Train reservations

I'm sure you bought the pass to be as flexible as you can. But, for most of these high-speed trains, you don't have the seats yet. You will have to pay a supplemental fee to get the seat reservations. This you can do online or at the train station. Note that the French limit the seats on their TGVs to Eurail passholders. Thus, you should reserve early. If the limited seats are gone, you pay full price or you wait for a later train. The supplemental fees vary by country and by type of train. For the TGV, expect a fee of 9Euro. In Italy, it's 3Euro for the Intercity train and 10Euro for each AV and FB you will be on. Italy to Switzerland on the EuroCity train, expect 10Euro. For the Bern to Germany ICE trains, expect 5E-6E depending on your class of ticket. All of this information is on the Eurail website.

Thank you Larry, my main interest is how soon before the departure do I need to get the reservations? We already have a reservation for the TGV from Brussels to Marseille train, as I heard that is very popular. And I am looking at the other TGV train we want to take.
But, can I wait until we get to Europe to make the other reservations or should we make them before we go? I am mostly concerned about the Italian trains - Florence to Venice and Venice to Milan. We will be taking those trains in mid-September. I would like to wait on the Florence train as I am not sure which time we will want. And I have heard that the Swiss and German trains are not hard to get on at the last minute. Do you think that is true? Thank you again for your insight. John

Yes you can wait until you get to Europe but again, my caution. Seats for Eurail pass holders on the TGV are limited. I would suggest making your reservations as quick as you can when you get to France. For the Italian fast trains, I don't think they limit any seats to pass holders. You can just go into the train station, set up your reservations either at the ticket window or the automated ticket kiosk and you can most likely take the next train. The trains for the two runs you want run twice an hour. Except for the private train systems in the Berner Oberland, the four scenic trains and a few other places in Switzerland, your pass should cover most other trains there. Your pass should work well in Germany as well except for the ICE trains.

You really need to act on the TGV reservations. The run from Marseille to Nice is frequent, and it is so slow because of all the winding around so the TGVs don't go any faster than a slow train - its just that most of the service is by those TGVs. SNCF do highly regulate pass-holder reservations. Unfortunately a pass originally designed to speed up your travel and remove stress now has exactly the opposite effect. You aren't required to have a reservation on trains (except a very few special ICE business trains in the north) on any trains in Germany or on any main line trains within Switzerland. You can get reservations for the Bern to Frankfurt to Brussels on ICE trains but you don't have to. You must get those Italian high speed reservations.