Our family will be in Switzerland in September and some of us (two adults and three children ages 13, 10, and 8) plan to dip down to Rome for a bit. I'm undecided whether or not to take the train. What's the consensus ~ rail or car?
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
I can explain the train trip a bit. Will you have a Swiss pass of some type for your Switzerland travels? If yes, all of your children RIDE FREE (15 and under) as long as one parent has a pass and you all travel together. This even applies to the Swiss 1/2-fare card which costs CHF99 for adults 16 and over. It's good for 30 days. The Swiss pass will take you to Domodossola which is inside Italy but Switzerland lets you get that far because its a route to Locarno which is back in Switzerland. That part of the journey will take 3.5hrs.
The journey from Domodossola to Rome will take 6.5hrs. It looks like a one-way fare of 67Euro for the two adults and oldest child. The one-way fare for the two youngest children is 34Euro. All together on the one-way standard fare, it looks like 269Euro. If you can get the limited AMICA fares, the cost drops to 219 for all one-way. You can't always get the Amica fares.
For the car, you can size up the trip on www.viamichelin.com. I see a trip of 831km and a total driving time of at least 8hrs. Your looking at an estimated cost on top of your daily rental and insurance rates of 143Euro for gas and tolls. Usually, that's a bit conservative. I would suggest raising both the travel time and the costs a bit.
Now it's your turn to do some math.
Posted by
OP
Lynden, WA
97 posts
Thanks for your reply, Larry. I neglected to mention in my previous post that we have a car at our disposal when we're in Switzerland, since we visit family there. In that respect, the train is clearly the more expensive option, though a train trip be more interesting for the boys. I've not had a car with me in Rome before, though, and am unsure how tedious is may be to deal with parking and so on.