Motorail to Italy?

[Ari]

We're hoping to do a driving holiday through the Italian Alps and up through France (Loire Valley) this summer.

Time is a little limited so I wondered whether it was possible to blast down there with the car on a motorail train and then spend the week driving back up.

Anyone done it?

[SystemParanoia]

watching

[bad company]

We have done that a few times. The motorail is great in that you wake up near where you want to be. Some are very uncomfortable tho so you may not get a great night's sleep.

Edited by bad company on Sunday 22 January 15:02

[marine boy]

yes, DB Autozug goes overnight departing from Dusseldorf to Innsbruck, Verona, Alessandria, I've used it quite few times.

I've left Oxfordshire early am which gives plenty of time to catch the early evening departure, you will be driving in Italy early the next morning

I would go for the Inssbruck service as its perfect for some alpine driving and cheaper than the Verona

[sawman]

marine boy said:

yes, DB Autozug goes overnight departing from Dusseldorf to Innsbruck, Verona, Alessandria, I've used it quite few times.

I've left Oxfordshire early am which gives plenty of time to catch the early evening departure, you will be driving in Italy early the next morning

I would go for the Inssbruck service as its perfect for some alpine driving and cheaper than the Verona

There is another train that runs from somewhere in the netherlands, to italy. I was looking at them a few weeks ago - a bit of googling should find it, iirc it was about the same price as the german one - I think it was about 500 quid for car and cabin for 4

[Ari]

This is a useful site:

http://www.seat61.com/Motorail.htm#Italy

[munky]

Yeah, I've done this (in reverse) on the German train (DB Autozug). The plan was both ways: Dusseldorf to Bolzano (called Bozen in German.. far north of Italy), and return from Livorno (Tuscany) to Frankfurt. When I researched it, the concensus among people that had tried various trains was that the German ones are the best. We had our own private bathroom with shower, and there is a restaurant carriage (food ok but nothing special, has beer & wine though). The Livorno train trundles right along the coast so it's quite amusing to see sunbathers on the beach while you have dinner.

Allow plenty of time to get to Germany though. We actually missed the train in Dusseldorf mainly due to two monumental traffic jams on the autobahn (only one train a week). Also once you get there it's not that easy to find - use satnav. I didn't, since the DB Autozug website said it is well signposted from the roads into Dusseldorf (it isn't). So I ended up driving from Dusseldorf to Lake Garda via Austria (about 20 hours including overnight stop in ugly town in Germany), which actually was a very nice drive (and navigation a lot easier than finding the damn train station in Dusseldorf). Didn't miss the train back to Frankfurt; thankfully the station in Livorno was a lot easier to find.

Another tip: if you have a large car, measure it to make sure it will fit on the train.

Final tip: don't make my mistake and arrive back in Germany low on fuel. The train got in very early in the morning, somewhere in the outskirts of Frankfurt, and the petrol stations were all closed.

http://www.dbautozug.de/site/dbautozug/en/start.ht...

Edited by munky on Tuesday 24th January 10:58

[Amateurish]

Frankly, it would be easier to drive both ways. You can get to the Italian Alps in a day, probably quicker than if you took the train. And certainly cheaper. You can probably do Calais - Aosta in 8 hours. To do the Dusseldorf train, it would be 4 hours drive from Calais, a couple of hours hanging around, then however long the train takes.

[don logan]

Amateurish said:

Frankly, it would be easier to drive both ways. You can get to the Italian Alps in a day, probably quicker than if you took the train. And certainly cheaper. You can probably do Calais - Aosta in 8 hours. To do the Dusseldorf train, it would be 4 hours drive from Calais, a couple of hours hanging around, then however long the train takes.

+1

[Gargamel]

We used to use the Motorail service from Calais to Milan, over night.

No idea if it still runs, good fun, six people in bunk beds ....

[Bluebarge]

And another + 1. The "Italian Alps" are the other side of the arbitrary line drawn in 1870 through the old kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. The best bit of the Italian Alps is in the North, opposite Chamonix and Bourg St.Maurice. So, drive the 8 hours (+ stops) from Calais to Chamonix, stay the night, take a trip up the Aiguille du Midi, take the D1506 over the Col de la Forclaz towards Martigny (CH) then the E27 to the Great St.Bernard pass and down to Aosta. Visit the Val di Cogne and maybe stay the night in Cogne. Then head for Bourg St.maurice via the Little St. Bernard pass (S26/D1090) and then onto Lyon, Clermont-ferrand, Bourges to the Loire via the autoroutes. Tour the Loire.

Do not p*ss about with trains which will require you to drive into the centre of a town you didn't want to visit, hang around for 2 hours while they load/damage your car, trundle through the night getting limited sleep until you arrive knackered in another town you didn't want to visit, wait 2 hours etc, etc.

[munky]

Bluebarge said:

Do not p*ss about with trains which will require you to drive into the centre of a town you didn't want to visit, hang around for 2 hours while they load/damage your car, trundle through the night getting limited sleep until you arrive knackered in another town you didn't want to visit, wait 2 hours etc, etc.

Some misinformation there. I loaded and unloaded my own car, there was no damage, and there was hardly any. 20 mins tops from train arriving at destination to driving away. If you have trouble sleeping on trains it doesn't mean everyone else does. I slept like a baby on every overnight train I've been on, in France, Germany and Russia.

It all depends on whether the point of the trip is the journey itself (driving holiday on a scenic route) or spending time in the destination itself with one's own car. If it's the latter, then I'd take the option of travelling while asleep after dinner in the restaurant carriage every time over wasting hours on a featureless French autoroute and arriving at my destination knackered, and/or wasting time in a hotel en route in a town that I didn't want to visit!

To add, if you haven't experienced the overnight disco ski train to Bourg St Maurice then you haven't lived..

Edited by munky on Wednesday 25th January 12:51