Europe Disaster.. Need serious Help

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First of all, this forum is AMAZING and all of you who reply here are wonderful and such a big help to confused/terrified travellers like me!
Let me set the scene... I am 22 years old, student, traveling to Europe from May 10, 2011 to June 30, 2011 with my boyfriend, student, 22 years old. We plan to backpack (I use that term loosely - mostly meaning budget - as much as possible).
Originally we had our hearts set on going to MANY places, but after some thinking and planning we realized this is a bit of a stretch. I will illustrate:
Ideal trip: Fly into London, train to Paris, then either night train or fly to Barcelona or Madrid (one or the other), train from Barcelona/Madrid along French coast (Marseilles, Nice, Monaco) then to Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome, fly to Greece, greek island ferries, fly?? or train to Istanbul, fly?? or train to Venice, train Venice through Salzburg, munich, Prague, to Berlin, then train to Amsterdam, fly home. I realize looking at this it seems absolutely absurd in that amount of time and we will not enjoy our time since we will spend most of it on the train… That being said, I think it appropriate to cut out the spain/French coast leg, unless there is a scenic train we can take in a matter of 2 days for the entire trip from Barcelona to Venice. This would mean to go directly from Paris to Venice (train or plane?). Another option would be to simplify the Czech/Austria/Germany leg – I was not thinking to stay at length in each place, perhaps just train through and get off for half a day in Salzburg, 1 day in Munich, 1-2 days in Prague, etc. Berlin would be a longer stay.

I am a terrible planner. I am bad with websites and can not figure out bahn.de website. If anyone can help out I would GREATLY appreciate it. I have no concept of time/how long it takes to get to these places via train, when to buy the tickets, whether or not to buy a pass etc. I have heard such mixed reviews about eurail pass… It seems like it may be worth it for this, but a lot of it involves supplemental fees/trains that are not included!!!

We would like to save money EVERYWHERE possible, but we also want to spend a reasonable amount of time doing it. We would be willing to spend a bit extra for a cheap flight if it saves us 10 hours… that sort of thing.

Please help, and if you need more information let me know – also feel free to be blunt and say that is a ridiculous itinerary…
THANK YOU

I know for a fact that you'll get great help on this forum, but you need to provide some sort of a plan, something which is clearer. Look on wiki or whatever, and work out the places you really want to go to. The bahn.de site isn't that hard to navigate - I think its the easiest.

So your trip is quite a long one? I think you can see many places, but jumping from North to South, then back to the North, then out East etc isn't the best idea maybe. Its going to be a fun trip when you get it all planned 

First of all, we would agree with Alex, you need to figure out "must" destinations for you and then simply list all those, so we can start thinking about particular itinerary and best way to manage ticket question.

As of now, we can only give you couple preliminary things. For instance, for London-Paris train journey pass is absolutely useless due to huge supplement, in many cases simply purchased in advance ticket is actually cheaper. Paris to Madrid on budget...hmmm... we would probably recommend aviation (there are plenty of good options), with Paris to Barcelona it is again either flight or you can actually do a trick to avoid expensive overnight elipsos train by purchasing discounted ticket till last French station (Cerbere) + regional from border to Barcelona. South of France part really depends on either your plan multiple long stops on the way (like for a night or one day), if not, then pass might actually beat the regular ticket, if yes, then short legs travel (like Marseilles to Nice or Nice to Monaco) cheaper to do with straight forward point to point tickets. For Italy you can actually go with regional trains, especially looking for your listed destinations (Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome). Those regional trains are relatively cheap and not gone loose a lot of time, but win a lot on money spent. In Central and South-Eastern Europe pass is almost always gone lose to point to point tickets. With Austria and Germany you can actually use nice local group passes, which will allow both of you unlimited travels. Eurail Pass there makes sense only for long-distance legs.

And the last general advice to take into account: the whole idea between making a choice in favor of pass or against it is simple math. In every pass you have app. day value (total price of the pass divided by number of days pass is valid for). Then you compare this number to potential point to point ticket price for the leg planned for first, second, third etc. days of your travels. So at the end you can see what makes more sense. That is why we asked for more specific "must" destinations, so we can help you with this comparison.   

