schedules but not fares on the Deutsche Bahn website. I'd strongly suggest flying. You can check skyscanner.com for flight schedules and fares. Be aware that there will be fees to check bags and there may be tight weight and size limits for cabin baggage if you fly a budget airline.

For the Italian trains you have a choice of Trenitalia or Italo. Similar speeds; I'd choose the time/fare I liked. I'm not sure about the Italo website, but on trenitalia.com you'll need to use the Italian station names. The fast trains usually go only to the main train station, so those are the ones I've listed below:

Munich = Monaco di Baviera
Naples = Napoli Centrale
Rome = Roma Termini

I can see the Munich-Naples connections on trenitalia.com. Again, buying early will get you a nice discount if your travel schedule is solid.

There are some good deals on non-refundable tickets available for the Naples-Rome run as well.

You will definitely not benefit from a rail pass if you're prepared to buy the tickets soon.

Edited to add: When you buy a ticket on one of the fast Italian trains, it will come with a seat reservation included. In Germany, many of the trains do not require seat reservations, but you can obtain them on the fast trains--I think for a modest extra charge. I would certainly want to have a seat reservation for the German train that makes up part of the Munich-Naples trip.

It is easier, quicker, and cheaper to fly from Munich to Naples.
Berlin to Braunschweig is served by a direct train ICE (intercity); that is the one you want. Otherwise you have to take one requiring a transfer. 2nd class is fine.
You would book that direct with the operating company on dbahn.com

Naples to Rome is either Italotren or Frecciarosa operated by Trenitalia. Not much difference both are high speed trains that cover the distance in about an hour.
You can book either on trenitalia.com or Italotren.com. Though the tickets may not be available to buy more than 90 to 120 days in advance.

I you've taken the subway in other USA cities, the ones in Berlin Munich and Rome are similar. There are self service machines selling tickets in multiple languages.

First class can be twice as expensive as second class for. IMHO. not much more comfort. We go second class except when first is only a few euros more (particularly when there is a first class lounge with snacks in the departure city, as we had in Vienna)

Within the big cities public transportation is tram, bus and surface train as well as underground /metro. Some have all-day passes you can buy that cover multiple options.

Flying from Munich to Naples makes much more sense. In fact, I’m doing this myself in a couple weeks.

If you really want to take the train from Munich to Naples, there is a comfortable night train from Munich to Rome (operated by Austrian railways, OEBB), where it is easy to change to a train to Naples.
That way you have full / near-full days of sightseeing in each place, instead of spending an entire day on train with only short scenic sections.
Of course, if you're a light sleeper, it might be more challenging to do much sightseeing upon arrival in Naples.

From Munich to Naples is 710 miles and 11.5 hours--far longer than I would care to travel on a train.
Lufthansa is the only airline flying that route, and I'd be booking a ticket with them.

Take a look at the Man in Seat 61 website. Explains train travel throughout the continent. https://www.seat61.com/index-mobile.htm

Hi Krista,

I’m originally from your neighbor state of Iowa. : )

A nice site to give you the names of the train stations (there can be several in the larger cities) is www.rome2rio.com. For instance, you didn’t mention which hotel you’re using, and if you enter the name of your hotel, it will give you the closest train station and options for taking a bus, walking, taxi, etc. general times & distances. I really like it to give me the bus number to go from a hotel to a museum, cooking class, etc.

If you buy a train ticket at a station, you may need to validate it to avoid a fine. Seat 61 mentioned above probably covers those instructions. If not, google “validate train ticket” for info & pictures.

The fast trains running between European major cities--which is most of the trains the typical American tourists take--stop at only one train station in each city. One of the reasons those trains are so fast is that they make very few stops. You normally do not get to choose which station you want to use unless you are willing to subject yourself to changing trains for a cross-town hop. That is usually not an attractive proposition, given the need to wrestle ones luggage up several narrow steps onto another train (and later off it). I think it's far easier to use public transportation or a taxi for that first or final little hop. The exception, for me, could be a situation in which the station used by your fast train is way outside of town, meaning fairly costly taxi rates. One example of that is Avignon in France.

On most rail websites, there's a wildcard entry covering all stations in a city, often in all-capital letters, that you can use to search for trains without knowing or trying to guess which specific station serves your destination. I'm listing below the first few choices shown on the Deutsche Bahn website if you type "Fran". In this context "Main" doesn't mean "main station"; rather, it's the name of the river on which this particular Frankfurt is located, the full city name being "Frankfurt am Main".

Frankfurt (Main) Hbf
FRANKFURT (MAIN) << this indicates all city stations
Frankfurt (M) Flughafen << (M) is an abbreviation for (Main)
Frankfurt (M) Flughafen Fernbf
Frankfurt (Main) Sud
there are more

If you don't see a wildcard entry, only individual stations listed, you can just choose one of them for your search. When the results appear, observe the actual name of the station used by the long-distance train. Click the "+" icon (or something like "Details") to see the journey broken down by segments. Normally all the trains will travel to/from the same place, though London sometimes has service to the same city from multiple rail station. The segment-by-segment breakdown of the train routing will reveal separately the time for each segment, including the long-distance train. To see that information for all the possible train routings, repeat your query using the appropriate station name you've just discovered.