See Europe by train: five great family summer holidays with no flying | Family holidays
Up and over the mountains to Italian lakes and cities
Heading to Italy overland from the UK suits those looking to relish the journey and give kids a once-in-a-lifetime geography lesson. The most spectacular route is on the Treno Gottardo, a revamped 19th-century railway line that skirts Lake Lucerne and creeps through snow-capped mountains in the Ticino valley between Basel and Locarno, Switzerland’s warmest town, on Lake Maggiore.
Just seven hours from London via Paris, Basel is doable in a day, though the Alsace town of Mulhouse, with its eye-popping street art and ornate central square, makes a good stopover.
