Transportation

You may want to consider using air travel to replace the two long train rides. A quick search shows that (for example) you can fly Paris-Zurich connecting in either Dusseldorf or Milan in 6 hours, then a week later fly Zurich-Seville connecting in Barcelona in 4 hours. Both flights together cost about $400.

That said, I normally lean toward and recommend train travel. I typically buy one of the basic Select-Passes, and get 1-2 more days than I think I need. I count any day that I plan a train ride farther than 2 hours. If I'm taking a short hop on a day, I buy that ticket with cash rather than burn a Select-day.

Will you be with someone the entire time? Saver-pass is a no-brainer.

Finally... 3-4 people splitting a car for a week for $500 sounds like a great deal... for the car itself... in general... though I've never rented a car on my trips to Spain, so can't comment on parking there. Do you need the flexibility of getting off the beaten path? If so, with 3-4 people, the car option is probably a very good idea.

To figure out if a pass or if point to point tickets are a better deal, you have to do the legwork. The rail section of this site can help but you'll have to add up the cost of tickets, so you'll have to do that via the Spanish rail site or maybe Deutsch Bahn. You then have to look at the cost of Spanish rail tickets and compare that to the car (with 3-4 people, cars are often very econmicial, unless you're staying mainly in cities where parking is $$). I know, it's a hassle, but it's the only way. And to make matters more confusing don't forget that air travel can sometimes be cheaper than the plane, especially if Ryan Air or Easy Jet are going your way.

IMO, it doesn't make sense to fly from Paris to Zurich. You can take a direct TGV in 4.5 hours. While the standard 2nd class fare is 107 euro, if you book ASAP at www.tgv-europe.com you may still be able to get a Piccolo fare of 53 euro or a Prem's fare of 62 euro. To keep the site in English and to avoid being bumped to the Rail Europe site which doesn't offer discount fares, choose Great Britain as your country of residence and choose to pick up your ticket at any SNCF station or boutique (ticket shop) in France.

Check the Swiss Rail site for point-to-point fares for your short day trips. Compare those fares to the cost of either a Swiss Pass or a Swiss Card. See here.

To travel by train from Zurich to Seville would take 30 hours and would be quite expensive. If you fly Air Berlin (one connection in Palma de Mallorca), you can get a fare as low as 67 euro (plus taxes and fees).

Great post, Tim.

With that info... I now modify my recommendation. The TGV sounds great to Zurich, and Tim's recommendation gets a cheaper flight Zur-Seville than the one I found.

Good stuff --

I was able to get 2 train tickets on that tgv-europe site for 72 euros TOTAL! Awesome advice, thanks so much!