Eloise

My suggestion would be either to follow GeoffHamer's advice and take a ferry to Italy or to fly with a discount airline to Venice. A day or two in Venice or Barcelona before or after making connections does not seem a great hardship to me, and it would certainly be more relaxing, and probably cheaper, than driving 1,300 km.

Eloise

P.S. Some discount airlines have fairly restricted baggage allowances. Since people tendf to take lots of baggage on cruises, you should look into possible overweight charges on the discount airlines before deciding to fly or ferry to Italy.

caudel

We are going on a cruise the round trips to barcelona and want to go back to Rome for a week. Our flight from Seattle to Barcelona and return from Rome was $1100 per person. The cruise line cost round trip from Barcelona was more expensive.

stardust

Bluemoose56,

I'd also take a roundtrip to either Barcelona or Venice, a budget flight in between those two, and enjoy both cities for a couple of days longer!

Otherwise, it'll be a nice drive, passing by plenty of interesting places: Girona, Figueres, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Cannes, Nice, Monaco, Genova, Milan, Verona and Padova. Could make a great vacation on its own. But be aware of high drop-off rates if you want to leave the car in another country!

Avoid the train at all means, there are no decent and straight lines and it'll be a looooong journey.