Hi everyone!

I'm planning a trip to France and Italy in three weeks. The problem is that I'm meeting up with a friend in London first... we are then planning to travel to Venice or Florence. We will be purchasing a France N' Italy pass , but I'm debating the cheapest way to start our trip. We will take the Eurostar both ways for $75 each (so $150 roundtrip per person.) Our France N' Italy pass will cost around $289 for 6 days worth of travel... the problem is that we plan on doing an overnight Artesia train from Paris to Venice. A double sleeper adds an additional $200 each way (for two travelers)so I'm not sure if this is the most cost effective way to go. Does anyone have any ideas how to cut the costs down? Maybe we should just fly from London to Rome/Venice/Florence to get our trip underway? Any feedback or suggestions are greatly welcomed.

We are flying out of London at the end of the trip... our overall itinerary includes Rome, Florence, Venice, and Paris.

Thanks!

I don't know if it is the cheapest, but it is cheap and fast. There is a small airport in or just outside London called Ryan (I think). It has flights for less than 100.00 euro to Rome.

Not sure I followed your current plan but flying from London to Venice is quite easy & probably economical. BA, Volare & maybe Alitalia fly from gatwick to Venice. BMI (British Midlands) flies from Heathrow to Venice.

I think what Panucci meant was there's an airline ryanair.com (not an airport) that may fly into Venice. For the discouint airlines look at www.skyscanner.net (or .com)

Ryanair is patterned after the business model of Southwest Airlines and is actively pusing to take business from Easyjet and other low cost European carriers. They've added 50 or so airports to their list of destinations in the past year and according to an article I saw in Ireland last week, they're starting a summer "seat sale" designed to lure even more travelers away from the competition. They have a huge cash reserve and are almost giving away the tix in the present sale - the bulk of the cost will come from taxes and fees, not the actual cost of the flight. Check www.ryanair.com

The downside is that that they fly mostly in and out of the smaller less well known airports but the price can't be beat. It may be a typo but their site is currently showing that London - Rome flight at $3.44 or 2 GBP - yes - under five US $. These prices won't last - it's an intentional strategy but their overhead costs are so low that they've built up huge amounts of cash to subsidize this.

Sorry... this did sound a bit confusing. Since we were planning on buying a railpass, I wanted to get the most out of it by using it to make our way from London to Italy and back(preferably Venice as a first stop.) However, since our starting point is London, and the railpass obviously doesn't work there:

1) Buy Eurostar ticket from Lon-Par $150 per person RT)
2) Begin Railpass Par-Venice ($289 6 days... may cut it down to 4 or 5 days if we're flying etc.)
3) Double sleeper for overnight PAR-Venice and Florence-PAR trains... approximately $200 RT per person for a double.

Which is when I thought that for the extra $150 RT Eurostar and Sleeper reservations $200 RT, I might as well just buy a plane ticket from London-Venice and Paris-London ($136.50 on BA.) Our itinerary will be Venice, Rome, Florence, and Paris then back to London. Plus that would save us a 13 hour train ride from Paris to Venice. We would however have to pay a 1 way (Italy - Paris overnight sleeper fee of $100 each unless we decide to fly that portion as well.

I'll definitely check out RyanAir as well. I've heard about them, but wasn't sure how reputable/safe they are. Any other suggestions for a well-thought out itinerary would be welcome

LadyFamke, I have no personal experience with extensive rail travel in Europe, but the sense I get from other posters is with the advent of these new low cost airlines like ryanair & easyjet & volare in combination with upcharges for sleepers, a rail pass may not be the most cost effective way to get around for the kind of trip you're planning. A combination of flying & point to point train travel may work better.

You can probably do better than $150 RT London/Paris by flying Easyjet. The difference is getting to/from airports vs training city center to city center.

Another vote FOR flying on the cheap, and NOT buying a rail pass of any kind.

When you want to travel by train, which might be between any two points 4-5 hours or less apart - - just buy point-to-point tickets for those routes.

