Aurora005

I am planning a 14 day trip to Europe excluding arrival/departure dates: Rome (3 days) , Florence (2 days), Venice (1 day), Paris (3 days) and London or Amsterdam depending on the most logical route via train and would like some input! I've come across multiple options such as Eurail or RailEurope and don't really know what the difference is between all these train options. Also, are those trains better to travel between countries and travel within Italy using another train option? Would a global pass or select pass be useful between the 3 different countries? But how do I get around in Italy between Rome, Venice, and Florence?
Thank you all in advance! My first time traveling to Europe and I overwhelmed.

MmePerdu

This is a good place to start:
http://www.seat61.com/Europe-train-t...m#.Us3BbBwug58

Read it thoroughly and you'll have a very good introduction as well as learning how to buy your tickets. Any sort of pass is unlikely to be a good idea. Buy tickets directly, as you'll learn on the site, rather than through either of the agencies you mention. You'll pay much more and have much less choice if you ignore this warning.

Have fun!

greg

I think the marketing muscles of cost added ticket resellers have gotten your attention pretty well.
The seat61 is the most comprehensive material on this subject not (yet) tainted by marketing interests.
If this is too much reading and want to quickly grasp what trains are available, use www.bahn.com and plug in all the key destination combinations. Just use the same day of the week next week. The schedule don't change much and the actual schedule for summer and later and not yet published. What you need is a grasp of the travel time and www.bahn.com gives you this quickly. What you quickly find out is connecting anywhere Italy to Paris or Amsterdam is one agonizingly long journey. Once you figure out logical connections, you can get the web site names of the actual operators to buy tickets instead of using cost added resellers who don't pass discount offers to the buyers.

Jean

How does Switzerland fit into this?

It would be a little easier to understand your itinerary if you listed it by each day. For example,

Day 1. Arrive Rome.
Day 2. Rome
Day 3. Rome
day 4. Rome
Day 5. Train to Florence (90 mins. plus time at each end checking out of/into hotels, getting to/from train stations)
Day 6. Florence
Day 7. Train to Venice (2+ hrs. plus time as mentioned above)
Day 8. Venice
Day 9. Venice to Paris (11+ hrs. by train)
Day 10. Paris
Day 11. Paris
Day 12. Paris
Day 13. Paris to London or Amsterdam
Day 14. London or Amsterdam
Day 15. London or Amsterdam
Day 16. Fly home


It's the same trains regardless of how you buy the tickets. You need to price out the point-to-point tickets, taking into account any advance-purchase discounts, and then compare to the costs of various passes.

I hope you're buying an "open-jaw" airline ticket into Rome and out of London or Amsterdam. You may also find it cheaper (and definitely faster) to fly from Venice to Paris.

Lastly, decide what you want to see everywhere and be sure you're spending enough time in each place to see what you want to see. IMO, your time in Florence and Venice is too short for a first-time visitor. (Make sure the things you want to see in Florence are open on the days you're there.) In crowded, hot summer months, the pace of your itinerary could be too fast to be enjoyable.

If it were my trip, I'd definitely skip London/Amsterdam. I'd probably skip Paris too and just spend the 2 weeks in Italy, but this is your trip.

PalenQ

To explain the European train system and passes which offhand you do not seem to merit one or could realize the benefit of one with your itinerary - anyway check out these superb info-filled sites: www.ricksteves.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.seat61.com - the latter with good info on discounted tickets you can book online if you book far enough in advance and are fine with non-cjhanbgeable non-refundable ducats.

www.trenitalia.com for Italian trains
and those to France

or possible for France: www.voyages-sncf.com or www.capitaine.com

and www.eurostar.com for trains to London or www.thalys.com for trains Paris to Amsterdam.

