For our upcoming trip to Germany, Austria, and Italy, my wife and I bought Eurail passes after adding up the costs of the train trips individually. Two of the trips--Salzburg to Florence and Florence to Vienna--require seat reservations, at least on the Italian high-speed segments. I had picked out the trains we wanted on the Rail Europe site weeks ago. Now that we have the rail passes, however, Rail Europe keeps coming back with "No data available." The Eurail site is even worse. When I finally navigate their maze and get the route and times we had chosen, it comes back with an amount of $81.20 to book the seats. Can that be right? We already have the rail passes. From checking elsewhere I was under the impression that the seat reservation was only around 10€ or so. And apparently I'll have to have the documents mailed to our hotel in Salzburg; the trip is coming up in a few days.
Or should I just wait and make the reservations at a train station when we get there?
Posted by
OP
3 posts
To Florence, May 30: Railjet Express 660, Salzburg to Innsbruck (oddly, the Eurail site says the transfer is at Woergl, a small station before Innsbruck(?). Eurocity 85, Innsbruck to Bologna Centrale, marked as needing a reservation on Eurail but not on Deutsche Bahn; Frecciarossa 9333, Bologna to Florence S.M.N.
To Vienna, June 2: leaving 11:30, Frecciarossa to Padua; Eurocity 86 Padua to Innsbruck; RJX 663 Innsbruck to Vienna.
Maybe that was more detail than you were looking for, but those are the best options we've picked out.
Looks like we'll wait till we get there to make the reservations. Just hope there are still seats by then. (Arriving in Europe May 23.)
Posted by
Italy
3812 posts
In Italy a seat reservation on Freccia trains costs 10 € per person, per train. I count 3 italian trains and 2 passengers, so it's € 60 € or $ 67.
Since your plan seems to be set, I hope the Eurail site let you add up the costs of discounted train tickets . Otherwise you may have wasted your money buying a pass. You have already discovered pass holders can't freely get on all the trains.
Posted by
Green Bay
20085 posts
To Florence, May 30: Railjet Express 660, Salzburg to Innsbruck (oddly, the Eurail site says the transfer is at Woergl, a small station before Innsbruck(?)
Looking at the details of this connection at the Bahn website, the transfer will be easier at Woergl as both the inbound RJX 660 and the outbound EC 85 use Track 4 at Woergl. So you get of at Woergl and stand in the same place. RJX 660 arrives at 10:27 and departs at 10:29, then EC 85 arrives at 10:44, you get on and it departs at 10:46. At innsbruck, you have to change from Track 3 to Track 6, meaning you will have to go down stairs to the passageway and go upstairs to the new platform. I think they have escalators at Innsbruck Hbf.
$81.20 seems about right to me. the Freccia trains are 10 EUR each, so that is 40 EUR for 2 people on 2 trains. The EC trains between Austria and Italy require seat reservations for the the portions that the trains run in Italy. So that is 4 more reservations. Eurail says 14 EUR for seat reservations on these trains, Rick Steves website says "about $10" and you can buy them directly from OEBB for 3 EUR. I don't know about Eurail, but Rail Europe also a charges $7.95 for an order processing fee when you get seat reservations from them.
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16893 posts
If booking through Rail Europe, it's usually more successful to request each leg separately that you want to reserve, such as Innsbruck-Bologna and then separately request Bologna-Florence. Especially, more than one connection may be more than the system can handle, and it can make a difference where those connections are (since segments in different countries draw info from different databases). Any regional or unreserved train in the mix can also break the whole equation. Some seat reservations are available as e-tickets and others aren't, and this is shown before you complete check-out.
Italian seat reservations are not artificially limited, so booking them on short notice at train stations is not usually a problem. You could book a few when you get the pass activated at your first station, for departures to which you're most committed. Within Germany and Austria, they're optional.
Posted by
OP
3 posts
Thanks, everyone. Sam, that's especially good info about Woergl. I'll make all the necessary reservations at the train station, either Munich, where we're arriving first, or Salzburg.