This summer we travelled from London to Rome in 2 nights and with two young children in tow! It was slow yes but also relaxing, fun and the romance of train travel definately gave the experience a touch of magic.

Below I have shared the train stations we passed through and a rough idea of the time schedule that we did it in. If you want to try this awesome trip, feel free to reduce of increase the time scale to suit you.

Our highlights were walking along the Seine, eating a real chocolate eclair and passing along the sparkling sea front along the Côte d’Azur

3 Days 2 Nights 

2300km

3 Countries

The trip starts at St. Pancras International station to catch the Eurostar.

Our standard tickets were ordered directly through the Eurostar website. I booked the tickets around 1 month before departure meaning that we paid more for what was already peak august prices. If I had booked in advanced however I would have been able to save on this leg of the journey. If you follow Eurostar on there socials, you can keep up to date with last minute discounts. 

We arrived at the station at 9.30 in the morning to give us plenty of time to use toilets, get through the ticket area and do the security check. In the departure lounge we found shops selling magazines, books, coffee and food. 

The train departed at 11.30am and we were on our way. 

At 13.30 we arrived into Gare Du Lyon in Paris. This iconic station is enormous! It is equipped with eateries and info points.

On this first leg we would get all the way down to the south of France using the sleeper train. The sleeper departs from Gare Austelitz at 19:30 which gives you around six hours to make the 5 km journey. We took this as an oppportunity to explore Paris, so we walked it. 

It would give the children a chance to walk and run around.

We made the mistake of leaving it too late to get our lunch and we fell into the time between lunch and dinner – have a look at the time you arrive in Paris and reseach places to eat and their serving times before you arrive!

Our sleeper train was booked with Intercity Nuit and we booked our a whole cabin. We slept really well and the kids even slept in until 8.30. There was a shop on board for coffee and cakes.

Day 2 and we arrived in Nice Ville Station at 9.30 in the morning. After spending a euro to use the clean toilets in the station we had some time to look the breakfast. The station is central in the town and we easily found a coffee shop and boulangerie to fill a bag with supplies. 

We had time to relax and wander in Nice before our 13:00 regional train to Ventimiglia. We decided to eat our lunch on this train – a good way to pass time with children. The joumey was 1.5 hours and using that time to eat made it pass effortlessly, especially as the tracks pass along the coast and you can enjoy the views of the riviera.

Ventimiglia Station is a small station located on the Italian side of the border between Italy and France. It is a necessary stop for changing trains to reach the Italian cities.

Travelling with children we try to keep our journeys shorter and break them up with a change of scene. If long journeys are an option for you, you can easily travel from Ventimiglia to Milan and Milan to Rome in one day to reduce your travel time.

Ventimiglia was just a quick stop to change trains, but we did have enough time to get a coffee in a local bar and buy some fresh focaccia Genovese.

At 15.10 we jumped on the Intercity train took us to Milan.

The Intercity train took us into Milano Centrale Station.

In order to save money on hotels and travel during the night, we chose to get the Intercity Notte sleeper train from Milan to Rome. After using night trains multiple times as a family we find them comfortable and a convenient way to travel distance. The night train departs from Porta Garibaldi Station which is a 20 minute walk away. We gave ourselves an hour to get there so that we didn’t need to rush.

A very fresh start, leaving our train at 6.30am and arriving in Tiburtina Station. We were able to go straight home from here but if you are arriving in the city this early you can look at bag storage or day hotels if you are unable to check into your accomodation at this time. 

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