eurail pass...train tickets...itinerary

When, if ever, will you be able to lock down the specific day and time of the trains you want to take for the long-distance travel legs? At this point you would be able to snag tickets at nice, low fares for most if not all of your long (potentially costly) trips. But they would be non-changeable/non-refundable tickets. No sense in risking that until you're solid on the timing of each travel leg.

The more tickets you'd be ready to buy soon, the less likely a rail pass is to pay off. Remember that if a train requires reservations (and many of the trains you'd want to take do require them), you pay extra for those reservations if you're using a rail pass, whereas the ticket prices you find on the internet (like those I show below) have the reservation fees already included. And in France, there's a quota on reservations allowed for pass holders on each train. If you didn't make the reservation early, you might not be able to get on the train you wanted later, despite having a rail pass.

A pass day will cost you a lot more than a local train ticket, so you can probably ignore any trips other than those on which you will be changing hotels--except in Switzerland, where it may be darn expensive just to step on any train.

A definitive decision in your situation requires that you research the cost of each significant travel leg and compare the total for each combination of countries to what a pass would cost covering the appropriate period. Yes, it is work.

For your trip from Barcelona, where are you headed in France? Do you have to go all the way back to Paris?

Here are some quick numbers; remember that I don't have your actual travel dates, and fares can vary, depending on day of week, time of day, and how far in advance you purchase the tickets.

Paris - Lucerne: 118 euros (for late April) to 180 euros (for today). This may well be your most expensive ticket. If you stick to this itinerary, there's a lot of money to be saved by buying this ticket early.

Lucerne - Munich: 30 euros to 80 euros

Munich - Venice: 40 euros to 93 euros. (This route goes through Austria.)

Note: I wonder whether there would be an advantage to traveling Paris-Munich-Lucerne-Venice instead, and buying just a Swiss pass of some type. Don't know what that would do to your travel time.

You mention a lot of travel legs in Italy, but Italian trains generally are not terribly expensive. For example, I found Venice to Monterosso (in the Cinque Terre) ranging from 30 euros to 65 euros; it may go both lower and higher; I only spot-checked. Florence to Rome on the fast trains can be as little as 20 euros if bought well in advance, or 47 euros for the current day. This is why the common advice is not to buy a rail pass for Italy; prices just are not all that high.

Madrid to Barcelona can be as little as about 50 euros for a sane departure time in April-May or over 100 euros if bought at the last minute.

Barcelona-Paris prices range from 49 euros (far in advance) to 184 euros (traveling today). Since this is at the end of your trip, you will probably know soon what day you'll want to travel, allowing you to buy the ticket quickly if you decide you will not be getting a rail pass.

Check Renfe for Spanish ticket prices.

Check Trenitalia for Italian ticket prices. Use Italian city names: Venezia, Monterosso (or other Cinque Terre town, but it won't matter much), Firenze, Roma, and Muenchen for Munich.

Check SNCF for French ticket prices.

Check Deutsche Bahn for German ticket prices.

If you need internal Swiss prices, they are on the SBB website, but you must double them because SBB assumes you have bought the half-price card.

You don't need a Eurail Pass - you just need to buy your point to point tickets and be done with it.

Paris - Lucerne (purchase via www.sbb.ch/en)
Lucerne - Munich (purchase via www.sbb.ch/en)
Munich - Venice (purchase via www.bahn.de)

All of your Italy travels can be purchased www.trenitalia.com and at greatly discounted rates if you book ahead.

While in Madrid purchase your tickets from Barcelona to France.

thanks for the replies so far. yes, i have somewhat set dates already...somewhat...because until i book hotel and train, i'm still open...i spend either 2 or 3 nights in each destination. from barcelona, i will meet up with family in southern france...and most likely travel with them the rest of the way.

i did try to book a "leg" to compare costs but i must have been doing it wrong because it came out to almost half the cost of a eurail pass!!!

also, does the answer change if my group is a family of 5 with 3 kids between 7 to 11?

thanks.

In Switzerland Children 6 to 16 pay half price, under 6 free. The ages in other countries are different, I don't know what the limits are.

