Train reservations while in europe

I would suspect that most of the trains that you will be on from Interlaken/Venice, Venice/Florence, Florence/Rome will be on trains that require seat reservations and thus the additional fee. The fee on a Eurostar is 15-18Euro. You are correct that you can take slower trains (R and IC, to reduce fee costs but on some runs, you will double your travel time (i.e. Venice/Florence and Florence/Rome). For the Rome/La Spezia run, there are a few runs throughout the day on ICPlus trains that go out to the west coast and then north to La Spezia. No train changes. About 3Euro to get seat reservations and they are just as fast as the runs going through through Florence and Pisa that require train changes.

Note also that if you have a Eurail pass, it will only get you a 25% discount on all fares from Interlaken into the Lauterbrunnen Valley. This will include trains and gondolas to Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, Wengen, Kleine Scheidegg, Gimmelwald, Muerren and the two mountain tops (Jungfrau and Schilthorn).

thank you...do you know if i will be able to reserve seats for travel in say italy while i am at dublin train station?

Christy....no, you can't make Italian train reservations at an Irish train station.

Christy,

How did you book the night train? I'm wondering the same as you - how to go about booking the tickets from the states and/or... when I am over there - how to book tickets in advance.

Hey. we booked the night train through statravel.com. I believe it was the same price through raileurope.com. the tickets were 42 usd with the rail pass and included the reservation and sleeping in a 6 person couchette. we will be leaving in about 2 weeks but will be taking the train on july 31. I just wanted to get it in advance because it will probably be booked... If you do it i believe you have to order it here at least a few days before you go
(sta is taking about a week) because it is like another ticket. i havent gotten it but im assuming i have to present whatever they are sending me.. it kinda sucks that we have to pay on top of the pass but in comparison to the price of the ticket we are saving a lot. hope this helps.

You should be fine booking the trains a day or two in advance and still finding a seat. Don't worry about there not being room on the trains in Italy. I was just there and had no problems at all and I bought the tickets the night before I left each destination. Granted I got stuck paying for a ticket I couldn't use because of a train strike, but oh well.