My fiancé and I traveled for three months last year and used Rail Passes for most of our travel in between destinations...but was just reading the posts about in country trains being much cheaper and since we are planning another trip I would love to know what anyone thinks about trying to plan a multi country trip from London to Vienna and what you think would be the best deal for trains. Thanks! -Sam
Posted by
Eastern Iowa, USA
7916 posts
Well, first, anything within Britain would be separate, since they are not part of the Eurail package. There is a good Britrail Pass if you were doing extensive travel, but sounds like not. Also, at best, a trip on the "Chunnel" comes with a significant supplement for Eurail pass holders, so I would not make it a great priority to use that segment as a pass day or start a consecutive pass with that leg, especially if my next stop was for 3 or 4 days of no train use. Beyond that, you are looking at the minimum a 3 country pass, or more if your itinerary expands. Do the classic list out your itinerary, your travel segments, then price out the segments. If you wind up with a handful of long segments, then maybe a flexipass is good. If you want to constantly move, then a global or multicountry pass may work, if you are stretching short trips out over a long period, then point to point is probably best. The posts you may have seen may have discussed Italy...nearly always cheaper to do point to point if you are just in Italy. Germany can have some good deals, either point to point booked early or use of regional or german passes.
Posted by
Frankfurt, Germany
9150 posts
The Deutsche Bahn just posted a special they are having - London to Frankfurt for 49€. Deutsche Bahn has lots of specials like that. Frankfurt to Paris for 39 €. Thalys in France also seems to have a lot of specials too, so take a look at their websites to see where they go.
Check out some of the posts from Lee, as he is our train expert on the forum!
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19238 posts
German Rail discount fares can give you a big savings, but you have to plan well in advance and know what to look for. For instance, in addition to the London-Frankfurt fares quoted by Jo, you can also go from Frankfurt all the way to Vienna for as little as €39 per person with a Europa-Spezial Österreich fare. If you schedule them at the time of online ticket purchase, you can build in stop-overs in places like Munich or Salzburg.
You can find these specials described on www.bahn.de, although sometimes the description is only in German. If you know what to schedule, you'll also find them on the German Rail schedule query page as "Savings Fares".
Posted by
Nanaimo
7 posts
If you want to see germany, we visit germany every year and we buy a German Zwillinge ( Twin ) Pass which cost 450 Cdn for 4 days in a month travel for two. You must travel together and you can travel from one minute past midnight until one minute before as one day and could visit quite a lot of Germany in 4 days which dont have to be consecutive. Visit the Deutsche Bahn website and click on English. We went from Franfurt to Heidelberg and then to Berlin in one day. We have done Munich to Rothenburg ob der Tauber then to Berlin in one day. The twin pass allows you to go into Salzburg from Munich because its a border city.You can plan your route and cover lots of ground as some places only need a few hours visit. This year we are travelling from Berlin to Prague which is 58 Euro then by bus to Cesky Krumlov which is about 20 Cdn then on to Vienna. Czech rail is very cheap.Many places are much cheaper point to point. Austrian website is www.oebb.au and again you can click on English. Have a great time....Contact me for anything else.