My detail trip of Europe-need help on how to get around..

Other than taking advantage of an advance purchase discount tickets, there is no reason for advance bookings. Overnight sleeper trains are an exception should be booked as earlier as convenient. Discount tickets will be non-refundable so you loose flexibility. If you want flexibility then purchasing point to point the day of or day before will work. Trains rarely if ever fill up. For example, there are 53 trains a day ranging from regional to high speed between Florence and Rome. You could probably book all the trains through Rail Europe but they are a travel agency and mark up the tickets substantially and add service charges. And they do have have all the trains. Only the routes that they have tickets to sell. It is easy to use the trains. What difficulties are you encountering?

I don't know why everyone assumes that sleeper trains go from everywhere to everywhere. There are sleeper trains from Venice to Munich or to Vienna. You'll have to take other transportation from those cities to Prague. You can get discounted tickets for the Venice to Munich portion from the German Rail (Bahn) website or to Vienna from Austrian Rail, www.oebb.at. There are, however, overnight trains from Prague to Amsterdam. With advance reservation from German Rail you could get an economy double sleeper from Prague to Amsterdam for €79/p.

One day in Florence? 1 1/2 days in Prague? Thats a lot of moving around & gets very tiring. Please look at a map- you do a lot of back tracking with this agenda & have way too many cities to enjoy any of them ( imo, that is ).

Winny, As the others have said, your proposed Itinerary is a bit "ambitious", even for a 21-day time frame. In reality you'll only have about 19-days for sightseeing, as you'll lose one day at the beginning and end. As this is your first trip to Europe, it would be a really good idea to read Europe Through The Back Door as that will provide a lot of good information on travelling in Europe (including "Rail Skills"). The country-specific Guidebooks also contain a lot of very useful information on things like Hotels, Restaurants, sightseeing, etc. I'm assuming you've allowed for the day that you'll lose at the beginning, and will be departing on Mar. 27th? You'll arrive in Europe the day after you depart the U.S. Using Railpasses may or may not be the best method in this case. You'll need to do some "number crunching" to determine if a Railpass or P-P tickets will be a better value. Especially in Italy, using a Railpass is often not cost effective. You may wish to download the Free PDF Rail Pass Guide (look in the lower right corner). If you decide to use Railpasses, I'd suggest just buying reservations for your outgoing trips when you arrive in each city (since you'll be at the station anyway). I'd need to spend some time to determine the best method for travel between cities, but one section that stands out is Nice to Florence, which is about an 11-hour trip with about 3 changes. There is a night train departing at 19:43 with only 1 change, but that includes a ~5 hour layover in Milan (not a place I'd want to spend the night). On the Nice - Florence trip, you might consider a budget airline. I believe Air Berlin offers flights on that route, with a travel time of 5H:05M. Good luck with your planning!

I enjoy riding trains in Europe, too, but I cannot get a good night's sleep on a train. I would caution you against planning an entire trip around sleeper trains, in case you find that you (like me) cannot sleep on them. I would recommend skipping Florence (as you have less than a day there anyway) and fly directly from Nice to Rome. There's an EasyJet flight right now for $47, and it takes a little more than an hour. (Check www.skyscanner.com.) Just be sure to be aware of the EasyJet baggage rules. Take a daytime train from Rome to Venice, so you can enjoy the countryside. Buy your ticket in Rome (no advance purchase needed). Fly from Venice to Prague (Skyscanner has flights around $115, and about an hour and 15 minutes). That will give you a little more time in Prague. Then take your overnight train from Prague to Amsterdam. This would simplify your trip and give you more time in your various destinations. You are covering a lot of ground in a very short time, so the short airline trips seem to make a lot of sense to me. Hope you have a great vacation!

Winny, To add to the suggestion made by Charlene, an EasyJet flight from Nice to Rome would be a really good option! The rail trip from Rome to Florence is only about 1H:35M so it wouldn't be difficult to fit in a short visit to see the Museums. The trip from Florence to Venice is also very short. Doing both trips in the daytime would allow you to see some great scenery. Cheers!