I just did I trial booking on the SBB website for Paris to Luzern, for a random date in May (did you choose a date far enough in the future to get the cheap fares?). Depart Paris 10:23, arrive Luzern 15:05. It gave me CHF 77 for an adult.
Or for 2 adults plus children 7, 10 and 11 it gave me CHF 305.50.
Are these the sort of prices you were getting?

It always bears repeating: The basic site for train research is www.seat61.com

The Man in Seat 61 devotes considerable space to the question of rail passes. Even though his site has information about them and the sales agency RailEurope (as does this site, Steves), he is unenthusiastic. Using his suggestions you can sort out the various prices on the different rail systems, which you really should do yourself so you understand where and how you will be travelling.

i actually have looked at that website and have it opened everytime i am planning...and tried my best to follow it but either i am looking to early...or other issues...but wow...what a struggle... :)

I'm very concerned about your plan to spend 2 or 3 nights at each destination. You have a lot of long travel legs and will often be spending the better part of a day just getting to your next hotel, meaning those days aren't very productive from the sightseeing standpoint. (I'll admit that trains going through the Alps are an exception: that's fine sightseeing.) You have nine days like that!

Two nights somewhere is not much more than one day's sightseeing time. Three nights is about two days' sightseeing time. I would go to none of your destinations just to spend two nights there. The only ones where I'd consider a three-night stay are, I suppose, Lucerne, Venice and Cinque Terre. But I wouldn't incur the substantial transportation cost of traversing Switzerland if I only planned to spend three nights there, and in Lucerne. It's an attractive small city, but the usual reason to go to Switzerland is to see more of the mountains. Now, Switzerland is very, very expensive, so that needs to be considered as you are deciding how much time to spend there. There are mountains to be seen in Austria or northern Italy, at much lower cost.

I urge you to cut back the number and geographical extent of your trip so you have enough time to really enjoy each destination. I like Spain; I spent 3 months in Spain in 2016. But I'd cut Madrid and Barcelona out of this trip and redistribute the time so you aren't doing the 100-yard dash through Paris, Switzerland, Munich and Italy.

If you truly have 36 days to do 10 destinations (and I am counting Paris twice), that is 3 1/2 days per destination average, so really not that bad. and I count 7 major train trips. The 7-day Global Pass will be $1168 for the 5 of you, and it will be 1st class all the way. The only leg that does not require reservations is the Luzern-Munich leg. Nonetheless, you might want to buy reservations anyway to keep everyone together and if available, get a family compartment to travel in.
Not sure about all the different reservation costs, but Italy is 10 EUR per seat on the fast Freccia trains. Some will be more, some less, but I think $12 per leg is a reasonable estimate. So that is $60 per leg times 7 legs is $420 to budget for that on top of the rail pass, so that is about $1600.

Now I am not counting CT to Florence as those are generally cheap Regionale tickets you buy day of travel. 53.20 EUR total, not worth using a pass day.

As was said previously, French TGV pass tickets can be rationed per train, so don't have any "must get there by a certain time/day" leaving or going to Paris. You may have to wait a while to get a train with enough pass-holder seats. At least make reservations as early as you can.

I would choose the 7-day Global flexipass that Sam describes, if you don't substitute some flights or delete destinations. Travel from Munich to Venice is via Austria, so that puts you at 5 countries without Spain, or 6 countries with Spain. Of course, a simpler, slow-down solution would be to skip Barcelona and fly from Rome back to Paris. The Global 1st-class pass for 5 days of travel within a month would cost $958 for the family of 5.

Some seat reservations will cost more than $12. Each of our single-country rail travel pages discuss the price range.

• Direct Paris-Switzerland pass holder reservations on TGV Lyria are very expensive, so a way around that expense is to book a domestic TGV from Paris to Strasbourg or Mulhouse for $14, and make one extra connection to reach your Swiss destination. Rail Europe will reflect these options in their reservation search engine.
• For the direct TGV from Barcelona to Paris, seat reservations cost $45 per person in 2nd class or $63 in 1st. There are two direct departures per day. For some reason, trains schedules are not showing the options with a connection, but there is also a direct train from Barcelona to Lyon (reservation $25 or $35) and you can change there to one of the many connections that continue to Paris (with a $14 reservation).

now that i have had a chance to absorb everything that is written above:

-from acraven, if paris to lucerne is about 120, is that for a party of 5 or one person. if one person than 5 people equals 600 and that costs half of the eurail pass already. is that right?
-also, the websites you quoted, is that where you go to buy the train tickets based on where you are departing?

