rcc

The wife and I are planning for our European vaction this fall. Our past vacations were mostly done with rental cars and independent (or point-to-point) train rides.

I came upon the Raileurope.com website and they have a rail n drive program called Eurail Selectpass Drive. This involves 3 days train and 2 days drive. Now, if I buy this package, my questions are:

1. Can we pre-book, before leaving the US, a rail travel from, say, Munich to Lyon, or do we just show up with our Selectpass and get on the train in Munich on the day of travel? In other words, can we pre-book our rail travels?


2. If I get the car in rental place at Lyon train station, can I drop it off 2 days later in, say, Avignon train station where I can catch another leg of my train travel to Madrid? Specifically, will I incur additional drop-off charges by dropping off in a different location from the pick-up point?

Thank you, in advance, fo your responses.

rcc

I just answered most of my own questions from clicking through and around the Eurail website. Thanks to those who can provide additional information and tips, though.

CarolJean

We did this several years ago in the UK and thought it was the best of all worlds. We travelled primarily by train but when we got to an area where the train coverage wasn't so good, we had a car. You needed to plan where you wanted the car and reserve those days in advance. We would do it again in a heartbeat. Have fun! CJ

Intrepid

You can certainly pre-book the rail travel but what you'll actually be pre-booking is a specific seat (seat reservation). My past experience leads me to say that you won't need seat reservations at that time of year and if you do I would suggest booking them when you first get to Europe..you can do so at any rail station usually...at the same time as when you have the passes validated. Otherwise, you simply get on the train and go UNLESS it happens to be a TGV which requires a seat reservation whether you hold passes or not.
For the trip Munich-Lyon you have a choice of at least two routes...through Switzerland with two changes or through Strasbourg with only one change. Hope this helps some.

Carla

We did Rail/Drive packages in France and England and thought it worked out great. In France we used the rail days for the long trips from Paris to Avignon and the Dordogne and picked up cars there. We reserved the cars in advance and seats on the TGV. Everything worked great. In England we reserved a car in Bath, but just got on trains and went to places with no reservations. You have to validate your rail pass at the station the first day you use it and the conductor on the train stamps it with the days you use it. In England the conductor only checked our pass on one train. We still had an unvalidated day when we left and used it on the Heathrow express. I wouldn't normally recommend pushing one's luck like that, but British Rail gave us a free trip.

elberko

Before you get your itinerary too set, call Raileurope with your tentative car pick-up and drop-off plans.

We ran into problems last year because we planned to pick-up in Salzburg on what turned out to be a holiday, so the convenient in-town place was closed. Had to go to the airport.

We had also originally planned to drop it off 3 days later in Graz, Austria. Place was closed on Sunday, and at noon on Saturday, so we had to get there much sooner than we had hoped.

I assume bigger cities would be less likely to be a problem, but check early for weekends and holidays.