GUIDANCE FOR CORRECT EURO RAIL PASS FOR 11 PEOPLE

I think you are planning a little bit too much sightseeing into your days. For example:

You are reaching Paris airport in the evening and departing to go to Brussels. This means you will see nothing of Brussels until basically the morning of the 28th. Then you have planned to go to Rotterdam, the Hague, Antwerp, and Brussels in 2 days as you are leaving on the 30th to go to Interlaken. You have 3 different places picked out for Switzerland to see in 2 days since you leave on the 3rd. You have 4 cities planned in Italy in just 4 days without considering any travel time whatsoever.
You have one day only scheduled for Paris, the 8th, as you leave on the 9th.

You pretty much just have 11 days in which you are planning on seeing France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy. You have included Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Rotterdam, the Hague, Antwerp, Interlaken, Lake Lucerne, Zurich, Venice, Florence, Pisa, and Rome. That is 13 cities in 5 countries in 11 days. You might want to rethink this schedule. You have not even figured travel times. How are you going to all these various cities in all of these countries?

Swarjit, it looks like you are planning a wonderful trip. You will be seeing many sights and many countries in 2 weeks.

Just a thought to make sure that you are aware that most countries charge supplemental and/or seat reservation fees for Eurail pass holders. Here are some notes on what to expect. 1) For your journey from Paris to Brussels, expect an extra fee of at least 26E per person on the Thalys train.

2)From Interlaken into the Lauterbrunnen Valley and up to the Jungfrau, your Eurail passes will only cover 25% of the fares. Expect that your round trip fare from Lauterbrunnen to the Jungfraujoch with a Eurail pass will be about 6,500INR (Indian Rupee) per person. Your Eurail pass should cover your fares on most of the other Swiss trains.

3) In Italy, you will pay an extra seat reservation fee for all high-speed trains. This includes the ICPlus and Eurostar-class trains. It does vary between train classes. You can ride the slower Regionale trains at no extra cost. For the Eurostar trains, it's 15E-20E extra. The basic Eurostar Italia is 15E. The Eurostar Alta Velocita is 20E.

4) France will charge you about 3E extra to ride the TGV trains.

You don't need a railpass for Italy. It's more expensive and its not as convenient on the high-speed trains as you might think. You can't just hop on the train. You could get advance seat reservations online at www.raileurope.com or www.euraide.com if you know your precise date and time of travel. If not, you will have to stand in line or use the automated ticket machine.

Enter your itinerary, as much as you know it, into http://railsaver.com . Select "If railpasses provide the best combination of convenience and price" or "Only if railpasses save me money" depending on whether you value the convenience of not having to buy indiviual tickets.

The precise fares are dated but in my experience it does a great job of recommending the precise set of railpasses and/or point-to-point tickets to best accomplish a given itinerary.

I spent quite some time before a couple of trips to determine which passes to buy, and railsaver came to the same conclusion as mine in a couple of minutes.

Jo is right. This schedule is so rushed you will not have time to see anything.

You need to sit down with a good rail schedule and see how long it takes to get everywhere.

Even the fastest tours out there, with a coach going from place to place, don't try to do this much in 11/12 days.