Oh, and if you're beer drinkers, get a 50cl glass of Gilden <i>k&ouml;lsch</i> to wash down your <i>rahmschnitzel</i> (pork cutlet in cream gravy). Gilden is a national brewery, and the Cologne restaurant is one of their &quot;taps&quot; - a place where the factory brew is served on draft.

www.gilden.de

Robespierre -
Actually, we do have beer drinkers in our group - one more reason for a trip to Germany. Thanks for the additional info - we enjoyed the website.

Question for LarryinColorado?

On another thread someone insists they make reservations 'on the phone with DB for trains in Italy and other countries to use in tandem with the Eurailpass they had.

I questioned whether they mistakingly talked to RailEurope or someone but they did not respond.

Am i correct in thinking that it's impossible to make such non German reservations with a railpass on the bahn.de site?

If they are right it would be a boon for folks wishing to reserve at European rates with passes before going rather than paying RailEurope's $12/seat plus mailing and handling charges.

Thanks

I don't think you can make reservations online from DB for trains in Italy. In fact I don't think you can buy tickets online from DB for Italian trains. With rare exceptions, DB only sells on their website tickets for trains that start and/or end in Germany.

I am confident, however, that you could buy reservations at some, if not any, ticket counter in Germany. That's what Euraide does; they have an office in the Munich Hbf, and if you want a reservation for anywhere in Europe, they go to the counter and buy it for you.

Thus, I think if you called DB's number 011 49 1805 99 66 33, you could use a credit card to buy reservations for any train. The reservations would probably have to be mailed to you. That would take about 2 weeks.

I've never traveled by train (at all) in Italy, but it is my understanding that, except for ES*, reservations are not needed, and if they are, you can get them a few days or the night before.

Larry - so the poster i was talking about was right - they said they called the DB and made the reservations - good to know this is possible though i don't understand why DB does it for passholders for travel outside of Germany - a few euros per reservation, all the work and they even pay the mailing fee - no wonder they're losing tons of money. I assume there is no mailing fee. thanks

Dianne (texanne) left today for Europe. Before she left, she sent me a scanned image of her Eurostar ticket from Brussels to London. She wanted to show me that it said &quot;any Belgian station, so they just needed a Sch&ouml;ner-Tag ticket to get from K&ouml;ln to the Belgian border.

I immediately noticed that they are taking the 11:59 train from Brussels. Ops. The first regional train after 9 AM leaves K&ouml;ln at 9:17, and the connecting train doesn't get to Brussels until after noon. Too late.

I had suggested that she check everything with a ticket agent in K&ouml;ln to make sure that all the tickets work together, but she might buy the Sch&ouml;ner-Tag ticket in Munich. Then when she gets to K&ouml;ln she'll find out she can't use it (and they are non-refundable).

Anyway, I am posting this in the hope that she will find an internet connection over there and decide to check Fodors.

ttt