Camping Fabulous

Re: How to travel by train from Vienna to Rome

by mccalpin

The odds are quite high that it will be cheaper to fly by a budget airline - with one exception...there are 29 euro tickets on the overnight train from Viena to Rome, which are good for a 2nd class seat (this is on EuroNight 235, depart Viena at 19:35, arrive in Rome at 09:05). The problem is that (1) there are very few of these seats (so they sell out), and (2) the overnight train ride is about 13.5 hours - do you really want to spend 13.5 hours in a 2nd class seat with your spouse? No, I didn't think so. ;-)

So, you are left with deciding in what mode you would be willing to travel on the train. If you two would want a sleeping compartment to yourselves, this looks like it will be 340 euro - that seems very expensive until you realize that you won't have to spend any money on a hotel room for that night, and you move a very long distance at the same time. That is, if you are spending 200 euro a night on a hotel room (I don't know what your budget is), and it costs you 100 euro for the two of you to fly (just a guess, but the taxes and fees do add up), then that's 300 euro anyway...of course, you will have to fill in these amounts yourself.

You can certainly take the train for less...for example, you can share a couchette cabin that sleeps 4 for 260 euro, and I think the regular price for the two 2nd class seats is 200 euro (for the two of you), if no 29 euro seats are available.

However, unless you want to spend the night in style on the train, I would seriously look at flying in this case.

Note that you can find this information on the www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html website (the official Italian rail system website). The same information is available on the Austrian website (www.oebb.at) but only in German - for reasons I don't understand, the pricing is available only on the German pages, not on the English pages...

Bill