During the Easter holidays, I took our two older children (aged 14 and 12) on an Interrail trip to Italy.
The back story to this is that earlier in the school year, the 14 year old was invited to go on a school trip to Rome and Pompeii for his Latin and Classical Civilisation GCSE class. We looked at the details and chatted it through with him, but ultimately we decided against it, for two reasons: 1) it would cost £1000 for one person for 4 days, and 2) it was a short haul return flight, and we have decided not to fly as a family due to the impact of flying on climate change.
Instead, I told him I would book a train trip there for later in the year, and my challenge was to make it cheaper than £1000 per person. If I was going to spend this kind of money, I wanted to go on the trip myself, plus I’d avoid the dropping off at school at silly o’clock in the morning and picking up late at night!
I bought Interrail passes in the December 2024 sale for 25% off, so the three passes together cost €599 (£498). Each pass was valid for five travel days within one month – perfect for two days to get there, two to get back, and one day trip whilst we were there.
Altogether it cost £733 per person, including the passes, seat reservations, accommodation, food, extra trains and metro tickets etc, and entrance to the historical sites in Rome and Herculaneum. I succeeded in my challenge!
Day ‘0’ was from Birmingham to Berkhamstead, where we stayed with family to avoid risking travelling from Birmingham to Euston on a Sunday, and potentially missing our Eurostar. So this leg wasn’t included on our Interrail passes.
Day 1: Berkhamstead to Zürich
- 08:38 Berkhamstead – 09:13 London Euston
- 11:31 London St Pancras – 14:58 Paris Gare du Nord
- 16:22 Paris Gare de Lyon – 20:26 Zürich Hauptbahnhof
As usual, the Eurostar check-in was heaving. There never seems to be enough room for everyone in the lounge. But the journey under the channel was smooth and on time.
I thought we had plenty of time to get from Paris Gare du Nord to Gare du Lyon on the Metro, but it turned out to be a very stressful transfer. We had tried to buy Metro tickets on the Eurostar but they only had packets of 10, so we joined the very long queues for the ticket machines at Gare du Nord only to find they had run out of paper tickets. I finally tried downloading the app but it wouldn’t let us all through the barrier at the same time. This taught me to avoid Paris if at all possible! On the way back we connected in Lille which was much better.
The onwards journey from Paris was lovely. It’s always a novelty to be on a double decker and the scenery was beautiful as we whizzed through the French countryside, with the hills starting to appear as we approached Switzerland. I’d found accommodation not far from Zurich station – Gasthaus Für Dich – so we walked straight there. It was such good value for Zürich – Switzerland is so expensive!
Day 2: Zürich to Rome
- 09:05 Zürich – 10:58 Lugano
- 11:02 Lugano – 12:17 Milan Central
- 14:30 Milan Central – 17:40 Rome Termini
Bright and early we were off out by 7:30am, and we grabbed some breakfast and packed lunch at a little supermarket on the way to the station. We travelled through a stunning mix of lakes, snow-capped mountains and waterfalls in the Swiss Alps. We weaved our way through valleys (and some tunnels) from Zürich in the north of Switzerland to Lugano in the south, and I couldn’t stop staring out of the windows. For me this is the absolute best bit of train travel.
The next train took us over the border into Italy and continued the gorgeous views of lakes and mountains until we arrived into Milan central station. It’s a very impressive building – it felt more like a grand museum or art gallery than a station. The external appearance of the station was even more impressive; it must be the grandest by far I’ve ever been to.
We boarded the Italian high-speed train to Rome, and were immediately impressed with how modern it felt compared to the French one. Lovely seats and carriage interiors, with screens showing info like a map and stats of the journey.
Overall this was a great travel day, and we were pleased to have made it to our holiday destination with only minor issues, having covered hundreds of miles and four countries over two days.
Day 4: Rome to Herculaneum and back
- 09:25 Rome Termini – 10:33 Naples Central
- 10:50 Naples Garibaldi – 11:10 Ercolano Scavi
- 14:26 Portici-Ercolano – 14:48 Naples Central
- 16:09 Naples Central – 17:19 Rome Termini
The journey down to Naples on a high-speed train was stunning yet again, with beautiful rolling hills and vineyards everywhere, and eventually the obvious sight of Vesuvius from the train.
