I’d either suck it up and do that early morning flight so you have the full day in Paris or do the overnight train. Since you’re young the train isn’t that bad – a little over 12 hours total with a change in Milan. We’re getting spoiled with these cheap flights. Way back in ancient times, the late 90’s, when I did my first backpacking trip there were no cheap flights, and you did 16 hour train rides with three changes (compulsory that at least one be between 1:00 and 4:00 a.m.) and you liked it!

I’d do the early morning flight too- It won’t really be that bad. Your only difficulty might be getting to the airport in Rome early enough for the flight (for a 6:45 flight, I’d say by 5:15-5:30). If your flight is flying from Ciampino, I’m not sure how to get there with night bus services (or if they exist). When I had a 6:30am flight to Venice, I took a cab to the airport, but I was also with 3 other people so it wasn’t expensive for me. So that is just something to think about when figuring in costs and stuff. I still feel like it is worth it because you’ll be getting to Paris with the whole day in front of you and it’s still a significantly shorter travel time. You’ll also be more rested having slept in your hotel and getting up early (unless you’re one of the lucky people that can sleep on trains, etc!)

For bags, I would look at the requirements and then using a scale, fill your backpacks/bags and see how heavy they are. I agree, it’s hard to get a sense of how heavy it’s allowed to be. For my RyanAir flight, I carried my backpack on and didn’t check a bag. It was only a 4 day trip though so I didn’t have to bring a ton of stuff. (and this wasn’t a super big backpacking type backpack. it was just bigger than a regular school backpack). I may be wrong, but your backpack shouldn’t weigh more than 33 lbs.

In addition to baggage costs and airline fees, also consider costs and times getting to/from airports that each airline uses. There are 3 main airports for Paris (CDG, ORY, and BVA) and 2 from Rome (FCO and CIA).

Ryanair flights arrive to Beauvais Airport. There is a bus to central Paris that costs 14 EUR and is scheduled to take 1 hour, 15 minutes.

If Easyjet times work for you, then it flies between the best airport pair in this case—Ciampino to Orly.

Weigh yourself with and without all your stuff on a bathroom scale to see how much your stuff weighs. 33lbs is do-able in summer if you pack smart. Shoes are heavy! Take only what you need (like 1 pr sandals and 1 pr shoes for walking, for ex). Of course take trial sized toiletries, and just don’t overpack. If you’re not sure you’ll use it a lot, then leave it behind!

The Ryanair flight does not get you to Paris, but to Beauvais, which is a significant coach ride away to the Paris outskirts. I wouldn’t really expect to be running around Paris until at least 11 AM. Still, if you can arrange transport to the Rome airport in the morning (the Terravision airport bus might be one option in Rome, and I think there may be one around 4 AM), and the coach connections at Beauvais work (which they should), the early start should not be a problem. I used to dread early morning flights, but now I just accept them if that’s cheapest and most convenient.

One good thing about the rinky-dink airports that Ryanair uses – your luggage tends to arrive almost immediately, and you do not have miles and miles to walk to get out of the airport.

If you take a Ryanair flight, you have to check in online to avoid a huge fee, up to 15 days in advance. If you do not have an EU passport, remember that you must stop by the Ryanair sales desk at the airport for a visa check, so allow time for that. This is a relatively new procedure. Don’t try to get away without this step, even for an intra-Schengen flight, or you will be denied boarding.

I’m not complaining about the early morning flight or the overnight train. I don’t care about having to change trains in the middle of the night, honestly. I view it all as part of the experience and am pretty good natured about these things. I guess, as I start trying to really get things in order, I’m realizing that three weeks is such a short amount of time! and I am grudging giving up too much of my time to long train rides. (BTW, I would stay longer if I could and haven’t completely given up hope for a multi-month Eurotrip along the way.)

When I was looking at overnight trains last night, I thought that I would have to leave Rome at 9pm and still not arrive in Paris until 1:30pm the next day, virtually killing my last day in Europe! But I’ve looked again and if I leave Rome Termini at 8pm, it looks like I can arrive at Paris-Bercy by 8:19.

My other question about the night train is, I thought I read somewhere that as long as you board the train after 7pm and do not change trains until 4am, it only counts as one day’s use. But it seems, no matter what, that I will have to change trains in Milan before 4am. Am I figuring this right?

I keep vacillating between the overnight and the morning flight, especially now that I think I can get to Pars by 8am by train and leave right from Termini. I think it’s the baggage thing that’s getting to me on the flight. Oh, yeah and getting to the station. Yes, I’m a little wary of taxis. I don’t plan on packing a lot. I’m all about the light packing. The bag I plan on taking is my old backpack-style camera bag, so it’s a little heavier and bigger than a school backpack because of the built in padding, but not a lot. The thing is, this flight would be right at the very end of my trip, and while I don’t plan on buying a bunch of stuff while traveling, I imagine I will have picked up a few things, one perhaps being a bottle of wine.

Well, I’ll keep dithering over this for awhile. Thanks, as usual.

Rome and Paris are most popular cities. Both cities are famous for shopping. Also they are famous for religious aspects. The origin of Catholic Church is in Rome. The pop is the head of the church. He is also from Rome. Most of the people in the Rome had a fear to god. So they had a good culture and heritage. Paris is famous for shopping. There are lots of shopping malls are there in Paris.

We stayed in Rome and had an early morning train to get to Naples. Rome is very walkable, so we didn’t have much experience on the buses, but when we needed one it was strangely difficult to buy tickets; we often had to walk quite a ways to find a place that sold tickets. Faced with this difficulty, and the possibility I might take a wrong bus, I opted to take a taxi to Termini. The people at a local cafe recommended a taxi company; I called and the taxi was there very shortly, and got us safely to Termini. I know taxis in some towns are driven recklessly, but that was not our experience in Rome.