Seat reservation advice...please look at my itinerary

Amy, you are just fine buying your seat reservations 1-2 days in advance in Italy. Definitely not a problem. On the Eurostars, you will pay about 18Euro for the seat reservations. On lower catergory trains (i.e. IC, ICPlus), you will pay about 3Euro. On Regionale (R) trains, you will pay nothing as reservations are not permitted. You will be on a mix of these train categories on these runs. Note that you will receive one ticket for each train you are on. Thus, whenever you change trains, you will need a separate ticket. Be sure to validate each one before boarding.

You show eight train legs and say that two of them are already reserved.

In addition, I don't think you need to reserve Munich to Salzburg. There are a lot of trains on that route. Hopefully you don't have pass coverage for that day, because it wouldn't be cost effective. Both of you could travel for €27, total, with a Bayern-Ticket, and you wouldn't have to have reservations because they are not required, or given, on regional trains. Regional trains only take 1/2 hour longer from Munich to Salzburg than do express train. If you do have railpass coverage, you can make reservations through the German Rail query page for €4 each before you go over. On the other hand, I have been on many German trains in the last eight years, and the only one on which all seats were occupied had plenty that weren't reserved. You could probably make reservations the day before, or an hour before, without difficulty.

I don't think reservations are possible between Salzburg and Hallstatt, at least not if you take the bus from Salzburg to Bad Ischl. There is an Intercity train connection at 7:08 AM that goes through Attnang-Puchheim, and it is reservable, but it take longer than with the bus to Bad Ischl. The faster route cost €9,10 per person, one way.

For the three Italian legs, the cost of P2P tickets over railpasses plus reservations, for the three days is about €40, total, for the three days, depending on the class of train you use. Unless you are going to save a huge amount on Cinque Terre to Gimmelwald, I don't think a railpass would pay.

For Italy, you might want to book the next leg (or two) of your Italian stops when you arrive in Venice. When I was in Rome/Florence/Venice in April, booking a couple days ahead allowed me (w/ 1 exception) to get the train connections I wanted and still have the reassurance of having a reservation. The one that didn't work out exactly as I hoped (Rome to Naples), I was able to get a train leaving 30 minutes earlier. It was helpful to have a printed-out list (from trenitalia site) of the individual travel legs so I had easy access to Train #'s, type of train, & dep/arrival info.

Thanks for your responses!

Larry - How/where do I validate the ticket before boarding the train? Also, for trains that do not need a reservation, I just get on board and find a seat, right?

Amy, if you don't have a pass for Italy, which it doesn't sound like you need one, you must validate the ticket at yellow boxes mounted on poles or walls in the train station. You won't miss them although some could be broken. For R or IC trains where you have no reservations, you still have to validate the tickets at the little yellow box. The little yellow box stamps a date and time on the ticket. If the yellow box is broken and you must board or miss the train, immediately go to a conductor and tell him that the machine was broken and you had to get on the train. You will avoid the fine this way.

If you have an Italy pass of some type, you will need to buy seat reservations on the high-speed train categories. The Eurostar train category will cost 18Euro. The IC and ICPlus categories are 3Euro if you want a seat. Or, you can just validate and just get on and try to get lucky with a seat. Just like your local bus system.

I have a Eurail global pass (1st class saver pass). Does this change the process you described above? I didn't think I needed a "ticket" as long as there are no reservations required on a particular train. If reservationsa are required, then I will have a ticket with a SEAT reservation and will need to validate at the yellow boxes. Do I have this correct?

Also to clarify from my original post. I have made SEAT reservations for the two "reserved legs", as opposed to purchasing the tickets in full. From what I could tell when adding up point to point tickets for two of us for the entire trip, a pass was the way to go. Please tell me I made the right choice here.