To fly and to train from Amsterdam to Rome!?!

Have you read any of the guidebooks covering these areas? You will find many of your questions answered there. Rail passes are not always the best deal. You need to price your p2p tickets and then decide if the pass is worthwhile. If the train travel time is more than six hours I will consider air but otherwise the train is quicker and much more convenient. I am not a big fan off overnight trains because they are expensive and hard to sleep. Cinque terre is an area and not a city or town. Vatican City is in Rome hardly qualifies as a day trip. Once in Florence, why not see Florence instead of day trip elsewhere? London, Amsterdam, Paris are all short train rides.

Lien, To begin with, if this is your first trip to Europe, I'd highly recommend pre-reading Europe Through The Back Door, as that will answer a lot of your questions. To answer some of your other questions.... > London - Amsterdam: I'd definitely go by train as that's usually faster. Travel will be EuroStar from London St. Pancras station, at least one change, with arrival likely at Amsterdam Centraal. > Paris - Venice: As Frank mentioned, using night trains is not always the best (or cheapest) option. If you decide to do that, be sure to choose a direct train (no changes). If there are changes at 02:00 and 05:00, you WON'T be getting much sleep! You might consider budget air on that route. > Cinque Terre: a day trip from Florence will be a long day! The rail trip will be a minimum of 3-hours in each direction. Try to leave early and plan to return in the evening. > Siena: for a day trip from Florence, you might consider travelling by Bus rather than train. It's about the same time, and the Bus arrives and departs from the centre of town, rather than the bottom of the hill where the rail station is located. > Vatican City: that's not really a "day trip" (however, you could certainly spend the whole day there if you wish). Depending on which part of Rome you're staying in, it's usually just an easy ride on the Metro and then a short walk. As I recall, from Termini station it's about 6-7 stops on the "A" Metro line (direction Battitstini). Good luck with your planning!

With the extra cost of buying seat reservations for trains that require them, a railpass will cost more than point-to-point tickets. You've waited way too long to get the best discount fares for some of your routes. However, if you book ASAP, you still can get a few discount fares. London-Amsterdam: If you book today at www.nshispeed.nl/en, you can get a combined discount fare of €61.50 for a Eurostar train to Brussels and an IC train from there to Amsterdam. That fare is still available for the first two morning departures from London. Or you can fly easyJet from Gatwick, Luton, or Stansted. I'd pick Gatwick because it's the closest of the three to London. Amsterdam-Paris: Flying is prohibitively expensive. Take a Thalys train. If you book today at www.thalys.com, you can still get a fare of €78. Choose "paper ticket" and print them yourself. Day trip to Versailles: A single ticket on the metro and RER from anywhere in central Paris to the Versailles-Rive Gauche RER station costs €3.05 each way. Paris-Venice: According to the tgv-europe site, the 2-bed sleepers are sold out for the Paris-Venice night train on 27 February. You'll have to share bunks in a 4-person couchette and you'll pay full fare (€127/person). Book today at www.tgv-europe.com. To keep the site in English and to avoid being bumped to the Rail Europe site, choose Great Britain as your country of residence and choose to pick up your tickets at any SNCF station or boutique in France. You could fly Ryanair from Beauvais to Treviso, but those are outlying airports so there will be both time and expense to get to and from them. IMO, you'd be better off flying easyJet from either CDG or Orly to Marco Polo. On 3 March and beyond just buy train tickets as you go. Or buy them all when you get to Venice.