• i just tried to book paris to lucerne through www.sbb.ch for departure 4/23 and it would not go through...says route cannot be processed. also, it shows many possible trains but no price??? Chris F...not sure how you did it. But if cost is $307...and passes are as low as $1000...what do you think?

-but i did manage to "book" the following for 110 (standard) or 35 (special). am i going the right direction?
Luzern - München Hbf
Via Zürich HB
Thu, 26.04.18, 12:10 - 17:47 Hour
Duration: 05:37, 1x Change(s)
Passengers: 1 Adult, 2nd Class

• so far, just based on $307 (paris to lucerne) + 200 (lucerne to munich) is about $500.

• btw, i like the sbb site. i went on the sites suggested by seat61 and either my mind wasn't into it but i just couldn't get it to work.

• as for itinerary, so far, everywhere is 3 nights except for rome and cinque terre. switzerland is expensive so i think i will keep to 3 nights. i have heard so much great things about spain that i really want to go and i checked flights from rome and it was about $30/person. but i can understand the reasoning behind leaving it out...so i either fly from rome to meet family in southern france or from barcelona...not going back straight to paris.

• more questions:

• are there better/cheaper days to travel by train (similar to planes)? if so, i can adjust my itinerary accordingly.

• how do you know what train station to leave from? for example, we are staying with family in Bussy Saint George near Paris. how do we know which train to book to depart/arrive. or you just pick main city and wherever you get off, you find your way to your hotel?

thanks!!!!

This might come in a couple of posts, but to start with your Luzern-Munich example for 4/26:
I get 35 CHF special offer (115 CHF standard) for one adult, but when I put in 2 adults and 3 children ages 7, 9, and 11, the total price is 69 CHF special offer. That is because of discounts available for children and even wife. These tickets are nonrefundable and nonexchangeable and that is the price if you buy today. Who knows what it will be tomorrow. Probably won't change tomorrow, but you can expect that discount to eventual shrink as you get closer to the travel date. The 230 CHF is the standard rate, so looks like the kids travel free on this leg. They must be children or grandchildren of one of the two paying adults.

Also keep in mind that Swiss ticket prices are in Swiss Francs (CHF), pretty close to a US$ right now. French, German, Italian, Spanish tickets are priced in Euros (EUR) where 1 EUR is about 1.23 US$ today. These rates are constantly changing and could be different in the future.

are there better/cheaper days to travel by train (similar to planes)? if so, i can adjust my itinerary accordingly.

Possibly. If it is a holiday, ticket prices get booked up and all the cheap tickets get sold out. Just yesterday, a poster was wondering why Nice to Paris tickets were so expensive on May 21, and they were much cheaper the day before and the day after. Reason: May 21 is a holiday in France and the end of a 3-day weekend. Voila! Everyone has to get back to work on Tuesday. In Italy, morning trains are more expensive generally than late morning and early afternoon. Business people want to get to their meetings first thing, then get a late afternoon train home to be with family. They get reimbursed by their employers, so they don't care what the price is.

Also, on that subject, Italy has a Bimbi Gratis program, kids ride free with their parents when the parents buy full fare tickets on the fast Freccia trains. Also, Saturday is 2 for 1 days on the fast Freccia trains. You still have to buy tickets in advance, but it can be as late as 2 days before your travel date for those deals.

The fares I quoted were for one adult. I didn't try to see what would happen with a family.

The links I provided were to the countries' rail companies. (Italy does have a second one, Italo, that might be worth checking for the major-city routes; it doesn't go to the Cinque Terre.) If you see prices, you can buy there, and that's what I would do unless I had problems getting the purchase to go through. Sometimes foreign websites do not like US credit cards. Calling your card issuer sometimes fixes the problem, but not always. In that case you can try paying with PayPal, or you can buy from trainline.eu. You'd want to be sure you were seeing basically the same price there as on the rail company website. I'm not sure that trainline.eu has all the deals for things like families traveling together, but I believe it does not charge significant extra fees, and I others have reported that it doesn't pick and choose the trains it offers (showing you only the most expensive ones). I haven't used trainline.eu myself, so I cannot vouch for those details.

