help...urgent

We were in Nice over New Years about five years. It was over run by Italians. It was the wildest New Year Eve celebration I have ever seen. Nothing in the US will exceed that night.

Why not rent a car with a GPS. and drive towards Paris? What a rare treat to go at you own speed and stop for the nite? Ask someone where you are now how far to go in say 6 hours and set your GPS and go . You can drop the car off at Orly and take a cab to your hotel. Hertz is reasonable this time of year. You will have to stop 4 or 5 nites, but that might be fun. Ask the people where you stay how far to go for the next nite.

Can you Fly to Paris. Much less than 250EU.

We aren't adverse to trains, just don't want to go too far out of the way. We checked planes to Paris and couldn't find anything less than 600E at this late date... What we want is a recommendation of a place to go, something in the general direction of Paris (from Milan) that would be nice for a few days, until we could get to Paris. You think Bellagio would be cold and/or closed?
Gay

Does anyone know what Monaco or Nice is like in the winter? Normally, neither would be on my agenda, but we're hoping without summer tourists they might not be bad?
Gay

Are you that blocked out on trains or is it just a direct Milan-Paris route? Especially holding a rail pass, I'd think you have options. One would be to train from Milan to Nice through Genoa. If you like Nice, stay there. But from there you can get to Paris through Marseilles and on the TGV.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your problem.

Am I mistaken or is Chiavari in the Provence of Genoa in the Region of Liguria and not east of Milan. It's just northwest of the CT. On the Trenitalia site, all I see are IC and ICPlus trains leaving the region. The ICPlus requires seat reservations and may be full. If I am correct, you can hop onto any regional train without a seat reservation and stand if there are no seats (they do it all summer in the CT). You can't reserve a seat on an R train so buy a ticket and just get on. It's just over an hour ride to Genoa so standing up is not too bad. Besides, people get off and on at each stop so seats should open up during the journey. Once in Genoa, you can do the same thing to get to Ventemiglia at the northwestern border of Italy. At Ventemiglia, you are now less than an hour train ride on another regional train to Nice.

I would suggest beginning your creeping journey towards Paris and enjoy whatever beholds you on the way. It could be most memorable.

Have you checked with the discount airlines.
Check Germanwings.com. You could take a train to Stuttgart and fly into Paris leaving Wed night Dec 26 for 59 Euro.
http://www.germanwings.com/skysales/Select.aspx

Easy Jet has flights from Milan to Paris on Wed 12-26 ranging from 148.99 to 207.99 Euro.

http://www.germanwings.com/skysales/Select.aspx

Sorry about the last link. Posted Germanwings in error. It should have been the following for Easyjet.

http://www.easyjet.com/en/book/step1.asp

Looks like the first link for Germanwings may not come up to page for the price I mentioned. You can go to the germanwings.com web site and check for flights. They do not fly from Milan to Paris but they do have a flight from Milan to Cologne leaving Wednesday 12-26 at 8:55 arriving at 10:15. They have a flight from Cologne to Paris leaving that afternoon at 19:00 arriving in Paris at 20:05.
The rates I see right now are 49 euro per person from Milan to Cologne and also 49 euro per person from Cologne to Paris.

I have never flown with them but it may be an option you want to consider.
Good luck.

Live and learn. Eurail used to be great. Now it's a mess. I saved nothing. Thank you all for your assistance. I felt less abandoned in a foreign country with your help.
Gay

Wow, you are all so nice! We are indeed just east of Genoa, staying with family in Calvari. We intended to take a train from Genoa via Milan to Paris, and spend New Years there. But all the trains from Milan to Paris are full so they aren't taking my Eurail pass and, even if we pay (250 Euro per person) the trains are full until after the new year.

What we need is a way to get to Paris from the Genoa area, using our Eurail passes for as much of the trip as possible or, if paying, going as cheaply as possible. We want to travel arrive Friday, but Thursday, Saturday or Sunday are also options at this point.

I will check some small airlines. We are also considering getting to Nice and then crossing our fingers from there. Other suggestions would be very welcome.

Gay

By the way, we can't rent a car because we conveniently left our drivers licenses home... I wish I just knew someone who would like to take a road trip to Paris and have a few Americans buy the gas...
Gay

Have you tried getting the tickets without the passes? We had to take tickets without seats yesterday from Milan to Rome. We sat in unused seats for most of the trip. I only had to stand for 1:30 of the trip. Perhaps you could get this arrangement for a portion of the trip that you are having issues travelling to and then go the rest on your pass.

The train from Milan to Paris says "reservations required." I thought that meant you couldn't just get on board and stand? We tried to buy tickets without using our Eurail passes, and they wanted 250 Euros, but even then we couldn't get seats until after Jan. 1. Do you know something about how to work this system that I don't?
Gay

Go back to Larry's advice from 12/24. In your original question, you misspelled the name of the town you are in, which led to confusion. Once you are in Genoa, take a train to Ventimiglia. From Ventimiglia there are frequent 1-hr trains to Nice run by the French rail line (SNCF, I think). From Nice get to Marseilles or Avignon or Arles or Aix. Other than Eurostar trains, I think you can board the train with your railpasses without reservations. If there are no seats, you may hang out in the dining car or stand. There are little fold-down "jump-seats" in the isles of many trains for overflow seating. You have discovered why advance reservations are helpful during holiday times. I had this problem around Easter earlier this year and had to travel on a day othere than the preferred day. Good luck.

Thank you all so much. I finally just bit the bullet and bought two expensive/cheap Ryan Air tickets from Pisa to Paris. I will never again travel with Eurail and without reservations in advance, and I will spread the word.
Gay

Gay, it's unfortunate that you chose to travel during the busiest time of the year. It's not like that during the rest of the year except maybe Easter. I did this during the Christmas season many years ago in Mexico and could not fly out of the country until Jan 5. And even then, I could only fly to Houston when I needed to go to Californnia. Again, it's just not like this during the rest of the year. Also, I'm not that impressed with the Eurail pass. I'm a point-to-point person.

As I said earlier, all during the summer in the CT, you just cram onto the R train between the towns just like you would on the MAX light rail system in Portland.

As a side note, the ES, EC, EN, CIS, ICPlus and a few other faster trains all require seat reservations and thus you cannot stand. The regional trains (R and IR) do not permit reservations and thus you can get on and stand.

Gay, sorry to hear that you've had so much difficulty with the trains in Italy. I wonder if this is due to the holiday season? So far (with the exception of a few minor problems), I've found the Eurail system to be great, and often the best and most efficient way to get around Europe. Glad to hear you've got it sorted now!

Best wishes of the season and hope you have a great time during the remainder of your holiday!

i seem to recall in RS' book that the eurail pass wasn't such a hot deal..[i tore the book up when i went to italy, pulling out only the sections for the cities i visited..]..point to point worked fine..then again, i didn't leave for another country..

We had lots of problems with Eurail. The travel agent in the US said we could save money if we made our reservations in Europe rather than from the US, so I waited, but it is difficunt or impossible to make reservations across countries. For example, we could make reservations in Germany to get to Prague, but we couldn't make reservations from Milan to Paris until we were actually in Italy, so we were late and the train was full. And each time we made reservations, we paid 3 to 10 Euros per person. Also, we ended up having to buy plane tickets to get to Paris at all (and avoid a penalty for canceling our hotel reservation), and that cost extra.

I would do two things differently next time: no travel around holidays (it is as bad as in the US, and worse than summer time), and buy train tickets point-by-point. Eurail did not save us anything and, because of the problem getting to Paris, we ended up paying more overall.

Thanks again to all of you for your suggestions.

Gay