Below is my itinerary In France, I am only traveling to Normandy, Versailles and then to Cologne, Germany. If I use my Eurail Pass, I would need to pay an extra fee for "long distance trains." Would Normandy be considered long distance? Also, I cant even book an online reservation to Cologne using my pass, but I heard the fees are expensive. Should I just get a Eurail Pass without France? THANKS! Fri May 18 7:07am – 9:29am Train: Paris St Lazare -> Carentan 6:58pm – 8:45pm Train: Caen -> Paris Sun May 20 8:20am – 8:57am Train: Paris St Lazare-> Versailles Rive Droite 4:19pm – 4:53pm Train: Versailles Rive Droite -> Paris St Lazare Mon May 21 5:58pm – 9:15pm Train: Paris Nord -> Cologne Tue May 22 6:55am – 8:58am Train: Cologne -> Bingen 6:10pm – 9:05pm Train: Koblenz -> Cologne 11:46pm – 7:10am Train: Cologne -> Munich (OVERNIGHT) Wed May 23 11:46pm – 7:10am Train: Cologne -> Munich (OVERNIGHT) Thu May 24 6:26am – 8:55am Train: Munich -> Füssen 6:06pm – 8:41pm Train: Füssen -> Munich Fri May 25 8:28am – 8:39am Train: Munich -> Dachau 5:49pm – 8:11pm Train: Dachau -> Munich 6:47pm – 8:42pm Train: Munich -> Salzburg Mon May 28 12:22pm – 6:25pm Train: Salzburg -> Venice 8:09pm – 6:38am Train: Salburg -> Venice (OVERNIGHT) Tue May 29 8:09pm – 6:38am Train: Salburg -> Venice (OVERNIGHT)
Posted by
Knoxville, TN, USA
7209 posts
Instead of omitting France from your Eurail Pass why not just eliminate the Eurail Pass altogether. Buy point to point tickets instead. Paris - > Carenton and Caen back to Paris should be fairly inexpensive as is your travel to Versailles. Munich/Dachau/Salzburg can be navigated dirt cheap with a Bavaraian Pass. I would investigate flying from Munich to Venice. Look at AirBerlin, AirDolomiti, Vueling for flights from Munich to Venice. Check on www.kayak.com for flights also.
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19274 posts
You don't even need a Bayern-Ticket to get to Dachau. It's a suburb and in the Munich metro (MVV) district. You will need a "Muenchen XXL Tageskarte" (day ticket), either Single (for €7,50) or Partner (for up to 5 P for €13,10). The Innenraum (inner zone) Tageskarte includes virtually everything anyone want to see in Munich EXCEPT Dachau, which is in the second zone. Munich XXL tickets include the inner two zones. To get to Dachau, you take the S-Bahn (S2) to Dachau station, then the bus to the Memorial. A rail pass can be used on the S-Bahn but not on the bus. In addition to Salzburg, the Bayern-Ticket is a good way to get to Füssen and the castles, except that it can't be used before 9 AM workdays (which May 24 is). It's still a less expensive way to get back to Munich.
Posted by
Minneapolis, MN, USA
8700 posts
The standard 2nd class fare for Paris-Caranten is €41.90. If you book right now at tgv-europe.com, you still can get a €15.00 Prems fare. To keep the site in English, say that you live in Great Britain and don't let yourself be redirected to Rail Europe, either the US or the UK site. Choose France as your ticket retrieval country. Print your own ticket. Do the same for Caen-Paris and you can get a Prems fare of €20.00. (The allotted number of €15.00 Prems tickets are gone for that departure time.) A pass probably would be good on the regional train to Versailles-Rive Droite. However, a ticket from anywhere in central Paris on the metro and RER C to Versailles-Rive Gauche only costs €3.25 each way. Versailles RG is the closest station to the chateau. You will be taking a Thalys train from Paris to Cologne. The standard 2nd class fare is €79.00. On Thalys trains passholders must buy a special ticket, not a simple seat reservation. That ticket starts at €36.00 and can be higher. Thalys limits the number of seats it allocates to passholders so you would have to buy a full fare ticket if all passholder seats are gone.