Re the Bernina. Am not sure why you are saying you have to "go back through" Milan (will you have been there already?) but yes. You will have to walk from the Rhaetian Railway station in Tirano across a small square to reach the Trenitalia station. You can see one from the other. From there you will need to take the train to Milan (a couple hours) and then from Milan take the train to Venice.

I can tell you from experience the Bernina Express route is filled with spectacular scenery and I would advise you to consider (strongly) getting seats in one of the First Class panorama cars (bigger windows and more room).

Are you planning to drive the car from Fuessen to Zurich? If so you may very well be looking at a hefty drop charge since you would be renting the car in one country and dropping it in another.

Now, one possibility (are you flexible????) would be to use the car to visit Fuessen and the castles FIRST and then drive to Stuttgart. You can get an early train (before 7AM) there to Zurich and be there in about 4 hours (you will have dropped the car in Germany).

It sounds really hectic and you are covering a lot of ground but if you like to travel fast, then that's your style. I think you would have a more relaxing holiday sticking to Switzerland and Germany and leaving Austria and Italy for another trip.

Check sbb.ch/en for Swiss trains. You could also consider the Swiss Half Fare card which gives you half price travel in Switzerland for a month.

Train timetables at trenitalia.com.

Also check you can travel from Fussen to Zurich in time for checkin. (I've no idea but it doesn't sound like a doddle.) German trains at bahn.de.

Good luck with your planning.

ps. Out of curiosity, just checked - 6hrs+ Fussen to Zurich.

This is the scaled back version? WOW

I believe that you are underestimating distance and/or train travel times.

Tirano to Venice is a minimum 10 hour trip with 5 changes.

Venice to Salzburg night train either arrives at 04:09 or leaves at 01:13 - take your pick but at least it is only about 6.5 hours.

Fussen to Zurich Airport is almost 6 hours with at least 5 train changes. You have a couple of options, all leaving at 05:00 and arriving at 10:41 - 11:30

As for routing, Fussen should be slotted after Munich, then on to Stuttgart/BF.

Without being almost constantly on the move and having no more than 1 full day to see any particular place except the BO and Venice (after a 10 hour train trip and before a post midnight departure), this is an extremely ambitious itinerary.

Tirano to Venice IS NOT a minimum of 10 hours nor does it require five changes. It requires ONE change in Milan

"Are we trying to do too much?"

I think so. You have some pretty nice destinations overall but you'll be in transit too much of the time. The more miles you travel, the less you see and experience, as a rule, and since you already have some wasted transit time from and back to Zürich, it might be wise to streamline your route a bit.

"we don't have much of an interest in Zurich since there are so many other wonderful places to visit. "We are mainly interested in the B.O. area of Switzerland and the Bavarian porition of Germany."

You're probably right that there's no great reason to hang around Zürich. But the only places I see in your plan that are actually in Bavaria are Munich (for a few hours) and the overtouristed 19th-century palaces in Füssen.

Agree with Dukey1 that if you get a car in Germany (and I'm not clear why you'd want to do this in the first place since you only have 4 nights there in places like Stuttgart, Munich, and Füssen, which are all well served by train) it would be wise to drop it before entering Switzerland unless you want heavy drop-off fees, and it would be wise to do your Germany sightseeing - and your trip to Salzburg/Hallstatt, I think - before moving on to Switzerland.

You could then catch a flight from Venice to Zürich instead of training back north on a night train.

Stuttgart seems like a long way to go for a car museum, but if that's a must, you can get a Munich-Stuttgart ticket for two on the DB (german railways) site for 29€ on October 2. That would probably save you some time and money.

I like the Black Forest but if you want to see Bavaria, you might just lop off that part (and maybe Stuttgart too) as there's plenty closer to Munich to keep you busy. Visit Garmisch and Mittenwald south of Munich for scenery and a handsome Bavarian village. Include Berchtesgaden and the Königssee as outings on your Salzburg trip. Visit the Romantic Road towns of Harburg and Nördlingen, or see the handsome city of Regensburg - its old town is a UNESCO World Heritage site. (BTW, two can ride the rails between the German cities above - and Salzburg too - for 26€ per day on a Bayern ticket daypass: http://www.bahn.com/i/view/GBR/en/prices/germany/laender-ticket.shtml )

You might also toss in an outing from Salzburg to Hohenwerfen Castle in Werfen:

http://www.salzburg-burgen.at/en/werfen/

Best wishes for a good trip, whatever your choices.

Post your routing information please, Dukey.

www.bahn.com shows what I said,

www.trenitalia.com states "No Travel Solution Found"

Google Maps indicates pretty much exactly what Deutsche Bahn said - more than 10 hours and oodles of transfers.

Meanwhile, on another subject, do you have reservations for Oktoberfest? if not, you may find yourselves out of luck finding a place to stay and a place to drink beer.

Dukey1 - By back through I meant backtracking...sorry should have clarified. We are definitely flexible and have not made any hotel reservations yet. We wanted to only make a few reservations regardless (mainly just for the cities where we knew it would be more crowded) and then leave things flexible so if we wanted to change things on the fly we could. The rental car will stay in Germany, and will be dropped at our last stop in Germany before heading back to Zurich. Definitely don't want to pay the surcharge!

Dreamon - Would the Half Fare card be better than the Swiss Pass? The prices seem similar since Swiss Pass is offering the 2-1 deal right now, but are there any advantages of having the Half Fare over the Swiss Pass?

Aramis - Believe it or not, we initially had Paris, Rome and Prague on our wishlist...that was before I came here and realized I was out of my mind. We first aimed for night trains so we could save on hotel expenses, but the more we looked at things the more we knew we had to scale things back since we wouldn't leave ourselves enough time to enjoy our first trip to Europe. I'm thinking that we may still need to cut something, but we just can't decide where because all of these places were at the top of our list.

Russ - The Romantic Road was our original reason for opting for the rental car in Germany. Then we started looking into Stuttgart and the Black Forest, and became torn on which area to visit. My husband has always had a fascination with Germany and German cars, so that is why we prefer renting a car versus traveling via train. To see his face on the autobahns of Germany is well worth it to me.

Aramis - I believe this is the routing info Dukey was referring to:

You take the Regio from Tirano to Milano Centrale.
Your journey starts at Tirano on 26.09.12 at 17:10, you arrive at Milano Centrale is at 19:40.
Your journey continues by Eurostar Italia from Milano Centrale to Venezia S. Lucia.
Your journey starts at Milano Centrale at 20:05, you arrive at Venezia S. Lucia is at 22:40.
Summary
The total journey time is: 5:30
This connection runs daily.
The number of changes is: 1

Charnees - We do not have reservations for Oktoberfest yet. We know for sure we do not want to stay the night in Munich because of the crowds and the expense, so we will probably venture elsewhere. Do you think it would be wise to make reservations for tables or in the tents? Can you make reservations for those things?