Big Thank You to everyone's help on my Europe trip!!! Thanks to Charlene, I decided to skip the Florence. We are going to look at flights from Nice to Rome and Venice to Prague. That makes more sense now and we will have more time to sightseeing. I am going to do point to point train ticket for those short trips. Thanks again!!!
Winny

Not sure if you realize it....but.....trains from Rome to Venice actually stop in Florence. You could too. Rome to Florence is about 90 minutes.
Florence to Venice is about 2 hours.

Winny, I'm going to comment on the Prague-Amsterdam ride. If you want to do this ride at night, I would suggest the CNL connection, especially if you don't want to be bothered with having to transfer trains. I would take this option, if I were to do the night route...no problem there. My second suggestion is if you choose to go by day, then I suggest this route: Prague-Dresden ca. 2+ hrs direct., then Dresden Hbf to Amsterdam, transfering once at Frankfurt.

I suggest you not taking a night train from Praha to Amsterdam but flying instead, and getting a decent sleep in a hotel. Now, I have a suggestions, just in case (because it is your first trip) you didn't notice, or don't know about - otherwise, please, don't take me bad: train searching engines work much better when you use the local name of cities instead of the English one. Ditto for "Googling" information on a city etc. So, when possible, use on your searches Roma, Firenze, Venezia, Praha etc.

10 April is a Tuesday. Wizz Air is a discount airline that has non-stop flights from Venice Treviso to Prague on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Depart at 12:05 and arrive at 13:20. If you book today, you can get a fare of €83.99 (including taxes and fees). I can't guarantee that you will sleep well on a night train, but I'll encourage you to at least consider taking the direct CNL train that leaves Prague at 18:29 and arrives in Amsterdam at 09:59. If you book well in advance (up to 92 days allowed) on the German Rail site, you can get beds in a two-person economy sleeper for €79/person. CNL trains are the best night trains in Europe. However, in the interest of full disclosure, I need to tell you that if you book well in advance, you can fly non-stop from Prague to Amsterdam on easyJet for around $30 US.

I've spent 10 nights on trains, mostly in this country. I used to go coast to coast by train to college, 3 nights per trip, and if I hadn't slept I would have been pretty tired when I arrived. I wasn't. I did have a compartment by myself which helped. BTW, I have never been able to sleep on transatlantic flights where I am sitting upright in a room full of people, but laying down in a compartment by myself is another story. Just saying this because you shouldn't let those who can't sleep on the train convince you that you won't, either. If you can sleep at all on the plane, a train should be no problem. The night train to Munich leaves in early evening and gets into Munich in the morning - mostly "dead" time, anyway. The express Bahn bus from Munich gets into Prague at 12:30. The flight leaves Venice at 12:05 and gets to Prague airport at 13:20, and the designated bus leaves P. de Rome at 9:00. You're probably not going to do a lot of sightseeing in Venice before 9 AM and, by the time you get in from the airport in Prague it's going to be after 2 PM, later than by train/bus. You are not gaining useable time by flying. Also look at Wizz's baggage allowance and charge for check baggage. You can take all you can carry on the train.

Thanks Tim & everyone for the good tips:) 1) I just checked Google maps and Treviso Airport is 45 miles from Venice(canals). What is the best way to get from Venice (canals) to Treviso airport? How much time/euros does it take? 2) I like the idea flying from Prague to Amsterdam, is the airport close to old town Prague? Thanks A lot!!! I feel much better that I don't need to sleep overnight on the train.
Winny

The bus schedule from Venice to Treviso is Here. It's not a periodic schedule; the buses are time for flights. The schedule is to 12/23 and shows the Wizz Air flight to Prague leaving at 11:55. If that flight leaves later in April, the designated bus should leave a little later, also. The one way fare is €7,-. Wizz Air allows one piece of carryon luggage of standard dimensions not exceeding 10kg. Prearranged checked luggage is €15/bag. Information on Prague Airport to town is here

