normal1983

Hello to all...I know that this subject has been discussed in years past but I was wondering what the recommendations are at the present time. My daughter and her friend are traveling this May to 7 different countries. This is their itinerary (which they don't want to change but ....):

5/13 Fly into London spend 2 days getting over jet lag
5/15 Take the Eurostar into Paris-spend 5 days visiting friends and seeing the sights they missed last year
5/20 Paris to Amsterdam via train-spend a couple of days
5/23 Fly into Prague with Sky Europe $116.00 per person 1 1/2 hour flight-with baggage restrictions but this option is faster than the train
5/27 Prague to Munich- train is 6 hours, flight 8 hours w/layover
5/31 Munich to Bologna-train is 6 hours, flight impossibly long w/layovers
6/4 Bologna to Marseille-flight is 8 hours w/layover, train is interminably long 10 hours with 2 separate connections
6/7 Marseille to Barcelona-train 8 hours w/1 connection, flight 5 1/2 hours w/1 connection
6/11 Flight home from Barcelona

I do realize that this is a lot of traveling but they are determined to see a lot. Can anyone see where they might be able to make some changes to improve their travel time? The last two stops are the worst in so far as travel time is concerned and connections. Although they have already booked their hotels they can change the dates around a bit if needed.

Also, although I have researched the possibility of flying vs trains I'm not sure which would be most economical. Europass is charging $590.00 for a 10 day pass within 2 months plus seat reservation fees! Once I started holding seats the cost went up considerably. Would point to point tickets purchased in the different countries be more economical? Would there be a chance of not getting seats on a particular train? Would it be risky to wait until they are in the country and then buy a train ticket?

Also if they do fly between countries they will have a baggage limitation that seems to be a problem with 21 year old young ladies.

Please forgive my ignorance, but even after researching all of this, I am just as confused. In my past travels we just rented a car, but the girls don't want to chance that. Any info or advice would be so appreciated!

ira

Hi NO,

Have they considered skipping Italy this trip and visiting Switzerland between Munich and Marseille?

OR

Skipping Barcelona and flying home from Marseille or Lyon?

normal1983

Hi Ira

Unfortunately, they are tied into flying home from Barcelona. I don't think that they have considered doing any changes but I will make that suggestion to them. They visited Rome and Florence last year and I believe that they wanted to see a couple more cities this year but they may have to reconsider.

Do you believe that the Europass is the most economical route for them? Or should they get point to point tickets once they arrive in the different cities?

lovisa

A Eurostar ticket from London to Paris is very expensive, and is not covered by a Eurorail pass. Right now it shows advanced purchase fares from London - Paris for $98 for you date. The walk-up fare is shown as $292: www.eurostar.com

As you already know, this itinerary makes little geographic sense. And its all big cities. The only way you can figure out point-to-point tickets is to look them up.

Easyjet lets you have 1 item up to 20 kg (1 kg = 2.2 pounds) of checked luggage for 8 pounds extra. They could fly directly from London to Prague and work their way backward.

However from the point of view of having a sensible itinerary, how about flying to Amsterdam, and working their way south to Barcelona by rail seeing some places in between, instead of just big cities?

lovisa

Further, I have no personal knowledge, but would do some googling about SkyEurope Airlines. They apparently are in financial distress and several of their planes have been repossessed:

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...-continue.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyEurope

If you search for SkyEurope reviews a lot of people complain about cancelled flights.

Robespierre

As a starting point, I suggest they enter their itinerary at Railsaver.com and see what it suggests. The results it gives are never definitive, however, because Railsaver can't see discounted point-to-point tickets that are frequently offered by the individual carriers.

Try different strategies, such as making the PAR-AMS trip separately from the pass calculation, or making one of the long-haul legs on an overnight train.

ira

Hi Nor,

>Do you believe that the Europass is the most economical route for them? Or should they get point to point tickets once they arrive in the different cities?<

They have to do the numbers. There are discount fares from the national railroads.

Also, the railpass doesn't cover mandatory seat reservations on the high-speed trains or sleeper accomodations.

There is a discount for railpass holders with Eurostar, but it might not be as cheap as buying a 1-day RT ticket.

For Paris to Amsterdam, see www.thalys.com.
For travel to/from Germany, see www.bahn.de.
Into/within/out of Italy see
http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/inde...0080a3e90aRCRD
For France it's www.voyage-sncf.com.

