Rail Reservations

Depends on the train. If you take Thalys from Paris to Amsterdam, there is an extra charge for the high speed train and with it you get a seat reservation. I think you can go from Paris to Amsterdam on ICs and/or regional trains without paying extra. Amsterdam to Berlin is probably on a German train. Seat reservations (€5,50) are not required but probably a good idea. Same for Berlin to Munich and Munich to Zürich. In Italy, reservations are required on all but regional trains. I think reservations on ICs are nominal just for the seat, but the high speed Italian Eurostar (ES) require a supplement of €10. All seats on the ES are reserved, which you get when you pay the supplement.

I did a few of those legs earlier this year in May. Munich to Zurich we did not have a reservation. Venice to Florence we did have a reservation (for a faster train as we were trying to get extra time). Florence to Rome we did not use a reservation. If you look at the German website (www.bahn.com) you can see which trains have a reservation required.

Part of the answer depends on if you use a rail pass or not. Some trains that do not normally require reservations for individual tickets will do so for railpass holders. I'm not certain about the exact rules for each national rail carrier... But here's what I do know. If you take the high-speed Thalys line between Paris and Amsterdam with a rail pass, you pay a high additional premium and reservations are compulsary. If you just buy a ticket, the reservation is included. For the slower option of taking a series of IC trains, for the Belgian and Dutch portions, reservations are neither necessary or available. For Berlin and Munich, I'm not certain about for passholders, but for regular tickets, a reservation is not necessary but recommended. The days when railpasses were an automatic bargain are long gone. These days, they're mostly just a money-maker for the companies that sell them. You can usually do much better with advanced purchase of individual tickets.

"Do all of these train stations require a reservation" In any one station there might be regional trains, for which no reservations are required or possible, German express trains for which reservations are never required and rarely needed, Thalys trains for which a big surcharge in additon to a rail pass is required, and includes a seat reservation, and Italian Eurostar, which require an additional charge, which comes with a seat reservation.