The 2025 route gives access to the “most famous Christmas markets in Austria and Germany.”
As twilight settles over Roma Termini, the Espresso Monaco train gleams under the station lights. At 7:57, travelers climb aboard with a boarding pass in one hand and a steaming cup of espresso in the other. On screens inside the train, stops along this Christmas trail slowly fade in and out: Roma, Verona, Trento, Bolzano, Bressanone, Vipiteno, Brennero, Innsbruck, Kufstein, Munich. Christmas markets glitter in each of these towns throughout Italy’s north and into Austria and Germany. The journey, like a Currier and Ives painting, promises Christmas wonder in every passing mile.
FS Treni Turistici Italiani, the official train group running the iconic tourist Espresso Monaco train, railway excursions, and charter experiences throughout Italy, promises a Christmas-first experience from the moment you climb aboard. Carriages are festooned with fir garlands, twinkling lights, and the gentle hum of Christmas music. Each passenger receives a small holiday present to kick off the gift-giving season.
Leaving Rome’s golden glow behind, the train glides into soft wintry evening. Rolling plains become foothills as you enter central Italy. Assisi at Christmas, the enchanting land of St. Francis, has an open-air nativity scene under the Basilica of San Francesco. Arezzo, another stop on Espresso Monaco’s path, hosts Piazza Grande’s wooden vendor houses of traditional crafts and Tyrolean bites like goulash, sweet and savory pretzels alongside Arezzo’s Tuscan torrone and panettone. Meanwhile the Big Lights Show illuminates the market in holiday wonder.
After Arezzo, the train moves north into the silhouette of the Dolomites under a silver moon. The route pauses at Verona pre-dawn, then on to Trento and Bolzano, its carriages weaving north through Bressanone and Vipiteno, before crossing the Brenner pass into Austria via Innsbruck and Kufstein. Through the windows, villages twinkle with Christmas lights reflected in vineyards; inside, the lounge car offers vin brûlé and the hush of travel at night.
By morning, the landscape has changed: crystalline peaks, fir-trees dusted in frost, the hush of early winter. The Espresso Monaco train has chugged into Italy’s Alps, into the South Tyrol region, Alto Adige and Dolomite country, where its German neighbors merge traditions on market day.
From the official 2025 list, some of the Christmas markets include:
Munich’s historic center glitters beneath cascades of lights; the scent of roasted chestnuts and cinnamon drifts from wooden chalets. Here at Marienplatz Square, the 117-year-old Rathaus-Glockenspiel clock chimes its melody above Christkindlmarkt. Visitors meander among stalls laden with carved nativity figurines, glass baubles, embroidered linens and gingerbread taller than children.
Brass bands play from balconies while families toast to arrival with mugs of steaming Glühwein. Friends made aboard the train raise their toasts together: “We closed our eyes in Rome, and opened them in Christmas,” someone murmurs, snow beginning to fall.
For those returning, departure is 1:40 from Munich on Sunday 7 and 14 December; arrival into Roma Termini at 6:33 the next morning. On board, the same enchantment holds: candle-lit dinners, quiet carols, the rhythmic motion of rails through the Alps traveling southward toward the capital.
In an era of instant flights and hurried itineraries, the Espresso Monaco brings back the romance of Old World Christmas. From the soft hush of Rome’s station to the sparkling lights of Munich, every mile feels like a ribbon tied around this season of magic. Travel as it once was: soulful, cinematic, alive with holiday cheer.
