Seeing as flights from Cincinnati to Munich are now about $400, my wife and would like to take a week-long trip, starting in Munich and ending in Rome. I always drive when we go to Europe, but also always pick up/drop off in Germany. This time we can't do that if we go to Rome.

Should we take a train or drive? Thoughts?

Also, is that trip too aggressive for one week?

Train for sure...you couldn't get me drunk enough to drive in Rome. We have driven all over Europe but Rome is ...well ...nuts for driving!!!

The car drop charge would be big--perhaps 300E or more. Look at flight options at www.whichbudget.com Yes, too aggressive unless you fly to Rome.

I know there is a directly flight from Munich to Genoa (GOA airport), and there must be others within Italy. Flying has got to be cheaper and more realistic for a week's journey than what you are contemplating.

PS: Are you looking at other configurations? I can fly to NYC round trip at the moment for $415. (I live in Italy.) I can do that out of Genoa or Pisa.

never thought about flights ... we were hoping to go from Munich to Hall in Tirol to Cortina d'Ampezzo to Assisi to Rome ... crazy ambitious ... so flying would sadly skip all of that beauty.

It's one thing to drive straight from Munich to Rome (don't - that's what we got planes for here), or if your want to use the car for a leisure trip with many stops and overnights in between.
If the drop charge for a cross-border one-way rental seems to high, you could also take the train from Munich to, for example, Bozen and start your road trip in Italy/South Tyrol.
You might just have to juggle around the different costs for renting the car, fees, and train rides.

Fly RT to /from Munich and forget Rome. See salzburg, Bavarian castles, Dolomites etc. and save a ton of money.

What month is this trip??

I really have to go with too aggressive of a trip. Yes you can do it, but you won't get as much pleasure from your trip and your memories will fade quickly. I have to go with quality on this one. Think of it this way. It would be an average of six, one hundred mile trips in a row. One a day. I couldn't face that. But I will admit we did a four hundred mile trip from Munich to the Dolomites and back once. We left Munich with a general plan to drive south. And south we went, almost all the way to Bolzano. We arrived back at our hotel in Munich at 3am. I don't recommend this kind of trip to anyone.

We did Munich to Rome over THREE weeks in a car and it was great. Not toally sure what you intend: flying into Munich and driving like mad to spend the rest of your time in Rome or flying in to Munich and meandering your way through Italy over the next week? To the best of my recollection (and there was lots of meandering) - Munich to Venice is a full day (6 to 8 hours); Venice to Florence was 3-4 hours; then we hung out in Tuscany for about a week so I don't know times/distances; Tuscany to Orvieto was a couple of hours and Orvieto to Rome was a couple of hours.

It's doable but likely not relaxing.