cuecin

We are traveling through Italy in July and will be buying the Eurail pass to take the train between several cities (Rome-Milan-Naples-Florence-Geneva). Since July is a very busy month we thought we would save time by purchasing the train tickets online here in the USA. Does anyone know how long the lines are to validate these tickets everytime we need to use it???

StCirq

If it really is a Eurrail pass you're planning to purchase, I believe you have to purchase it in the USA. As far as I know, they can't be bought in Europe.

But first of all, why a Eurrail pass, if you're only going to be in a single country? And second, have you priced the point-to-point tickets (on trenitalia.com)? I think there's a decent chance a pass would be more costly.

moldyhotelsaregross

Eurail tickets must be purchased in the US. It is possible to reserve seats while still in the US. I like to do that if the schedule is especially tight. If your time is more flexible, it is less expensive to make the reservations once you are in Europe.

As far as validating the Eurail pass, you will need to go to the first train station and have it validated at one of the windows. I believe you need to have passport in hand. The validation process shouldn't take but a few minutes. The greatest amount of time will be spent standing in line waiting for your chance to get to the window!

moldyhotelsaregross

Oh, I forgot to add...

You won't need to go through the lengthy validation step but one time.

Ask about the need to validate your pre-arranged seating when talking to the window attendant. I found that my pre-arranged seat assignments couldn't be validated with the machine by the tracks since they were printed on a different paper than the regular tickets.

If you make your seat reservations in Italy, be sure to validate them before getting on the train. You will see many of the machines throughout the stations. I just watched to see what others were doing.

cuecin

The reason I was looking at Eurail is because we will be begin the trip in France (arrive EU via Geneva). My sister-in-law lives there and she will accompany us to Milan. At the end of the trip we will be back in France to get the flight back to US from Geneva.

grsing

You only have to validate it before the first time you use it. After that, when the conductor comes and asks for your ticket, you give him the pass. Though definitely look into whether the pass (esp. Eurail vs. an Italy-only one) is a good deal for you.

grsing

Even with France and Italy, you can buy only a select pass, which doesn't include all of Europe, just the places you'll be, for less money.