4 days and 3 nights
2300km
5 countries
Here is quick round up of how we travelled from Rome to Hull, with children, flight free!
This was a trip we were making in Summer 2024 to visit my family who live in Lincolnshire, so Hull was the perfect connection.
Wednesday morning we arrived at Tiburtina Station in Rome. The first day would be travelling north bound and into Austria. This is easy considering Italy’s high speed rail network.
As we are travelling with young children we break the journey into two so we can get some lunch and stretch our legs. We travelled with Italo, and even upgraded to business class because they didn’t cost much more than the standard seats. The first three hours of our trip was spent in roomy seats and complimentary snacks!
Our half way point to Austria was Verona, just three hours from Rome. In Verona we dropped our suitcase at a bag storage for €12. We walk 20 minutes away from the station and ate some sourdough wood-fired pizzas in a restaurant. We had 2.5 hours in Verona and it passed very quickly when walking with our children.
Back to the station for our second train travelling to Innsbruck. This train was with OBB and our carriage was very old. The children wanted to sit on our knees and they fell asleep immediately!
We had already covered a few hundred km at this point and we were in the mountains where the summer weather is more changeable. The heat of central Italy had transformed to rain, that pelted on our packed train carriage. Heavy blobs drenched the windows and the trees bent in with the force of the wind. The mountains towered over us and in a moment I looked up into the sky, came a line of white lightning that cracked the sky. It seemed to hang there for a few seconds, until it vanished.
We arrived in Innsbruck around 19:00. The mountain air was cool on our bare arms. We arrived in Innsbruck hungry and we were surprised to find that shops were closing! We found a supermarket in the station that sold hot sandwiches. We bought snacks, fruit and water for the train. We were all feeling tired and we were so looking forward to getting to bed!
At 21:00 our OBB Nightjet arrived at Innsbruck station and we were ready to climb on board. I had booked us into a three bed private cabin. We found such a surprise inside! Waiting for us on our little table were three mini bottles of prosecco and slippers! We let the kids chill with a bag of pretzels and some cartoons while we sipped our prosecco and shut our door for privacy.
Another bonus of a private room is a private wash basin, this means getting the kids cleaned up before bed was quick and easy. Pyjamas on and we all fell asleep staight away.
My eldest and I woke around 6:oo we lay in bed and watched the lush German countryside outside our window. Passing farmland, rivers and villages.
Unfortunately our train was running behind schedule and we had an extra 90 minutes on board. Arriving in Utrecht station at midday we passed over canals on the short walk to our hostel. What struck us most was the absence of cars.
We checked early into our hostel and we went out into the piazza in front of us to eat lunch.
Our next pause would be here in Utrecht, 24 hours to relax, explore and enjoy the journey.
There were some restaurants on the doorstep of our hostel. The boys had toasties with chips and they were so happy! I had a sandwich with pickled herring, gherkin, beetroot and dill. To be honest, after lunch we really happy to relax so we all crawled into the bed in our hostel – my eldest was the hardest to convince but soon there was silence and we had all fallen asleep for nearly two hours! We woke and went back out to walk.
There are bars with seating outside and people sat chatting and drinking. The canals were busy with the traffic of boats. Families, friends, students and couples, each one would pass along. The people on board simply there to enjoy the company and the evening.
Friday morning, we woke to rain. We ran to the coffee shop next door and after breakfast we took the kids to the library opposite our hostel. The warm bright room was full of young children who explored the books and played.
After checking out at 11:00 we made our way towards Rotterdam where we could check into our ferry from 17:00.
We arrived early to the minibus collection point at 13:00 so we found a play park nearby and took the children to climb.
Waiting for the connection to the ferry we found a play park in a suburban area. It was such a bonus! The sun had come out, we had sometime to read while the kids were happy to run.
At 16:30 a minibus came to pick us up and 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. The food options were very poor but luckily I had bought some sandwiches from Rotterdam. We had hot showers and went to watch the live entertainment – Anna from Frozen. Turns out my husband knows all the words to Let It Go.
The ferry crossing was as still as if we were on land. We didn’t feel a thing. Leaving the port we passed a line of wind turbines. Turning silently in the summer sunset. We were nearly at our destination, but we were sad to leave our adventure behind.
At 8:00 a knock at our cabin door let us know that we could leave the ship. We had made it!