Rail fares can vary by day (Fridays and Mondays might be costlier than Tuesday-Thursday, but not always). They can certainly vary by time of day. On major business routes (like Barcelona-Madrid), businessmen might really like the trains that depart between 7 and 8 AM, so they might cost more than the 10 AM departures. You just have to check. But until you know your exact travel dates, all you can do is get a ballpark idea.

The main thing is that when tickets first go on sale, there's usually a modest quota of super-low-priced tickets available. There may be a second category of sorta-low-priced tickets. Then there are the full-fare tickets. Folks who have firm plans jump on the super-low-priced tickets right away. When they are all sold, all you have left are sorta-low-priced tickets and full-fare tickets. Eventually, all the sorta-low-priced tickets may be sold, and your goose is cooked. In some countries it's a bit more complicated than that, but you get the idea.

It's the same with flights. The price may be different tomorrow or next week, and it can vary with the departure time. The super-low fares you see do not include the fees for checking a bag (and the carry-on size and weight limits can be shockingly low), making a seat reservation (your family probably wants to sit together), or food. You may be substantially penalized if you arrive at the airport without having checked in online, and I think RyanAir will slap you with a very high extra fee if you don't print out your own boarding passes. And don't forget the cost of getting to and from the airports.

how do you know what train station to leave from? for example, we are staying with family in Bussy Saint George near Paris. how do we know which train to book to depart/arrive. or you just pick main city and wherever you get off, you find your way to your hotel?

In Paris, you don't pick your arrival station, it picks you depending on where you are coming from or going to.
Example: Trains from Lyon, Zurich arrive at Gare de Lyon. Trains from Strasbourg arrive at Gare de L'Est. Trains from Brussels and London arrive at Gare du Nord. Trains from Normandy arrive at Gare St Lazare, Trains from Brittany and Bordeux arrive at Gare Montparnasse.

You get to your final destination from these stations with the RER trains, Metro (subway), bus, or taxi.

I think I know now why people get Eurail passes. There is a lot of ins and outs to scoring cheap point to point tickets. So even if you might get much cheaper tickets individually, there is a lot of work and know how to get those cheap prices. Its kind of like doing your taxes. Learn the ins and outs, or just throw up your hands and pay somebody else to do them for you.

PS Re Paris train stations. Bussy St Georges is linked to Paris by the RER A line. The RER A will take you to Gare de Lyon. At Gare de Lyon, you can change to the RER B line to Gare du Nord. Also from Gare de Lyon, you can change to the Metro No 14 line to Gare St Lazare. To get to Gare Montparnasse and Gare de L'Est, continue on the RER A to Les Halles and change to the No 4 Metro line southbound to Gare Montparnasse, or northbound to Gare de L'Est.

Hi,

On a 36 day trip I use a rail pass, but your trip of 36 days is focused on countries other than Germany. There is a difference. I use a 10 day Pass. Are you under 27? If so, you should get the Youth Pass.

No, don't get a four country pass, not needed, let alone a global Pass since you aren't traveling extensively and widely enough, ie from Spain or Holland to Poland, or from Sweden to Italy. At most, a two country pass with France and another country, even though you are traveling in four countries, is enough.

How you find out from which train station to depart in Paris is by consulting travel books, the Deutsche Bahn website, and take the time needed to transfer from one station to another into consideration.

i just tried to book paris to lucerne through www.sbb.ch for departure 4/23 and it would not go through...says route cannot be processed. also, it shows many possible trains but no price??? Chris F...not sure how you did it. But if cost is $307...and passes are as low as $1000...what do you think?

• If by "4/23" you mean 23rd April, that is too far in the future. Times are fixed up to December 2018, but tickets are only sold ~3 months in advance. That is why I did my query for March.
• I didn't say "$307", I said "CHF 307". SBB quotes prices in Swiss Franks (obviously ☺). SNCF, DB etc. quotes prices in Euros (€). You are going to have to get used to thinking in the local currencies, not "foreign money". And, since you don't say where you live, I have no idea what sort of '$' you are using.
• If the pass works out cheaper for you (including reservation fees), go for it. For most people individual tickets are cheaper.

