Denmark/Germany/Austria/Switzerland/France July 2025

Check https://www.seat61.com/ for everything about trains.

Factor in delays on the German railway. On three trips Copenhagen-London I was at least 3 hours delayd each time :-(

Deutsche Bahn (DB) provides a pass specific info page including faq.
https://int.bahn.de/en/offers/passes/eurail-global-pass

"You need a reservation for many European high-speed trains and for all night trains. This means that you cannot travel by train without a reservation.

Please also note that a reservation including surcharge is required for high-speed trains between Germany and France and for Eurocity trains between Munich and destinations in Italy."

Page with links to Eurail Pass Guide: https://int.bahn.de/en/offers/eurail

More detailed info your will find in the Interrail Wiki for Germany.

So, yes to ICE (seat reservation recommended), regional trains and S-Bahn. But not local transport in Berlin such as subway (U-Bahn), trams and buses. Choose day tickets there from BVG. Also app. Do not forget to time stamp paper-based day tickets for validation before first journey of the day.

Heads up: S-Bahn and regional trains are separated train / connection types - both managed and operated by DB. All regional trains are indicated with RB or RE.

Recommendation: use DB Bahnhof website or app for details about every larger train station in Germany: map, track plan, live arivals & departures, info about luggage lockers, ...

Info: In July Switzerland will host Euro2025 women soccer championships (link to dates and cities). Expect well booked destinations.

The stabbing in Hamburg were caused by a woman with psychology disease background (read Hamburg's public media page) and use DeepL for best translation from / to German. In general traveling in Germany is very safe compared to other parts of the world but be aware of tricky pickpockets - they act in teams and are well trained and fast (link to brochure from Berlin PD).

Have a good and safe journey.

For news in English for Germany, try Deutsche Welle.
The attack is not something I would worry about for future train rides. Riding the German trains is a very safe transport option.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-several-injured-in-attack-at-hamburg-train-station/a-72653451

You plan to visit five countries in July. Even for the entire month that is a lot to cover.
We lived in Augsburg, German from 1987 until 1991 and found Germany to be very safe from crime.
However, we went back to do a Danube cruise last Summer and visited Augsburg again. We have a friend that lives in the USA near us that we knew back then. She goes back every year to visit her family. She says that Augsburg and many German cities are not so safe as decades ago. She said it wasn't smart to go out at night in some areas of the city.

Also, we found that the Germany trains don't run on time like they did decades ago. All our trains were somewhat late and we had two trains that were cancelled, almost causing us to miss our river cruise.

France is generally problematic with a Eurailpass. Reservations for long-distance trains are not just necessary but also capped for passholders, so you can't always count on getting a reservation for specific must-travel dates/times on your itinerary.

You mention Berlin... but otherwise your trip description is kind of broad in terms of the trips you are allocating for each country and your actual destinations. We had a Eurailpass in 2024 for a Netherlands/Germany/Austria itinerary. Worked great for our specific destinations and time allocation; the price was competitive with point-to-point ticketing options, and we had scheduling flexibility, with no reservations at all. I was surprised that the pass made € sense - but it did because we had multiple travel days planned within each country for this trip... roughly 3 in each country, I think. If our trip had been "less balanced"... let's say...

• trip #1) Amsterdam only, then train > Germany
  
• trips #2-8) within Germany
• trip # 9 to Salzburg, Austria

...then we'd have ticketed this very differently for sure... a one-country German Rail Pass might have worked well for almost all our long trips. Salzburg is a covered German Rail Pass destination. And we might have added on a DB saver-fare point-to-point ticket to cover the A'dam to Düsseldorf trip through the Netherlands (which adds about €40 each.)

So if your goals are modest outside Germany, this might be a consideration.

Current German Rail Pass pricing

Also... Construction is underway on many German Railways right now, and making connections is now problematic. Used to be no problem when you had a 10-minute layover period between trains. But now, you are as likely to miss such a connection as to make it.

Whenever possible, it's wise to choose DIRECT train trips so that if your train is 15 minutes late, then YOU are only 15 minutes late. If you have a journey with two connections to make, you might end up 2 hours or more after scheduled arrival time.

Let's say your destination after Berlin is Koblenz (where the Moselle River meets the Rhine River... "castle country.") The DB site offers you the fastest trips possible for a given departure period. But some of those options are very undesirable because of the potential for delays... Here's an example from one day in July:

• Leave Berlin in 15:55 > Frankfurt (chg.) > Mainz (chg.) > arrive Koblenz 22:11
• Leave Berlin 16:07 > arrive Koblenz 22:26 (direct train.)

The first journey is faster (by 3 minutes) and you get to Koblenz earlier. But the trip you SHOULD take is the second one. You will probably get there by midnnight on the second one. But the first one could mean arrival in the wee morning hours if you miss one of those changes of train because your train is late! So keep this in mind for your itinerary planning within Germany.