we purchased global eurorail passes. at some point we will be going from milan to venice, eurail wanted $25 extra
per seat to reserve a seat. there are 4 of us. has
anyone gone this route on a slower train. i do know there
are several trains that leave each day from milan to venice. after paying for the global passes i hate to fork
out extra money. after all its only 175 miles.
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
One of the great surprises that most purchasers of the Eurail pass learn after they buy it is that it doesn't cover everything. There are pages on the Eurail website that tell you all of the trains in the different countries that charge either seat reservation fees or supplemental fees on top of the Eurail pass but they don't seem to make the effort to direct you to them. Most countries charge extra to ride their premium trains. Italy is one of them. If you walk up to the ticket window in Milan, its an extra 15E-20E to ride the Eurostar-class trains. You can ride the ICPlus trains for a 5Euro extra fee. Or, you can ride the local R train for zero extra fee. Of course the R train stops at every stop along the way and takes an extra hour to get to Venice.
Posted by
Ottawa, Ontario,, Canada
521 posts
Hi Labanna,
As Larry said, your pass does not cover the reservation fee. The Eurail pass covers the distance travelled on trains, but it does not cover a seat reservation on any train, anywhere.
Seat reservations are usually optional on trips, but there are some lines that mandate a reservation fee. For example, night trains always require the reservation fee. Realistically, the reservation fees on these trains are actually intended to be a supplemental charge to get a more "premium" level of service than a standard train ride. Many routes can be travelled by more than one type of train, so the reservation fee is required for the more "premium" level of train, as Larry also had mentioned.
The problem with the route that you are taking is that it is primarily serviced by the Eurostar Italia (ES), which is the high-speed train of Italy. Despite that, it does not always run high-speed - the route you will be taking will be high-speed for about half the distance. The trains are a higher level of comfort than standard trains, though, including the fact that they actually have working air conditioning.
Although Larry mentioned the possibility of taking a slower regional train route, I have not been able to find any as all the routes found on the Deutsche Bahn website require reservations. Perhaps it is possible if you take multiple trains through small towns, but it appears not to be possible directly.
Posted by
Minneapolis, MN, USA
8700 posts
You are not limited to EuroStar Italia trains for a direct run. If you choose "Only local transport" on bahn.de, you will see that at certain times of the day you can go directly from Milano Lambrate to Venezia Santa Lucia on a regional train. At other times you will need to make a connection in Verona.
The timetables at trenitalia.com also list the direct regional trains.