Yes, it is a little early for getting prices for Paris to Luzern.

One tool to use is the TGV price Calender. It will only give prices for the French Segment, so in your case, Use Paris (all stations) to Basel(CH). The calendar only works for up to 4 passengers, but it will get you the individual prices per category so you can extrapolate from that.

https://en.oui.sncf/en/tgv

Start by clicking on the "Price Calender" button on the right.
Input from Paris (all stations-FR) and Basel(CH) and a date of March 1, and click on the "number of passengers" "+" button until you get to 4 (the maximum), then select the age category for each passenger, in this case 2 at (26-59) and 2 at (4-11). Then click on search.

The result will be the calendar of March with the lowest price available for each day of the month. Generally (but not always) you will see Tuesday is cheaper than a Monday. For instance, you'll see that Monday March 12, the lowest price available is 172 EUR total for the 4 of you, but Tuesday March 13 is 116 EUR for 4. Click on March 13 and it will show all the trains that day and prices. In this case it shows the cheapest train at 116 EUR on the 7:15 am direct train from Gare de Lyon to Basel SBB arriving at 10:26 am. It shows each passenger will pay 29 EUR, so the 5th will also be 29 EUR as well.

Connecting Swiss train to Luzern could be purchase separately paying Swiss prices, which are generally a fixed price, with children paying half the adult price. Once the trains go on sale, you can use this to pick a travel date. Looks like traveling on a Tuesday could be cheaper than traveling on a Monday. Then you can also look at the price on the TGV site all the way to Luzern. They may quote Swiss Supersaver prices for the connecting train.

In Switzerland a Free Swiss Family Card allows ALL of your children < 16 to travel everywhere in Switzerland with their parents for 100% free. That's a real bargain.

But in order to get it, at least one parent has to buy a Half Fare Card at 120 CHF at a minimum.

or a Swiss Transit Pass...

Alternately you can "buy" a Junior Card for 30chf when you get to Switzerland. When you have the Junior Card for your kids < 16 years then they will travel with you 100% free even if the parent only has a point to point ticket.

Since the "Special" advance purchase tickets for Luzern to Munich seem to have the kids riding free, and the Basel-Luzern connection may also be discounted, kids may be riding very cheap.

But it does bring up the subject: What do you plan to do in Luzern? Boat rides on the lake? A ride on the Rigibahn or Mt Pilatus to get mountain top views on a clear day? These are pricey and a Swiss Family card could save serious money.

back again...working on hotels and itinerary...and will have more train questions soon...but onto another tangent...we found some homestays in the florence/pisa/sienna region that we would love to visit but the hosts all suggest having a car. our itinerary will take us from florence to cinque terre...and then the florence region. i don't think a car is recommended near cinque terre. where can we pick up a car to visit the florence region? should we train to florence (from cinque terre) pick up car there to stay at homestay in countryside and visit region...and then return to florence to train to rome? thanks.

hi...looking at tickets again. i am ready to book but exploring the paris to luzern to munich or paris to munich to luzern. this is for late april. please let me know your thoughts on the below.

paris to lucerne - could not book yet...but for late march tickets, it was 340 for family of 5 (3 kids, 11, 9, 7)
paris to munich - half price about 170
luzern to munich or vice versa - about same, averaging 80.

so it seems that paris to munich to lucerne is less expensive? unfortunately, i had reserved hotel for luzern and munich already. if i can change, i may. but can i expect to get cheaper tickets for late april than 340 for paris to luzern?

thanks.

sorry for all the posts...questions come up as looking at train tickets.

more itinerary questions...originally decided on venice to cinque terre to florence region to rome.

should i visit florence before or after cinque terre?
can i do a stopover to pisa between florence and cinque terre or is that a day trip?

also, looking at train tickets within italy on www.italiarail.com. do they usually show all available trains from the beginning or more can be added later. for example, was looking at cinque terre to florence and they only had 4 trains, one in the middle of the night and 3 between 14:00-18:00?

thanks.

