This is our first trip to Europe and have heard that riding the rail through the Alps from France to Italy is a good route. What are your suggestions?
There's also a good route from Lyon and vicinity via Torino. Its not currently showing on the interweb because of construction but it is a nice way through, but slow.
Of course then, the route along the Cote d'Azur is fabulously gorgeous, but even slower.
One of the major train routes from France to Italy is from Paris to Milan, Venice, Florence or Rome via Lyon or Dijon. It does go through some portions of the alps before entering Italy. These are the Artesia trains.
CLCK HERE to see the routing. You can buy tickets ahead of time on the French website. If this is desirable to you, message back as there are special instructions that we provide for buying tickets on the French train website. If you say that you are in the U.S., they will switch you to RailEurope. We'll explain how to avoid this.
There is a direct morning train from Paris to Milano. There also are routes from Paris to Milano via Basel, Geneva, and Zurich. To see all of these, go to the German Rail site. After you get summary timetables for Paris-Milano, click on the arrow to the left of the departure time(s) of your choice to see the connecting points. You also can click on "Show map" for each route.