Best way to buy rail tickets - advice wanted please
 

Hi
we shall be in Munich late August and plan to travel to Salzburg by train stay a couple of days and then onwards to Bolzano , final destination Merano for a week. After Merano we need to get to Naples by train.

Does anyone have any websites they recommend I buy my tickets for these trips? Thanks in advance.

The Seat61 website is fantastic for all things train related. Might be best to buy tickets from the main train company in the country you're travelling in but I've used the Trainline website to book and pay, for a few different countries, and it's user friendly.

I also prefer to buy directly from the train company operating the actual route, but regularly use Trainline to lookup schedules/evaluate alternatives as it aggregates available options across competing providers. As August is a long way out, timetables may not be fully released yet but you can run a few dummy dates for May or June to get an idea about possible connections.

So for your intended journeys the following are relevant : DB/OBB for Munich-Salzburg, OBB for Salzburg-Bolzano and Trenitalia/Italo for Italy.

I suspect you may need to retrace from Merano to Bolzano for Naples - its a very long journey, few direct connections, several others involving changes. Do note Italo (privately owned) also operates this route, and is sometimes very competitively priced (especially if you are able to commit to non refundable, non cancellable fares).

Be very careful with station names as some cities have multiple stations eg Munich HBF, Salzburg HBF being the main ones in those cities.

Moderators, as this is a routine post, you could remove the (likely erroneous) Trip Report tag, thanks.

Trip Report flag removed and three country tags added

For Munich to Salzburg your best bet is the Bayern Pass - good for up to five people traveling together. Just be sure to write the name of all travelers on the back of the ticket. Can be purchased from a ticket machine in Munich, easy peasy. Can probably also buy online.

This ticket covers travel on a day of your choice from 9:00 am to 3:00 am the following day.
On weekends, public holidays (including Assumption Day) and on 24 and 31 December from midnight to 3 am the following day. And yes, it's good as far as Salzburg.

https://int.bahn.de/en/offers/region...ticket-bavaria

Thanks
 

Thanks everyone, you have been really helpful.

Fastst direct trains Bolzano/Bozen - Napoli Centrale:
Bozen dp 14.42 - Naaples ar 21.23, web fares start at 35 EUR/pax (Italo)
Bozen dp 15.12 - Naples ar 21.33, web farres start at 77 EUR/pax (Trenitalia)

Overnight train solution:
Bozen dp 19.31 - Bologna ar 22.11, change to overnight train and travel in 2pax compartment in sleping car to Salerno ar 6.13, change to Intercity dp 6.36 - Naples ar 7.18, web fares start at 150 EUR/pax