Okay thanks guys for the suggestions. I think I have decided to cut spain out of the equation entirely - not enough time and I would like to be able to spend quality time at destinations, not just my entire trip at the airport or on the train.
That being said here is where I will be taking trains:

Venice - Bologna - florence - Rome
What is the cheapest way to do this? Id like to spend a couple days in each place, other than rome, more.

Then fly to athens. I need some help with greek ferries but I will find a ferry forum for that

Next would be fly to istanbul, fly to venice.
Vienna, Munich, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam OR Vienna, Salzburg (get off the train for maybe 1/2 a day?), Munich, Prague Berlin, Amsterdam
In both of these situations, I wold like to stay in vienna, munich and prague for 2 or so days, where as Berlin would be about 5.


I hope this helps, if you need any more info please let me know what to specify... As of now my itinerary only includes those two train trip routes.

THANKS EVERYONE!!!

One more thing - My brother and a friend may be coming with us in which case there would be 4 students total under age 25.
Should be buy a Rail Card Youth?

Oh also I may add one more rail trip;

Athens - Istanbul - via Thessaloniki. Would it be worth getting the Balkan rail pass just for this trip? this website said it was 160E http://www.raileurope.ca/rail-tickets-passes/balkan-flexipass/discounts-and-pricing.html, but that is for first class. Your website said it is 51E for second class - where do I find that if this is something I should buy?

Venice - Bologna - florence - Rome
What is the cheapest way to do this? Id like to spend a couple days in each place, other than rome, more.

We would recommend using regional trains ('regionale veloc' on Italian railways website) on all the legs here. They a slower than hi-speed ones, but much cheaper.
Venice-Bologna: ticket fare is only 9.3 EUR, trains operate really often (like every hour). Bologna-Florence is the same story, ticket fare is only 7.15 EUR, couple direct trains per day or multiple connections with one easy change in Prato. Florence-Rome, 17.05 EUR for ticket, direct trains run every two hours.

Next would be fly to istanbul, fly to venice. Vienna, Munich, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam OR Vienna, Salzburg (get off the train for maybe 1/2 a day?), Munich, Prague Berlin, Amsterdam

Let us clarify first. You intend to come back to Venice from Istanbul just in order to travel from there to Vienna? If so, then is Venice is a must on your way from Istanbul to Vienna? Because you know... you actually travel a bit more straight way - for instance fly cheap WizzAir Istanbul-Budapest and use train to Vienna from there, it will save your money and time.
Meanwhile, about route from Vienna towards later destinations. Since there are probably would be at least two or maybe even 4 passenger, than your best and cheapest way to travel Vienna-Salzburg is to use Einfach-Raus Ticket (http://www.oebb.at/en/Tickets/Groups/Einfach-Raus-Ticket/index.jsp ), it is a group pass (for up to 5 passengers) which cost only 28 EUR for everybody and it is valid for all the regional trains in Austria, thus with its help you will reach Salzburg really cheap. The only inconvenience is that you will need to make at least 2 changes (usually in St.Valentin and Linz), but that is not a problem with nicely organized train system in Austria.
Salzburg-Munich: best and cheapest option is so called Bayern-Ticket (Bavaria-Ticket) - http://www.bahn.de/i/view/USA/en/prices/germany/laender-ticket.shtml . Similar story as Einfach-Raus Ticket, but for Bavaria region (including Salzburg), also cost 28 EUR for up 5 passengers.
Munich-Prague: here it is also better to us Bavaria ticket, but a bit modified one - Bavaria-Bohemi (Bayern-Böhmen)-Ticket, also for up to 5 people, cost 33 EUR, but valid not only in Bavaria region, but for neighboring Czech regions as well. In your case it will be valid till Plzen (train Munich-Prague goes via Plzen), so you will use it till Plzen, while from Plzen simply purchase regular domestic ticket Plzen-Prague, you can do it either online (https://www.cd.cz/eshop/), at the station or even on board of the train, so you won't need to get off in Plzen, there is a group discount for domestic Czech tickets as well.
Prague-Berlin: here you can have two options:
a) purchase some time in advance discounted SporoTicket Prague-Berlin from Czech railways eShop (https://www.cd.cz/eshop/international/search_int.aspx?tt=1). You will be able to use fast international train then.
b) use SONE+DB/REGIONet+DB (info about it on our Czech page) till German stations, while from there use group pass, depending on day of the week either Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket or Happy Weekend Ticket (info about those on our German page)
Berlin-Amsterdam: as well two options:
a) purchase in advance discounted tickets (http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en?newrequest=yes&protocol=http:&), from 39 EUR per passenger.
b) use same Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket or Happy Weekend Ticket to travel till German-Dutch border and purchase there Dutch domestic till Amsterdam.

