Eurorail pass

Careful, a Eurail pass will cover your travel (or at least most of it) from, say, Paris to Barcelona, but it probably won't cover transport inside the cities. (In Munich, for instance, a Eurail pass will cover the S-Bahn, but not the U-Bahn, trams, or buses.) I will let France experts weigh in here, but in Paris, I believe, only a few RER lines and no Metro lines are covered? If you can spell it correctly, EURAIL, you can get information about pass benefits at www.eurail.com

David: Lee or Tim can analyze exactly which pass would work best...or whether you might be better off, even at this late date, purchasing point to point tickets (I suspect that would be true of Italy, at least). But I need to remind you that you appear to be planning to travel on night trains for the most part, and over the holiday season especially, these may well sell out. You will need to go to a SNCF boutique as soon as you arrive in Paris and get reservations for Paris-Barcelona, Barcelona-Rome (???? You can't do that by direct night train), Venice-Vienna.

Thanks Lee and Roe. Can I reserve trains via DB Bahn website? Roe: Yea, was planning on night trains, but my friend is EU citizen, and his pass don't cover night trains, so we might have to do day trains only.
Barcelona to Rome is about 24 hr trip, does that mean I have to buy tickets to cities in between? (Barcelona --> milan --> Rome perhaps?) Thanks so much for your response.

You can purchase tickets or reserve seats on the Bahn ("DB Bahn" is redundant) website, but usually only for trains that have one end of their route in Germany. You can probably get any ticket/reservations that you could get at a ticket counter in Europe by calling German Rail in Germany. "Barcelona to Rome is about 24 hr trip, does that mean I have to buy tickets to cities in between?" Only if you buy tickets from RailEurope. Again, the Bahn could probably sell you one ticket clear through, but you would have to do it by phone. If you would use a railpass, as long as you leave Barcelona after 7 PM, you can fill in the railpass for the next day, and thus have until midnight the next day - up to 29 hours. Another option, albeit maybe not economical, is to use Euraide, www.euraide.com. They can write you any ticket or reservation that you could get in Europe for European prices. they do, however, charge you a one-time $50 charge for handling and shipping.

Thanks again Lee. What do you mean by "but usually only for trains that have one end of their route in Germany"? Another conflict I have with this trip is that my friend is a EU citizen and already bought his InterRail Global pass 10 day in 22 days (30 countries) already....Is this going to further complicate reserving tickets? I checked www.euraide.com, and it seems a lot of links are not working. but I like the idea of paying $50 (for 2 people as well?) and having all the tickets worked out. Should I call them? "If you would use a railpass, as long as you leave Barcelona after 7 PM, you can fill in the railpass for the next day, and thus have until midnight the next day - up to 29 hours." I think this takes away 2 days right? Once again, thank you so much for your response. It's been a lot of help.

"What do you mean by "but usually only for trains that have one end of their route in Germany"? " I was wondering if anyone was going to ask about that. I was going to omit the "usually", but that wouldn't have been exactly accurate. German Rail sells tickets online, but they apparently try not to compete with other railroads. For instance, you can't buy online from the Bahn a ticket from Paris to Marseille. That's totally in France. But you can buy a ticket from Köln to Hannover to Berlin to Munich online, with any number of stopovers. You could also buy a ticket from Köln to Amsterdam or V-V, as long as the train from the German border to Amsterdam was direct. You could even buy a discounted Europa-Spezial ticket for direct from Köln to Amsterdam. But if the train went from Köln to somewhere in the Netherlands and you changed trains there for another one to Amsterdam, the Bahn would only sell you a ticket to the place in the Netherlands. It wouldn't cover that rail segment entirely in the Netherlands. If the connection went from Köln to Duisburg (Germany) to Amsterdam, that would be OK, because Duisburg to Amsterdam still has one end in Germany.

Also, there is a night train from Munich to Venice. I goes all the way, so you can buy a ticket for that train. However, there are two day trains (EC) from Munich to Rome and Bologna (?) with stops in Verona, and two days trains from Munich to Verona. You can buy tickets for those segments online from the Bahn. However, if you want to go to Venice, you can't get the entire trip, Munich to Venice from the Bahn. You have to get the Verona to Venice segment from Trenitalia. I know that was complicated. I hope I explained it adequately. The reason I qualified that with "usually" is that the Bahn has some kind of deal with Swiss Rail. You can purchase a ticket from Munich to Interlaken, with a change of trains in Zürich, even though the Zürich to Interlaken leg is entirely outside Germany.

As for your friend's conflict, I don't live in Europe so I have never delved into details of the InterRail pass. Sorry. Euraide changed servers a few years ago, and lost a lot of webpages in the process. They've been promising for several years to fix it, but I'm not holding my breath. However, even with all the missing pages, they only showed prices. Even then you had to call or FAX your order to them. Their phone number is on the website. Call them. If you board a night train that leaves after 7 PM, and you are on it until after 4 AM, you only have to fill in the 2nd day on your railpass, and you can use it for travel the entire 2nd day. This is called the 7 PM rule. But it only counts for the night train forward. It's too bad you can't use trains leading up to the night train and only fill in the first day.

You should verify your belief that the InterRail pass does not cover night trains. First, no rail pass is going to entirely cover a night train. A rail pass covers only the rail part. You still have to pay extra for the accommodations (sleeper, couchette, reclining seat, whatever). Along with paying the accommodation surcharge, you get a reservation for the accommodation, so the accommodation purchase is often referred to as a "reservation". When I go to the Bahn page for purchasing tickets or reservations for a night train, CityNightLine specifically, it gives me a table of fares for the complete rail and accommodation parts. Then, at the bottom is a link to "Book only extra charge". The next page gives you four examples of the rail part being covered and only needing to book the accommodation part. One of these is "Pass offer (InterRail, Eurail, Other)". That would imply that the InterRail pass would cover the rail section of the ticket. Unfortunately, it also indicates that if you have two different types of rail coverage, you can't do the accommodation purchase online. That's kind of vague. I'm not sure if that means something like a rail pass and a Bahn card, or two kinds of rail passes. A Eurail pass and an InterRail pass, would still only need one "radio button", so that might be OK. It gives you the standard German Rail number, 1805 14 15 14, to call in Germany.

Thank you so much Lee. I think my friend and I are gonna by tickets first thing we get to each city. Another Question, So if I'm starting in Paris (flying to Paris) then taking the train to Spain to Italy to Austria, then to Czech Republic,
do I need to get 5 country pass or 4 country pass? In other words, do I need to count France as my country of destination?

You're going to travel from Paris to the French-Spanish border? You're traveling through France, of course you need to include it as a country. Italy to Austria. If you go from Innsbruck to Salzburg through Germany on an Austrian train (ÖEC) that does not stop anywhere in Germany, you don't need Germany as a country. However, if you pick any train that stops in Germany (eg, Rosenheim), then you will need a ticket for Germany or a pass that includes Germany.