Rail tickets

Nazima, if you are willing to accept non-refundable and non-exchangeable tickets, you can get some very nice discounted fares by buying up to 90 days out. For example, on the official French train website www.tgv-europe.com, I can see Paris/Strasbourg fares as low as 30Euro. You can buy the TGV runs right now and print out the tickets at home moments after the purchase. For Strasbourg/Zurich, I don't see any special fares. About 50Euro for the trip. You can buy these tickets on the French train website but you won't be able to print these out at home. For this particular run, you begin with a regional train to Basel and then change to a Swiss IC train to Lucerne. You could by this ticket from the Swiss at their official train website www.sbb.ch. Same with your tickets from Lucerne to Florence. This is a 7.0hr train ride with 1-2 train changes depending on the run. I do see special fares of 88CHF on the Swiss train website. Regular fare is 143CHF. Finally, Florence to Rome. You can easily purchase tickets on the official Italian train website www.trenitalia.com for this run. 55 trains a day so you have quite a choice. Special fares begin as low as 19Euro. Regular fare is 45Euro. You can print these tickets out at home moments after the approved purchase. All of these fares are limited. They do disappear quickly. The important thing to do now is to know where you will be staying every night and to plan which days you will be traveling on the train.

I'm not saying not to use tgv-europe, but you might want to check other websites and compare the prices. Specifically, for Paris to Strasbourg, the German Rail (Bahn) website will sell you an advance purchase, Europa-Spezial ticket for as low as 39€/P for the TGV from Paris to Karlsruhe. That train stops in Strasbourg and, even though your ticket is to Karlsruhe, no one will prevent you from getting off in Strasbourg. Similarly, from Strasbourg to Zürich, the Bahn has Europa-Spezial tickets as low as 19€ from Kehl to Zürich. Kehl is just across the Rhein from Strasbourg. The ticket starts with a regional train from Kehl to Offenburg, then express trains, including a direct ICE, from there to Zürich. You buy a local ticket from Strasbourg to Kehl (3,90€) and get on the train to Offenburg. After Kehl you use your Europa-Spezial ticket, then change to the express train in Offenburg. Both these tickets from the Bahn allow home printout.