meecho

We are 4 female university students on our first Eurotrip. We will be visiting, Paris, the Cote d'Azur, Barcelona, Florence, Rome, Athens and 3 greek islands. We wll be landng in Paris and returning from Athens (last leg of vacation on greek islands.) We are thinking of purchasing a eurorail pass but have heard that our seats are not guaranteed. Can anyone pls confirm this and if a europass is the best way to travel from city to city. As for the 3 greek islands (Rhodes, Mykonos, Santorini) we will either fly or take the ferry.

Thank you

altamiro

>We are thinking of purchasing a eurorail pass but have heard that our seats are not guaranteed.

The one has nothing to do with the other.
Eurail pass will be most probably more expensive than single tickets.

>Can anyone pls confirm this and if a europass is the best way to travel from city to city.

You surely mean "the best way to _pay_ for travelling city to city?
Basically you have to do the math yourself.
With your itinerary, on some legs flights might be both cheaper and faster. You don't want to go by train from Rome to Athens or Barcelona to Florence.

ellenem

You might begin by looking at inexpensive airline connections between the places you hope to visit. This website is a good beginning; it list airlines that fly between specific countries and cities.

http://www.whichbudget.com/

StCirq

You have to price it out, comparing point-to-point tickets with the price of a pass. And factor in cheap airfares, for example, from Italy to Greece, which might be cheaper than train fares. A Eurail pass is probably the most expensive option.

You're covering a lot of ground. I hope you're planning on spending several weeks in Europe.

janisj

>>Paris, the Cote d'Azur, Barcelona, Florence, Rome, Athens and 3 greek islands. <<

How long is your trip? That is at least a month's worth. And that would be rushed. More like 5 weeks - and more than that if you take trains (and ferries) all the way.

fmpden

Let me try since you asked a specific question that no one has had the courtesy to answer.

....but have heard that our seats are not guaranteed.....

It depends. With a rail pass you can generally jump any Inter-city or Regional train and take a seat.

However, with the high speed trains or premium trains that require reserved seats, it is a little different. First you have to pay for the seat reservation and that could be as much as 20 to 25 dollars extra. Second on some trains the seats available for the pass are limited so you may not get a seat on a that train.

Rail passes are not a no-brainer, good deal that they were years ago. You must do you homework to price point to point tickets before deciding if it is worth. The general advice is -- unless you are doing a lot of long distance trains, the rail pass is mostly likely not a good deal. But you only you can decide that.

meecho

thank you very much for all your replies. We will definetily use all your advice and btw we are going for 4 1/2 wks. It looks like we might fly between longer distances and use inter-city trains for shorter...ciao

janisj

Ok - approx 31 days. You have 9 destinations spread from Barcelona to Greek Islands -- that comes to 3+ days per place on average. But after you subtract the first 2 days (one spent flying over and one spent recovering from jet lag), the last day (packing and getting to the airport) and 1/2 a day every time you change cities -- you are really down to less than 2.5 days each. Where are you flying into/out of? If it is round trip in/out of Paris you need to subtract another day day getting back to Paris the night before your flight out.

Not to talk you out of things - just info so you don't over-plan these destinations. And if there are any you can drop (Barcelona comes to mind logistics-wise) you'd have a bit more time in others. Traveling fast is fine, as long as you don't try to cram in too much in those cities.