Originally I’d been thinking of visiting Pompeii, as that’s where the school trip was going. But a few people said that Herculaneum was smaller, more preserved, and less busy, which sounded great for us. It was absolutely fascinating; we all really enjoyed walking around, and it was great for the 14 year old’s classical civilisation classes.
Back in Rome we did a quick tour of the Colosseum and Palatine/Forum archaeological area, saw the Spanish Steps, and did a bit of shopping, before having one more pizza before we left Rome. We decided that it was officially the best takeaway pizza ever!
Day 6: Rome to Lyon
- 07:20 Rome Termini – 10:35 Milan Central
- 12:10 Milan Porta Garibaldi – 16:15 (18:00) Chambéry Challes-les-Eaux
- 18:44 Chambéry Challes-les-Eaux – 20:11 Lyon Part Dieu
The scenery on this leg of the trip was probably the most stunning of all, and that’s a hard bar to beat! Northern Italy around Milan and Turin is very flat, with just the hills in the distance. But then it starts to get more mountainous, and very quickly we were in valleys with huge snow-capped mountains either side. I kept thinking I was done with taking photos, but then another beautiful view came up and I couldn’t resist.
As we left Italy we could see there had recently been a lot of snow, and there was even more snow as we entered France. We pulled into the first French station and the train sat there for about 10 minutes, before an announcement said that we’d be waiting there for a while. People started to get off the train and walk along the platform, which was covered with snow, and as more people joined the platform crowd, friendly snowball fights started.
Nearly an hour after we’d arrived, an announcement told us all to reboard, and we set off – slowly. Apparently this had been the biggest April snowstorm in the Alps in many years, causing widespread travel disruption and avalanche risk, and we were the first train to go through, which meant stopping at every signal before getting the go ahead to proceed.
Eventually we were given clearance to continue at normal speed, and picked up a later connection to Lyon, where we were staying overnight. I deliberately chose Lyon as it was about half the price of staying in Paris, and it’s a lovely city.
Day 7: Lyon to Birmingham
- 08:27 Lyon Part Dieu – 11:35 Lille Europe
- 13:35 Lille Europe – 13:57 London St Pancras
- 15:02 London Marylebone – 17:05 Birmingham Moor Street
- 17:15 Birmingham New Street – 17:25 Selly Oak
On the TGV heading north we sat next to a family with three young children. It turned out that their eldest child (aged 10) was very keen to practise his English, and he was definitely far better at English than our boys are at French. He and the 12 year old also know the universal language of football teams, so they got on like a house on fire! With a fascinating mix of their English and my French, we conversed until Lille where we waved goodbye with well wishes for each others’ onwards journeys.
Stepping up off the platform into the waiting area at Lille was a breath of fresh air compared to the terminus Eurostar stations. The border control and security point were so much quieter than London and Paris, and the lounge had just about enough seats for everyone. I would definitely recommend this route if you prefer more chilled environments.
We arrived in London on time, then boarded the train to Birmingham, then our final train to Selly Oak. We had completed our 2025 Interrail adventure to Italy and back.
Overall, the trip went exactly as I had hoped it would. There were minor issues, but I expect that in any form of travel – life happens, and I certainly can’t control things like freak snowstorms, technical problems, or not enough working ticket machines! Not travelling on a Sunday is probably my one take-away for something I can control, although easier said than done sometimes if you’re trying to fit around school holidays or annual leave.
The Interrail passes worked brilliantly. The app was intuitive, although the journey planner isn’t always accurate, and there were a couple of glitch moments. I had to remember to activate the pass each day, which I got used to quickly. It also helped to have printed tickets for the reservations
I’m sure the biggest downside of this experience is what it will cost me in future – we are well and truly hooked on European train travel now!
I knew the scenery out of the train windows would be the best part of the train travel experience, and this was definitely the case for me. Even when we were going nowhere or very slowly through the mountains, the view kept my attention. No photos I took do it any justice at all; you really have to experience it in person for the full effect.
