First time to Europe, and we'll have three rail segments during our stay: Haarlem to Bruge; Bruge to Paris; Rome to Venice.
Our dates are dialed in for the first two legs because we have apartments rented for specific dates in Bruge and Paris. Question is whether it's worth pre-purchasing these tickets before we get leave. We will be there in July and plan to travel 2nd Class.
Are the savings worthy of purchasing tickets before we leave??? Thanks.
Jeff,
We did 2 of the legs you propose (we went Amsterdam to Bruges and then Bruges to Paris). For Amsterdam/Bruges there was no advance purchase special. The cost was 42.50 Euro which we bought when we arrived in Amsterdam. For Bruges to Paris, we went through Lille and the leg from Bruges to Lille there was no advance purchase special, so we bought on arrival in Bruges. Cost was 15 Euro. For Lille to Paris though, we bought a PREM special from the French rail site for the TGV run. Cost 17 Euro as opposed to 24 Euro regular fare. Can buy it 90 days out. We were locked into our itinerary so we felt comfortable doing that. Others can post more specifics on the ins/outs of the French rail website but thought I'd share our experience. Hope this helps!
Thanks Jed. My intitial guess was that the Bruges to Paris segment would be one we would want to most consider a pre-purchase. We'll be traveling on a Saturday for this segement; so that's probably another reason for booking early.
You don't need to pre-purchase tickets for Rome to Venice. Numerous trains a day make this run and these trains just don't run full. All will stop in Florence, Bologna, Padua and Venice-Mestre on the way.
Thanks Larry. I thought this would be the case within Italy.....but it sure helps getting confirmaiton from seasoned veterans.
For Bruges to Paris, you can book the entire journey on www.thalys.com. Thalys trains require reservations, and if you book early enough you can get non-refundable/non-changeable tickets for about 20 euros and print them out at home. When the Thalys site asks you where you live and/or where your are picking up your tickets say "France", this the only it will let you print the tickets at home.