Best wishes,

Rex

Thanks for all your responses! I started checking into point to point fares for Italy. Approximately $4 USD on RyanAir from London Stansted to Venice. Train Venice to Rome $71 1st class/ $47 2nd. Train from Rome to Florence $43/$29. Florence-Siena $18/$12 and back again. Florence - Milan $43/$29. Milan - Paris on RyanAir $29 USD. Only problem is that Milan isn't really on our list of to-do's... and RyanAir doesn't fly from Paris to London so we would need to find an alternate way back. Eurostar for those who don't hold a railpass is $199 USD (2nd class) so that unfortunately bumps up the overall travel from $226 to $425.

Thanks for all the good advice!

I think you're on the right track but don't forget there are taxes to add to those airfares. I do think one of the low cost carriers goes Paris/London. Also, I seem to recall Eurpostar was running a 2 for 1 special a while back & you ahve to click on the right place on the website to get it. Do a text search here for transportation Paris to London & see what comes up.

The taxes and fees on the Ryanair ticket will probably add up to a good $40 (I would think so) but it's still a good choice. As far as I know they have a good safety record and just signed a contract to take delivery on 50 more Boeing 757. It's the same mid sized plane that Airtran is using here in the US and they're fine (both Airtran and the planes).

Just a note -- don't forget to add 13 GBP to your Ryanair flight -- thr price from Central London to Stanstead airport by train. (Even with that, of course, Ryanair to Venice may be too good to pass up.)

Easyjet from London to Paris is usually cheaper than Eurostar -- but don't forget to add on transportation between airports and town centre.

And that overnight train trip? Get a first class compartment -- it's SO worth it for overnights!

Best wishes!

Well, for sure there are some low fares on BMI, but I cannot find them on their site. www.opodo.co.uk lists a fare for for 35 GBP plus taxes of 16.60 GBP and a service fee of 10 GBP (paid to Opodo, presumably). I don't know if there is a way to book more cheaply on BMI directly.

I see that another thread - - http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34421632 - - addresses this route also. But I am not finding PAR-LON on easyjet - - maybe I looked too hurriedly?

I found some fares on EasyJet from PAR-LON... webfare is $39.47 EUR + $15.00 EUR in taxes = $54.47 EUR or $64.00 USD. I haven't checked into BMI, but I will! Thanks Rex

I guess it's a toss up. Added cost of transportation to/from airports... not being dropped off in central downtown locations. Wading through security at airports. I'm thinking that we'll fly from London to Venice on RyanAir. Buy a Eurail for Italy/France and then train it back to Paris for our final few days. We can then either take Easyjet for $64 USD or $75 on Eurostar (discount b/c of the railpass.)

The only added cost is for the sleeper, but I will look on it as money we would pay anyway for a hotel. Note to Arriety: You wouldn't recommend booking a T4 or T6 sleeper? The difference in price is $95.00 USD double/ $52.00 for a T4/ $28 for T6. I'm assuming we still get our own car with berths in the T6, just sharing with possibly 4 others?

I'm really trying to save some money, because our hotel bills are certainly going to add up for 15 days of travel.

*sigh* I just realized that the $4.00 fare from LON - Venice is only valid on:

Mon after 1700 -Tue - Wed & Thurs up to 1300

Our trip starts on either Fri or Sat. Oh well, back to the drawing board!

Sorry for all the messages... I'm just thinking outloud. Though I do have a question if anyone can answer. If we buy a France/Italy Eurail pass, can we take an overnight train that passes through Switzerland (no stops.)

Thanks!

Hi Lady,

Before you purchase your railpasses go to www.railsaver.com to check whether point-to-point is cheaper.

PS
www.europebyair.com has a $99 pass that can take you London to Venice via Brussels and Florence to Paris via Brussels.

This may be more hassle than it is worth, but you might wish to look into it.

WWW.Ryanair.com and WWW.Easyjet.com. for Italy and the Eurostar from London Waterloo to Paris.