Unless you're dying to see Croatia, it's much more convenient to take a ferry from Italy to Greece instead of working your way down through Croatia. There are several points of departure on the Adriatic Coast of Italy, including (in addition to Ravenna, mentioned by Annhig) Venice, Ancona, Bari, and Brindisi.

A railpass doesn't really give you much flexibility in Italy, since all the faster trains (which are the only trains on some lines) require an advance reservation. As Kybourbon says, the cost of the reservation isn't covered in the rail pass, but must be bought individually with each segment of your journey. The reservation is included in the ticket price if you buy point-to-point tickets.

It's true that the advance purchase discounts are inflexible, but a lot of people are willing to trade flexibility for a discount of 70% or more. In any case, for most travel in Italy, a railpass ends up costing more money even compared to the full-price tickets.

If you're under 26 you can get a youth rail pass, which is more likely to be worth the cost, but I would still compare prices of point-to-point tickets on Trenitalia before making up your mind.

Use http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/inde...005817f90aRCRD for checking Italian ticket prices. You need to use the Italian names of the cities: Milano, Venezia, Firenze, Roma, and Napoli, instead of Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples. Tickets are on sale 120 days in advance, and those with best prices are snapped up quickly. Do keep in mind, though, that discounted tickets can be exchanged only for full-price tickets, paying the difference.

I also think that its big list so 26 days not enough for this. I am not saying that you can't visit all places in 26 days but you can't enjoy much more. UK is one of the best traveling destination in all over world so i think you should have to increase you days limit.

A railpass doesn't really give you much flexibility in Italy, since all the faster trains (which are the only trains on some lines) require an advance reservation>

I was talking about flexibility like this - discounted tickets to guarantee them should be booked weeks in advance to nab those limited in number fares I think - I've had dozens of railpasses I've used in Italy and never ever had any trouble making the requisite seat reservation say a day before the train - after I decided what time, date, etc I wanted to leave.

Railpasses in Italy itself are a iffy proposition but here we are talking about train trips in several countries where overall they could be a boon and in many countries you can still just hop on any train anytime. Plus they are good for deck passage on several ferries from Italy to Greece - these ships are full of young folk and have lots of things aboard younger folk will like - like dancing places and pubs, etc.

I've taken those boats several times and they have the trappings of a cruise ship and again Corfu, where the boats stop before going onto Patras (for buses or trains to Athens) and Corfu for younger folk rocks- one advantage of taking the ferry is to stop off in Corfu - then go on by boat to Patras or Igoumenitsa a day or two later.

>>but here we are talking about train trips in several countries where overall <<

Not anymore. The OP now realizes the original ideas are undoable. Italy and Greece (w/ or w/o Monaco which isn't a great idea) is now the focus. So a rail pass won't be of much help at all.

Yes for just Italy and Greece a railpass is a waste of money - namely since Greece has few rail lines and the ones they do have are cheap.