This a breakdown of my itinerary for travelling between Hull and Rome, via the Netherlands. This is the trip that we did in the short time we had available to reach the UK to see family. You can easily reduce or increase it’s length to suit you or swap Utrecht for Amsterdam.

Our highlights of the trip were the spacious business class seats from Rome to Verona, the views of the mountains in Austria and getting to explore Utrecht. If I could change one thing, I would have booked two nights in Uterecht because the city has so much to offer and was such a relaxed place to walk on a summer’s evening.

4 days and 3 nights

2300km

5 countries

Our starting point was our hometown of Rome. The first leg of our journey would be with Italo trains and we departed from Tiburtina Station at 9am. We chose Tiburtina because it is close to where we live, but you could easily catch the same train from Termini Station.

Our first day would take us all the way to Austria!

Verona is three hours from Rome and exactly half way to Innsbruck and so you might want to use it an opportunity to spend some time in this stunning city. Travelling with two young children we decided to make our first stop at Verona Porta Nuova Station where we left our bags in luggage storage and went to find ourselves a pizza for lunch.

We really enjoyed walking and sitting down to lunch but the time passed a lot quicker than I expected! Set an alarm as a reminder that you need to start heading back to station to avoid missing trains.

Innsbruck Station is surrounded by mountains and the views from the train were breath taking.

Arrive in Innsbruck at 19:00 where the OBB Nightjet train departs at 21:00. Leaving you time to eat before getting to the platform. Unfortunately many cafe’s inside the station seemed to close early so research a place to eat that suits your needs. There is also a supermarket inside the station to buy snacks and drinks.

Having a meal before a night train will help you to sleep and relax.

Arriving in Utrecht Centraal Station at midday as we had a 90 minute delay on our train.

We planned for a stop over in Utrecht to see the area. We could have stayed on the train until Amsterdam but when travelling with children I find that smaller cities can be easier to navigate and more relaxing. 

At 16:30 a minibus came to pick us up from Vlaardingen Oost, that took us straight to our P&O ferry. The departure time was 21:00 but once on board we could settle into our room, use the bar and the children’s play area onboard the ship.

A variation on this itinerary would be to take a ferry to a different port in the UK if Hull is not ideal for you. You could even take the Eurostar from Amsterdam to London to save you time. 

The crossing was very easy and relaxing. We had a cabin with 4 single beds and a hot shower in the en-suite. Arriving into the Ferry Port was quick and we were able to leave the ship, pass through passport control and out onto English soil!

I think this might be my favourite way so far to travel between the UK and Italy. Trains travel seamlessly across the boarders between Italy, Austria and Germany. Let me know in the comments below if you have ever tried it!