If London I'd put a day or two more in. Booking early on Eurostar or Thalys can save a lot - a whole lot like a hundred bucks or so over just showing up and buying a full-fare ticket.

bvlenci

I suggest that you think in terms of how many nights you'll spend in each place, and consider that the number of days you'll have there is one less than the number of nights. In other words, if you spend three nights in Paris, you'll have only one full day there, because the day before and the day after will be travel days. Even for relatively short trips, like Rome to Florence, the travel will take up a good part of the day, between packing up, checking out of the hotel, getting to the train station (half an hour before departure to make sure you find your track, and to allow for the unexpected), the trip itself, getting to the hotel, checking in, and unpacking. At the very least, even if you have an afternoon free on arrival, you'll immediately have to get something to eat, which means getting oriented to a new city, and you'll probably be tired from all petty annoyances of travel.

I always keep in mind that every destination I add to an itinerary robs me of one day of my trip.

Some people think they'll spend the "final" day in a city doing a bit of last-minute sightseeing, but in reality you have to check out of the hotel fairly early, which means you have to leave your luggage somewhere (maybe at the hotel) and then go back and pick it up, adding another half hour at least to the travel time. I always find I just want to get it over with and get to the next destination.

Getting down to specifics, if three days in Rome and Paris really means three nights, you're not allowing enough time for those two cities. They're big cities with dozens of things to see. If you do a forced march through the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, and a few other "must-sees", you'll really have missed the best of Rome, which is the experience of BEING in Rome. The same is true of Paris. If you decide to add London, the same is true there. Florence and Venice are smaller cities and can be "seen" in less time, but they won't be experienced. And if you want to visit more than one of the museums of Florence, you'd better add one night for each two museums, counting the famous art churches as half a museum. People who love Renaissance art could easily spend a whole week in Florence and wish they had more time.

I would suggest dropping the idea of another destination and adding at least one night to each of Rome and Paris.

Now my sermon is over.

To get between Rome, Florence, and Venice, there is a choice of two train services. Both offer excellent discounts if you reserve your ticket well in advance, with the best prices popping up four months in advance. Schedules change twice a year, in early June and early December, and often the new schedules are posted rather late, so four months is too far ahead for trips just after the schedule change. The two companies are:

http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/inde...005817f90aRCRD

http://www.italotreno.it/EN/Pages/default.aspx

Both offer fast, comfortable trains between the three cities. In Rome, none of the Italo trains leaves from the main central Termini station, so that may be a consideration, depending on where your hotel is. On both sites, you need to use the Italian names of the three cities: Roma, Firenze, and Venezia.

For Trenitalia, there is a US site that offers tickets at approximately the same price as the Italian site, including the discounts. Some people find this easier to use and don't mind paying the extra delivery fee.

http://www.italiarail.com/

However, do compare the prices with the official Italian Trenitalia site, to be sure that they both are offering the same discounts. It's possible that the official site is more up to date.

bvlenci

I meant that three nights in Paris is TWO full days, not one.

RonZ

There's an overnight train connecting Venice and Paris.

Last time Paris to Italy we took an evening flight from Orly on Vueling which worked well.

RonZ

Poster bvlenci really nailed it.

spaarne

<i>Traveling by train
Posted by: Aurora005 on Jan 8, 14 at 4:20pm Posted in: Europe
I am planning a 14 day trip to Europe excluding arrival/departure dates: Rome (3 days) , Florence (2 days), Venice (1 day), Paris (3 days) and London or Amsterdam</i>

That is a lot of turf for two weeks. Maybe you should cut the outliers and do only R, F, and P, or just stick to Italy. For a train newbie you can learn a bit from this illustrated introduction http://tinyurl.com/mzch4xb. Also, consider a night train from F or V to P. You'll save a day and a night in a hotel.

kybourbon

Eurail and RailEurope are sites that sell passes. A pass is not good on the overnight train or Italo nor does it include the supplements for most of the trains you would be using (10€ per person on the fast trains in Italy).

14 days is about enough time to see what you listed for Italy. You really don't have time for other countries.

PalenQ

There is no railpass that would be viable for you since as kybourbon says it won't pass on the overnight train to Paris nor are Eurails valid on Eurostar trains to London.

do buy Italian and Eurostar tickets as far in advance as possible however to save money.

Aurora005

Thank you everyone. After contacting several travel agencies/etc I really appreciate the feedback.