One more thing - My brother and a friend may be coming with us in which case there would be 4 students total under age 25.

Well, local passes like Einfach-Raus Ticket, Bavaria-Lander ticket, Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket etc. seems to be specifically useful in your case, since all 4 of you can travel for almost nothing compared to standard passenger fare, that is why we recommend those on route where it is possible to use those.

Should be buy a Rail Card Youth?

Hmmm... not quite sure what you meant exactly? Youth railcards (like EURO26) in Europe are usually sold to youth passengers from particular countries and thus give discount for domestic travels within that country and sometimes for international tickets as well (if they include Rail Plus).

Athens - Istanbul - via Thessaloniki. Would it be worth getting the Balkan rail pass just for this trip? this website said it was 160E http://www.raileurope.ca/rail-tickets-passes/balkan-flexipass/discounts-and-pricing.html, but that is for first class. Your website said it is 51E for second class - where do I find that if this is something I should buy?

In such cases RailEurope is basically acting as a scam. They are agency which trying to sell you same thing for almost twice bigger sum (160 CAD vs. 70 EUR on spot, if we are talking about 5 day pass, 1st class), than it costs on spot. 51 EUR is exactly the fare which young person (<26 years) pays for 5 day pass, 2nd class. But if you intend to use Balkan Pass only for Athens-Thessaloniki-Istanbul route (one way) it is not worth it, since one way full fare international ticket Athens-Istanbul bought in Greece will cost app. 35 EUR (+25 EUR for sleeper reservation on overnight Thessaloniki-Istanbul train)   

p.s. in case of any further questions or clarifications feel free to ask 

Hi tUt;

Thanks so much for the help. A few questions:
1) Regional Trains in Italy - do I need to book these in advance to ensure these rates or can we just show up and buy at the station? Also, are the regional trains at the same stations as other trains? if so will it be obvious for me to get on the right one?!

2) I actually meant going from istanbul - vienna (not back to venice!! sorry!). I was also thinking of doing istanbul - budabest - vienna - prague. This istanbul budapest would be by air, but the whizz air website says I can only book a round trip, not a one way. Do you know anything about this. After that, what would be the budapest - vienna train route and how much? or would it be better to fly?

3) the up to 5 passenger passes you mentioned - I think I am reading the websites correctly but it says we can buy directly at the station? is this the case or do we need to ge them ahead of time. the problem is i dont know exactly what day...

Thanks!

1) Regional Trains in Italy - do I need to book these in advance to ensure these rates or can we just show up and buy at the station? Also, are the regional trains at the same stations as other trains? if so will it be obvious for me to get on the right one?

No need to book anything in advance. That is a good thing about regional trains - no need to prepurchase the ticket, fares stay the same doesn't matter when you buy it. Another good thing is that ticket basically is issued for the route, but not particular train, thus even if you miss one you can always catch next since no seat reservation require on any regional train. And yes, they depart from same train stations, sometimes even making couple stops within the city boundaries, so even no need to get to central station. Just check out times when regional trains depart, so you can pick the right time to arrive at the station, on website those train marked as "R" or "Regionale Veloc"

2) I actually meant going from istanbul - vienna (not back to venice!! sorry!). I was also thinking of doing istanbul - budabest - vienna - prague. This istanbul budapest would be by air, but the whizz air website says I can only book a round trip, not a one way. Do you know anything about this. After that, what would be the budapest - vienna train route and how much? or would it be better to fly?

