I need help here - just bought a France/Italy Eurail pass.
Now it won't let me reserve, on all the lines I need to travel on!
So, what do I do?
Just show up at a station and HOPE I get on the train I want????
This feels like I've just spent $300 on something useless,
Please advise.
What trips are you trying to make? A little more information is needed.
Donna
I'm trying to get from Venice to the Avignon area in one day. The times on the Eurail map indicate that this is possible.
But, on the website, there is no hope of making reservations on the RESERVATION ONLY lines,
eg. Venice to Milan/Nice etc.
So what do I do? Just show up and HOPE??
And when do you want to travel?
april 14th - but it's NO GO with any reservations?
any advice?
Worst comes to worst, you can travel using all regional trains. Look the route up on www.bahn.com and check local transport only. I see a 5 changer that will get you there in 12 hours. None of these trains require reservations.
That all sounds good - can you let me see where I'd travel?
My pass doesn't go thru Germany though.
I haven't used Eurailpass on Trenitalia, but I can see there are available seats on April 14 from Venezia to Nice Ville. Nice to Avignon would be SNCF, which may be more limited in pass reservations -- maybe you could use local trains for the last part.
but the raileurope site won't let me make reservations on the Venezia - Nice segment? so what do I do?
Venezia Santa Lucia Tu, 14.04.15 dep 06:42 R 2225 Regionalzug
Bologna Centrale Tu, 14.04.15 arr 08:40
Transfer time 48 min.
Bologna Centrale Tu, 14.04.15 dep 09:28 R 2064 Regionalzug
Piacenza Tu, 14.04.15 arr 11:05
Transfer time 10 min.
Piacenza Tu, 14.04.15 dep 11:15 R 2076 Regionalzug
Voghera Tu, 14.04.15 arr 11:55
Transfer time 1:19 h
Voghera Tu, 14.04.15 dep 13:14 R 2185 Regionalzug
Genova Piazza Principe Tu, 14.04.15 arr 14:14
Transfer time 39 min.
Genova Piazza Principe Tu, 14.04.15 dep 14:53 R 11290 Regionalzug
Ventimiglia Tu, 14.04.15 arr 17:31
Transfer time 27 min.
Ventimiglia Tu, 14.04.15 dep 17:58 RE 86048 Regional-Express
Nice Ville Tu, 14.04.15 arr 18:41
Lindi, not sure where you're trying to make the reservations but when I go on the Raileurope site it looks like Venice, Italy to Nice, France on April 14 has reservations available for about $64.
Maybe someone at Rick Steves office could clarify ?? Try calling -- particularly if you bought the pass through them.
Thank you all for your help - I will work on this again tomorrow.
I appreciate each message.
After you identify a nice train schedule using DB, then it works better at RE to break up the trip into the separate chunks that require reservations and enter each one individually into the shopping cart, such as Venice-Milan, Milan-Nice, and Nice-Avignon (but not any regional, unreserved trains that sometimes appear in the mix).
Italian trains don't particularly limit the number of rail pass travelers on board, but the reserved French trains do. For April 14, it will be important to get the Nice-Avignon reservation online now, e.g. for the 16:04 departure, and I see that they are available, at least in 2nd class. Italian reservations can be purchased at a train station or travel agency there, if necessary.
