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Question about rail travel in Europe

PalmettoDeac19

PalmettoDeac19

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I'm planning an 11 day trip to Europe for this April. Right now the plan is to fly into Berlin and I want to hit Cologne, Paris, Barcelona and Madrid. For those with experience traveling by rail in Europe, would you recommend I pick up an Eurail Select pass or might it be cheaper to get individual tickets between these cities? I'd like to travel overnight as much as possible to maximize my time in these cities. My main concerns are the reservation fees many trains, particularly overnight trains, seem to require. I don't want to spend $400 on a railpass only to have to pay 40 euros to reserve a seat on every train.
 
PalmettoDeac19 said:
I'm planning an 11 day trip to Europe for this April. Right now the plan is to fly into Berlin and I want to hit Cologne, Paris, Barcelona and Madrid. For those with experience traveling by rail in Europe, would you recommend I pick up an Eurail Select pass or might it be cheaper to get individual tickets between these cities? I'd like to travel overnight as much as possible to maximize my time in these cities. My main concerns are the reservation fees many trains, particularly overnight trains, seem to require. I don't want to spend $400 on a railpass only to have to pay 40 euros to reserve a seat on every train.
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#1 - that's too many cities for 11 days

#2 - just get tickets in each city, it'll be cheaper and simpler that way
 
I can tell you that the ticket from Berlin to Cologne is over 100 € if you don't get it months in advance. Also, why are you going to Cologne? The cathedral is amazing but other than that, unless you love minimalist electronic music it's an odd choice.
 
It's too many cities too far apart. You're going to spend too much time on trains, not to mention you'll be jet lagged. You should cut out one, if not two, countries. You've got time for brief visits to four cities in one country, IMO.
 
City to city tickets is the way to go. Of the cities you listed, I would cut it back to a triangle of Paris - Madrid - Barcelona. Madrid is very underrated, IMO. I would plan on spending three or four days in and around it. There is a really cool day trip to El Escorial that you should do while there.
 
Berlin - Prague - Vienna - Budapest


Or


Paris - Barcelona - Madrid



Something like either of those makes way more sense. You gotta pick one region or you're just going to spend your whole trip travelling and miss out on half the things you would want to do.
 
Don't do the Eurail pass. And I echo the sentiment here. This summer I did Berlin, Copenhagen, Oslo, And Stockholm in more time than you have but you could do three of those in 11 days also.
 
Part of the reason for the stretched out itinerary was my desire to see Germany and my friend wanting to go to Spain. You guys are right that it's probably too ambitious travel wise. Cologne was thrown in there mainly because it was on the way from Berlin to Paris and we were hoping to catch a soccer game in nearby Dortmund. Thinking about cutting out Paris and Cologne and doing Berlin and Munich for five days and flying to Barcelona and doing Barca and Madrid over six days. The 11 days doesn't include the days flying to and from the US.
 
Berlin and Munich are good choices because if you have a few days, you can venture out of town to see a smaller town in Bavaria and Potsdam. A Dortmund game would be great, but there's really nothing much to see in Cologne or nearby. If you stop in, go see the cathedral (right next to the main train station), sit around and drink some kölsch by the Rhine, then go out and find a weird party.
 
Don't want to start a Europe thread so I'll put this here.

Thinking about a family trip to Munich this year, but would like to take a side trip to Prague. How easy is the train trip from Munich to Prague?
 
siff said:
Don't want to start a Europe thread so I'll put this here.

Thinking about a family trip to Munich this year, but would like to take a side trip to Prague. How easy is the train trip from Munich to Prague?
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Looking at www.bahn.de, there is a direct train that takes 6 hours and also a direct bus that takes under 5 hours. Both are priced around €65 and leave several times a day.

It should be very straightforward to do, and you can buy tickets in advance direct from DB Bahn over the internet if you want, or just buy them at the station from the ticket booth or the automatic vending machines. The München Hauptbahnhof is very nice and easy to navigate as is Praha Hlavni Nadrazi (the Prague main station).
 
Cut cities. Buy tickets at the platform. You rarely need a reservation, and its pretty inexpensive.
 
The pass is only worth it if your traveling for closer to a month.
 
Paris>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>the other cities you mentioned
 
siff said:
Don't want to start a Europe thread so I'll put this here.
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same with me, don't want to start a new thread. so i'll just ask this here:

dhtoy and i are flying into Nice on 1/16 (leaving on 1/15, so we'll actually have most of the day on 1/16 assuming we can fight through the jet lag). i'm flying back out on 1/20 when he has to go to a sales kickoff for work. obviously a really short trip, but we want to either hit the french riviera or small italian towns. anybody have a recommendation on our best bet this time of the year? we were really interested in the french riviera, but were told that this time of the year, it wouldn't be as great. we plan to rent a car, so we are pretty flexible on where we go. can't stay in hostels because he'll have his work computer, and they don't allow it.
 
Marquee Moon said:
Paris>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>the other cities you mentioned
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Berlin is the "Brooklyn" of Europe right now. It's very, very hip and if you're a younger person it probably is more fun to visit than Paris.



But otherwise, yeah ... Paris is awesome. Best overall city in Europe.
 
DeacHoops said:
same with me, don't want to start a new thread. so i'll just ask this here:

dhtoy and i are flying into Nice on 1/16 (leaving on 1/15, so we'll actually have most of the day on 1/16 assuming we can fight through the jet lag). i'm flying back out on 1/20 when he has to go to a sales kickoff for work. obviously a really short trip, but we want to either hit the french riviera or small italian towns. anybody have a recommendation on our best bet this time of the year? we were really interested in the french riviera, but were told that this time of the year, it wouldn't be as great. we plan to rent a car, so we are pretty flexible on where we go. can't stay in hostels because he'll have his work computer, and they don't allow it.
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Why not drive up to Grenoble (France) or Sestriere (Italy) to go skiing / chill in the mountains? That's the place to be right now, the coastal French and Italian towns will be dead and most places closed. They are very seasonal.
 
vadimivich said:
Berlin is the "Brooklyn" of Europe right now. It's very, very hip and if you're a younger person it probably is more fun to visit than Paris.



But otherwise, yeah ... Paris is awesome. Best overall city in Europe.
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Berlin has the great underrated museums. My only point being if he's never been to any of those cities before, Paris is a no brainer.

But if I had my druthers, I'd never go anywhere except Venice.
 
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