Well, WizzAir for sure does have limitation for return ticket only, unfortunately. Not sure why and where it comes from, but it is a known thing. But depending on date, it might actually make sense to purchase return ticket, but fly only one way. Or you can always use train all the way from Turkey to Hungary too.
No need to fly Budapest-Vienna, trains run every two hours and cost from 13 EUR per person. Such discounted tickets can be purchased either online (unfortunately interface is in Hungarian only - http://www.mav-start.hu/nemzetkozi_e_ticket/index.php , but not very difficult with google translator) or from the ticket counters already in Budapest (at least 3 days in advance purchase required). Regular fare is 25 EUR.
Vienna-Prague discounted tickets can be purchased in advance from Austrian Railways website (https://ticket.oebb.at/bin/frame_ticket.pl?ticket=jticket.pl&LANG=EN , from 29 EUR per person). Or you can do a trick with Einfach-Raus Ticket till Austrian-Czech border and domestic group ticket/pass from there till Prague.

3) the up to 5 passenger passes you mentioned - I think I am reading the websites correctly but it says we can buy directly at the station? is this the case or do we need to ge them ahead of time. the problem is i dont know exactly what day...

That is a good thing about those local passes that you can get them even 5 minutes before train departure, so there is absolutely no need to prepurchase anything. And not only you can buy them from the counter, but from ticket machines around station or internet.

Hi tUt, thanks so much for the help! we have done a lot of planning so far over the past couple weeks...
My boyfriend is still pretty set on the spain part though. Could you help me out with the best way to go from Barcelona to Venice. We would want to stop at a few places such as Montpellier, Cinque Terre possibly, Nice, Monacco. We would probably take 5 days from Barcelona to Venice to do the trip.
Any help would be great! Thanks

Well, the patter to make rather cheap Barcelona-Venice journey with stops of the way is pretty simply - just use regional trains and break your tickets via border stations avoiding expensive international tariffs. For instance:
Barcelona-PortBou/Cerbere (Spanish-French border): ticket till PortBou (last Spanish station) cost 11 EUR for regional trains, till Cerbere it should be just a bit more.
Cerbere-Montpellier: from 24 to 28 EUR depending on train choice.
Montpellier-Nice: ticket for regional train cost 48 EUR, but if you are definitely know your travel date, then you can 'hunt' for discounted tickets (as low as 17 EUR), purchase in advance require - www.voyages-sncf.com
Nice-Monaco: ticket cost only 3.4 EUR
Monaco-Ventimiglia(first Italian station): ticket cost only 3.8 EUR
Ventimiglia-Cinque Terre: not sure about exact location of your interest, but let's assume La Spezia. Also cheaper to use regional trains, ticket cost only 16.1 EUR and no pre purchase required.
La Spezia-Venice: ticket for regional trains via Parma-Bologna should be a bit less than 20 EUR.

okay sounds good.
another thing - eurostar is so expensive!!! What is the cheapest possible way to get from london to paris - I have been looking on the eurostar website and entering youth (22 yrs) for may 12 or 13 and I can only get 76E. Can you find a cheaper fare?

another thing - eurostar is so expensive!!!

Well, yeah... EuroStar tends to be rather expensive option for traveling between London and Paris. But 76 E ? You mean per person or for two? Because we found only tickets as low as 41.5 EUR per person (or 83 EUR for two passengers <26 years old) for your dates. Which is actually pretty good fare for this route.
As rule, purchased in well advance plane ticket might actually be cheaper (for instance, EasyJet for May 12 from 25.99 GBP or 30 EUR). Or alternatively bus - for instance http://www.eurolines.co.uk/coach/index.aspx

ok great thanks for that... Im not sure why I am getting different info, what website were you looking at?
Nex thing... I am trying to use the trenitalia website to find train from venice to munich or vienna (or salzburg) and every time I try to look up timetablesm, example "Venice to Munich" it says right above venice "Solution not found" am I doing it wrong?! this is driving me absolutely nuts. I noticed your website said they are from 29E, but I want to see the time table and options... help.