We will be traveling to 10 different cities in 6 different countries and I’m wondering if it would be better to get a eurorail global pass or individual tickets. We will be gone 28 days.
Rome to Florence
Cannes to Lyon
Lyon to Chamonix
Chamonix to Bern
Bern to St. Moritz
St. Moritz to Innsbruck
Innsbruck to Salzburg
Salzburg to Venice
Brussels to Bruges
Bruges to Amsterdam
We have a private transfer between Florence and Cannes. We are flying between Venice and Brussels.
Check out Man in Seat 61 website. And do a quick calculation of point to point trips versus the Global pass. Looks like you'd need the 10 days pass.
I think the maths you need to do on your own but your routing through Europe can be optimized significantly to avoid longer travel parts.
One point to consider is that rail passes generally do not include the seat reservation fees that are compulsory on the premium trains, such as the Freccia high speed in Italy or the TGV in France. You'd have to buy those separately. The reservations are specific to train, date and departure time and can only be used on the one train listed on the reservation. Those without reservations are subject to hefty fines, which are often collected on the spot! You'll have to check each route that you'll be travelling to determine whether reservations are required.
One of the easiest and quickest ways to get to Chamonix is to take one of the many shuttle vans from Geneva. A few companies to check out are Chamonix Valley Transfers or AlpyBus (there are others). On the outbound trip from Chamonix, you can use the local Regional trains.
To Mark's point, a quick look at a revised order of your itinerary might look something like this:
Rome
Florence
Venice
Innsbruck
Chamonix
Bern
St. Moritz
Salzburg
Back through Venice
Lyon
Cannes
Fly to Brussels
Bruges
Amsterdam
Of course you might have good reasons for the order you chose; such reasons might include special events or festivals, or wanting to avoid or be in a location on a specific day of the week. Just some food for thought here, in addition to the good points about doing the math but also considering seat reservation hassle and fees.
Be aware that in France, rail pass users run into quotas on express trains (TGV). You can find yourself in the position that no seat reservations are available for those with rail passes even though you could buy a ticket directly that would already include a seat reservation.
Just a broad comment: I know 28 days sounds like a lot of time, but you are planning to cover a lot of geography (meaning many travel days will require significant train time), and I count 15 cities rather than 10. Are you just passing through some of the listed places? This isn't an itinerary I would want to tackle in 28 days--or is it really 26 days after you exclude arrival and departure days?
