Munich to Venice
Direct Railjet over the Brenner Pass

Munich Hauptbahnhof is one of Germany's busiest stations - a sprawling structure beneath Bayerstraße that has been rebuilt, expanded, and patched into its current form over more than a century. The direct Railjets to Venice leave from here and call at München Ost on the way out of the city.

The journey south begins through Munich's suburbs - the city sprawls into market gardens and light industry before the Bavarian countryside reasserts itself. Before long the first Alpine foothills appear ahead: low, rounded summits draped in dark spruce, with Bavarian farmhouses and onion-domed churches in the valleys. The light is distinctly different from northern Germany - clearer, more saturated, the sky closer to the mountains.

Innsbruck Hauptbahnhof sits at the floor of the Inn Valley at 574 metres, surrounded on all sides by the Karwendel and Tux Alps. The city is immediately, viscerally dramatic: step out of the station and the Nordkette mountain chain - its upper slopes often snow-covered - rises directly above the rooftops. The direct Railjets make a short stop here.

South of Innsbruck the line begins to climb. The Brenner Pass, at about 1,370 metres, is one of the lowest of the main Alpine passes, which is why it has been a route across the Alps since Roman times. The gradient is manageable but persistent - the train works its way up through the Wipptal, a narrow gorge where the motorway and railway compete for the same valley floor, past ski resorts and old mining villages.

At the summit, marked by the small border station of Brennero/Brenner, the watershed divides the waters of Europe: to the north they flow via the Inn and the Danube to the Black Sea; to the south, to the Adriatic. The train descends into the Adige Valley and Italy begins: the station signage switches to Italian, the architecture shifts from Tyrolean to Italianate, and the landscape opens into the wide, terraced vine-country of South Tyrol. Bolzano - the bilingual capital of this former Austrian territory - sits in a bowl of rock faces and vineyard terraces at 262 metres. The Dolomites appear to the east: pale, serrated, unlike any other mountains in Europe.

The approach to Venice across the Ponte della Libertà is a moment that rail travel holds exclusive rights to. The lagoon appears on both sides of the train simultaneously as the four-kilometre causeway crosses the shallow water, and the city - a skyline of campanile, domes, and terracotta - materialises ahead from nothing. It is one of the great theatrical arrivals in European travel.

Venezia Santa Lucia is the terminus. The train ends here, the buffers twenty metres from the Grand Canal, and you step from the carriage into an air that smells of salt water and canal. The station's neoclassical facade opens directly onto the water - within thirty seconds of leaving your seat you can be watching gondolas and vaporetti from the station steps.

This is the crucial distinction between arriving by train and arriving by plane. Venice Marco Polo airport sits on the mainland across the lagoon, so flying in means a further boat or bus transfer. The train arrives on the islands. You are already there.

The direct trains are Railjets. In the current timetable there are two a day, leaving München Hauptbahnhof in the morning and late morning and taking about 7 to 8 hours to Venezia Santa Lucia, via Innsbruck, the Brenner Pass, Bolzano, Verona and Padova. Other Railjets run as far as Verona, where you change onto an Italian high-speed train for the last hour or so. The current timetable runs until 12 December 2026; the next one is not yet fully published, so check your date if you are travelling later.

You can book through Omio or directly with Deutsche Bahn or ÖBB; saver fares are only valid on the train you booked. Seat reservations are optional on ordinary tickets but recommended, as these trains can be busy: on peak days the timetable notes that travel is only guaranteed with a seat reservation.

Interrail passes are valid, but on the Railjets between Munich and Italy a compulsory supplement applies for travel to, from or within Italy. Buy it in advance when you book, as buying it on board costs extra. A seat reservation on top is optional.