WOW! At first, Thank you very much for Rick's blog. Secondly, thanks to all of your help on my trip. I was so confused and nervous last few days with the train schedule through Europe. I am feeling much better now because I just booked 3 flights, Nice to Rome, Venice to Prague, Prague to Amsterdam. This way will give us two extra days to sightseeing. I wouldn't be able to plan this complicated trip without all your help. Thanks again and I will let everyone know how it goes after I come back from Europe:)
Winny

Good for you, Winny. Sounds like you're feeling more confident now. As several of us mentioned, I hope you checked the baggage allowances for Wizz Air and EasyJet. Carry-ons are very limited, and if you don't pay in advance for your checked luggage, it will cost you a lot more at the airport. Since this is your first trip, you may not be aware of the "packing light" philosophy many of us adhere to. Many of us have found that we can do 3-4 weeks in Europe with just a small suitcase or backpack (carry-on size for US airlines) plus a small daybag/messenger bag-type bag, to carry electronics, cameras, etc. Especially for a trip like yours, where you are doing a lot of moving around, you will be very glad if you keep your luggage to a minimum. You can search this website and find people's packing lists and comments, or read the Rick Steves books. It takes some planning initially, but you will be glad you did. Don't forget to make sure you have an ATM card you can use without extra fees (again, you can search this website for all kinds of info on that). I hope your trip is everything you've dreamed of!

Recommend the Hotel Forte in Rome.

On my first trip I booked all reserved seats on trains. If you need and want to guarantee a seat especially on a lengthy trip - book these. My story is we had seats booked for a 4 hour train ride (one of many I booked) the train was a bit late which is unusual. What happened was the earlier train broke down so those passengers got on "my" train. When it arrived people were packed in like sardines. When we got to our seats someone was sitting in them - flashed our tickets and they had to rightfully move. People were standing in this cramped condition for 4 hours. We were so relieved - worth the extra cost of a reservation for sure.

Winny, you have certainly come to the right place for great advice re travelling to Europe. When you depart the Prague airport there is a shuttle bus you can take to your accommodation. From memory when I was there 7 years ago, I think it was about a 25 minute trip into the city centre.
Another word of advice regarding ATM cards, take more than one for back-up just in case the card doesn't work for some obscure reason.

Hi Everyone: This is Winny and I am back from my Europe trip with my husband:) I want to say A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who helped me to plan our Europe trip. We took 3 local flights with Easy Jet and Wizz. It spared us 3 more days on sight-seeing so it was good to fly instead of overnight train. We only took one taxi ride during this trip. We used mostly public transportation(train, bus, tram and metro). It was very convenience and cheap too:) We were lucky that we didn't hit bad weather except few days of cold rain in Prague and Amsterdam. We packed very light(one hand carry size pull on suitcase and one backpack). We kept saying "Thank you" to your tips when we were pulling the luggage on the bumpy roads in Europe. We prepay the baggage fees for those local airlines. They were very strict on one piece hand carry policy. They stopped a lot of people at the gate! We also reserved the 4 hours train ride from Rome to Venice. The train sold out on the travel date. Also, some people were holding a different train ticket(slower train) and got into our train. The train was packed but we were lucky that we had our seats. Overall, it was a successful trip and thanks again!!! p.s. I would suggest everyone bring 1 or 2 rolls of America toilet paper with you when you travel to Europe. I brought one roll and glad I did it. The paper quality in Europe(even in expensive hotels) was terrible so that was a good item to pack for this trip. I also brought two small family pictures with us to put in every hotel we stayed. It made our hotel rooms more like home:)
Winny

Winny ... Thanks for taking the time to let us know you had a successful trip. It's nice to know that our advice was helpful. Now you can start planning your next trip!