Staying Jul-Dec in Germany
 

I have 2 questions please:

1. My hubby will be working in Germany from July-Dec and we only have the weekends to travel. Is the Eurorail Flexi the best choice for us? We plan to see at least Brussels and Amsterdam outside of Germany, and hopefully Paris and Giverny. If we have more time (and money) the other places on our list are London, Valencia, Venice, and perhaps Copenhagen (all for personal reasons). Would buying two sets of Eurorail passes (for 4 months) be a wise thing to do? We'd love to drive up to 5 hours from where we are (will be in Euskirchen, Germany) but we are concerned about the difficulty of navigating the highways outside of Germany.

2. Should we buy the Eurorail passes before we leave the US? Is there a cheaper option once we get to Europe?

Thanks in advance, I may have more questions once our plans are finalized.

The airport of Cologne (closest airport from Euskirchen) is the base of several German low cost airlines.

It can be cheaper to buy some airline tickets.

The German railway and other railways are promoting internet sales very much. It is also possible to get some good discounts via this sales channel.

Given how open your plans are you will most problably be better off with a combination of low-cost airlines and point to point train tickets. (You could end up spendng a ton of money for long-term passes and then hardly using them - or parying much more than necesary.)

The Eurailpass(es) are probably your most expensive choices (as much as $1,654 per adult for 3 months). The German Railrod (bahn.de) has always special offers within Europe, i.e. this summer they offer Amsterdam or Zürich as low as 39 Eur, or within Germany (i.e. weekend tickets) as low as 21 Eur. As you will be only 25 miles from Cologne, you can take a flight on GermanWings to Paris for as low as 8 Eur one way p.p.

Thank you for all your responses. You saved me a bunch of money! We will find out this week when we are going, I'm sure I'll have more questions then.

Thanks so much!