I look forward to their trip report.

lovisa

To improve their travel times, how about eliminating Amsterdam and Bologna, and changing Marseille for somewhere else in the south of France? They could fly directly from London to Prague on Easyjet, rail Prague to Munich, Munich to Paris, Paris to Nimes or Montpelier, then on to Barcelona.

lovisa

You could also eliminate Marseille and fly Ryanair from Bologna (BLQ) to Barcelona - Girona (GRO).

normal1983

Thank you Ira for those links. I will have them check them out.

Lovisa, thanks for the info on Sky Europe. I will read up on them and hopefully that won't be an issue for them. Marseille is a must for the girls as a base for Provence. I don't believe that there is any other city in Provence that will be an easy train ride from Munich. As far as the big cities are concerned, I believe they are planning a few day trips to the smaller towns as well.

Robespierre, Railsaver is a good idea as well. We'll check that out.

They already have a hold on a ticket on the Eurostar for $73.00 each which is a good deal I believe.

Although I've suggested some changes to the itinerary, the girls are determined to stick to this itinerary. Although they've both been to Europe before, this will be the first time doing all of the planning on their own. So it is definitely a learning experience. I think that with a bit more planning and accepting that so many places will require quite a bit of traveling and a bit of inconvenience, they will have a wonderful time.

A bit more research is needed on the rail times methinks.

lovisa

If they were willing to substitute Nice for Marseille, Bologna - Nice is a 6 1/2 hour train ride with a change in Milan, and low cost Spanish carrier Vueling flies nonstop from Nice to Barcelona in about 1 1/2 hours. That change would cut down on transit time.

lovisa

Even if you don't change the itinerary at all, I think you should re-think a eurail 10 day global flexpass. You indicate tickets from London to Paris have already been paid for.

Right now you show 6 additional rail journeys:

Paris - Amsterdam
Prague - Munich
Munich - Bologna
Bologna - Marseille
Marseille - Barcelona.

I would simply buy an advance purchase discount Thalys ticket for Paris - Amsterdam. You can buy it on the French rail site referenced by Ira.

Now you have five trips. You could buy a 5 country 5 day youth Flexpass for $349. The five countries are: Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Italy, France. Your pass would not cover the fare from the Spanish border to Barcelona, but that has to be a relatively minor amount to pay for separately just before embarking on the train.

Robespierre

To amplify on what lovisa said - Thalys used to occasionally offer deeply discounted fares called Smilys. I haven't seen them lately, but watch for them and you might snag some significant savings.

normal1983

Lovisa, I ckd on the Thalys from Paris to Amsterdam and I think that might be the way to go. But the flexpass for $349.00 that you mentioned requires 5 bordering countries. They would have to revamp their itinerary to accommodate that but I will mention that option to them again. If they do change then their trip will be as follows:

London to Paris - Eurostar
Paris to Amsterdam - Thalys
Amsterdam to Prague - Eurail pass - requires hotel res change
Prague to Munich - Eurail pass - requires hotel res change
Munich to Bologna - Eurail pass - requires hotel res change
Bologna to Marseille -Eurail pass -
Marseille to Barcelona - ??

I still have to check the train timetables on these but I haven't figured out how to navigate the Eurail site. Do they require seat reservations as well? I will ck that out a bit more tomorrow.

I am bit confused as to the difference between Eurail and Europass. They can't be the same company? Europass was easier to navigate and I could find the train timetables easily.

My mind is muddled tonight but hopefully tomorrow I can figure this out.

Thank you again for the suggestions! I'll work on this a bit more.

lovisa

The 5 countries I listed are neighboring countries eligible for the 5 country Flexpass; you just need a contiguous line. You would be going from the Czech Republic to Germany through Austria (necessary even though not stopping) to Italy, to France. The pass would be good for fares in France up to the Spanish border.

The best way to look up rail schedules is on the national rail sites (use the German one for the Prague "PRAHA" to Munich portion.

I think Rick Steves gives the best explanation of how railpasses work and which one is appropriate:

http://www.ricksteves.com/rail/

It is the national railways which require the reservations, not any particular site. The Rick Steves link above explains this.

A further wrinkle, I believe, is that for some of the fast trains, like Thalys, only a limited number of reservations are reserved for railpass users, so even if you are prepared to pay for the reservation, you might not be able to ride on a pass even if there are empty seas.

All European rail passes for Americans come from one source - RailEurope. You can buy them from other providers like Rick Steves, but they are all getting them from Rail Europe. The RailEurope site does not have all train schedules loaded in, and I believe may charge a premium for some reservations.

You can buy reservations only on the German rail site, www.bahn.de for the Prague to Munich and Munich to Bologna segments.