Train travel

Passes are rarely a good deal these days, even for included countries. And in France, even with an accepted pass, you have to buy a supplement for all TGV trains, which are expensive and are limited in number per train. In other words, you may be out of luck unless you buy this supplement in advance; at that point, you have just lost the flexibility of having a pass in the first place. If you post all the trains you plan to take, people can help figure out if a pass is worthwhile. Usually, tickets purchased in advance are MUCH cheaper; however, these are usually non-refundable and non-changeable. For routes, the easiest site to use is the Bahn website. This covers schedules for all of Europe. A quick look shows that this route takes from 6 to 8 hours with 1-5 changes (at least on January 14, 2013). You can click the red arrow on any journey to see all the connections and train changes. I'll let someone with more knowledge tell you how to get the best price (since this trip traverses several countries, it may be cheaper to buy in segments from different websites, or it may not be).

France is no longer participating in the Select Pass. Look here for RailPass news/changes. You can make a 6h0m or 6h30m trip (2 changes with good connections) for as little as €39 if you purchase 3 months in advance on http://www.bahn.com/i/view/USA/en/index.shtml.

Thanks so much for the tip. Very helpful!