I can't address most of your questions, but:

I am not familiar with "Italiarail". I use the Trenitalia site (they run most of the trains in Italy; the other company--running only some express trains--is Italo). Or just for checking schedules I use the Deutsche Bahn.

There are roughly hourly departures from the Cinque Terre to Florence. If you don't see approximately that for your dates, it's just a bit too early. There will be some variation in fares, depending on whether you use an InterCity train for part of the trip. Doing that will save a bit of time but cost you a few euros. As you get closer to your travel date, the fare difference may increase.

On the Trenitalia site, Florence is "Firenze S. M. Novella".

What you are observing on your travel legs into Switzerland may be, basically, that Swiss trains probably cost a lot more per mile/kilometer than trains in France/Germany/Italy, so if you take a path that puts you on a lot of Swiss track, it will cost more. It's important to calculate the cost to get out of Switzerland as well as to get in. (I'm just guessing about this.)

You can get Europa specials on trains into and out of Switzerland. There is one direct train per day to Milan where you can get a connection to Venice. Trenitalia will show this connection, but not all the others that require a short connecting train from Luzern to Arth-Goldau.

ItaliaRail is an American travel agency that sell Trentialia tickets and they have a small commission added to the price. They probably do not show Regionale trains, which have frequent connections between Florence and Cinque Terre towns, many connecting in Pisa, so yes that is an option. Regionale tickets are pretty cheap and always the same price and no reservations. Think commuter trains. You'll see them on the Trenitalia website. Normally you buy these when you want to take one, usually out of a vending machine. If you do buy them in Italy, you must validate them in the stamping machine on the platform before boarding. Big fine if you fail to do this.

help...i am finding inconsistent info for tickets from paris to lucerne on april 23.

these are the sites that have been recommended
www.sbb.ch - don't have tickets available.
www.loco2.com - this site has tickets available but prices range from 300-600. 300 leaves at 11am but i would like to find something that leaves around 10am. should i wait or book before prices go up.
www.trainline.eu - only shows 2 options and one of them is a bus???

am i still booking too early??? are there other sites i should be checking out?

thanks.

When tickets have not been officially released for sale yet by the operator, often the agencies, like Loco2 and trainline, post the current spur of the moment prices, since they have no information on what the advance purchase discount prices will be. They are literally selling tickets they can't get now. Kind of like stock brokers selling futures contracts.

Edit- OK, just got off the SNCF chat line. There will be engineering work on the line between Dijon and Mulhouse, which is on the path the Paris-Basel TGV takes. They are not sure when, or if, trains will run that day. Might be time to look at a plan B, TGV to Strasbourg and change to a TER train to Basel, then change to a Swiss train to Luzern. They are sending me an email of the text of the conversation, which I will post here when I get it.

I am seeing trains listed at https://en.oui.sncf/en/tgv.

They are showing a direct train at 11:45 am for 176 EUR for your family makeup to Basel arriving at 15:26.
You can buy separate tickets from SBB in Switzerland for 116 CHF for your family make up departing Basel SBB at 16:04 and arriving Luzern at 17:05. So the equivalent total in EUR would be 311 EUR to get from Paris to Luzern.

That 176 EUR train is the cheapest option for April 23.

That bus Trainline lists requires a bus change in Strasbourg.

i saw that too...is it risky to wait for a 10am train to be available? also, any reason not to book at raileurope. they actually have a nifty tool that books all trains you need at one time...and compares it to rail prices. they also had the 11am train available for a good price. thanks.

Nothing wrong with Raileurope if you have checked that their prices agree with the prices you see from the actual train operators. Ironically, Raileurope is owned by SNCF, the French railway operator.

Italy (Trenitalia) has incredible family or group deals which are only available on their website. Cheaper tickets always go first so find out the earliest they can be purchased. In my case they always became available 5pm our local time so that worked out great.

They also had other prices even cheaper than the group rate like €9 from Pisa to Rome.

I purchased 8 sets of point-to-point tickets within & between Italy, France, England, Scotland, the Netherlands, and Belgium and it came out to be way cheaper than passes. This was for our family of four. The only downside is the tickets are non-changeable and non-refundable. But that was fine for us as our itinerary was set.

I mainly booke directly on the train website. But it the site proved to be too difficult then I used loco2.