Germany-France-Italy circuit

1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

First off, I'm really impressed by the analytics here!

I'm trying to work out the best approach for a trip I'm planning this December-Jan. Complicating this is that the railways haven't released timetables/fares yet! So I'm trying to make plans based on what's showing now for early Dec, but have no idea how applicable that will be. Will current pricing be the same then, or are fares higher (or availability lower) around Christmas-New Years? Choices I'm considering are:
1) rail-pass/es (The RailEurope passes don't look good, but there is a DB German rail pass, which seems like it could be good value for 2A/1C if I can get more trips on to it).
2) point-to-point - but don't have any idea what prices will be like. Specials appear now, but will they still be available when these travel dates are released?
3) rent-a-car. Seems similar price to railpass plus point to point, but will have parking hassle/cost. A fall back option if train takes too long at similar cost.

This is for 2 adults, 1 child - also complicating the calculation is the child turns 12 around New Year, and DB at least, maybe others, have different pricing for age 12 vs 11. Rough trips (with nights spent in first city before trip) are:
1) (2nts) Frankfurt-Nuremberg
2) (2nts) Nuremberg-Berlin
3) (3nts) Berlin-Paris (Wouldn't mind Koln, but don't think there's enough time)
4) (3nts) Paris-Genoa (This is the tough one! See below)
5) More flexibility in these legs with Italy back to Germany but expect first leg will be Genoa-Rome
6) Rome-Verona/Venice?
7) Venice-Munich or Frankfurt

Where possible, would prefer overnight trains to save sightseeing time, though Berlin-Paris seems to be the only good match for this (T450). Have noted there's also a Rome/Venice-Munich option, but not sure that will fit in well.

(FYI The sequence came about with German places in Dec to try to catch the Christmas markets, then this seemed to be the most efficient location to visit Paris, which is one of the must visits, Genoa is a must do due to another booking there, then we have 10 days in January between leaving Genoa and then leaving Frankfurt, and those Italian destinations seemed probably the most interesting and realistic uses of time for that. It's about 2 or 3 days in each city, which isn't a lot, but there's so much to see as well!)

The issue with step 4 is that it's hard to get a good route, and many prices don't show, plus I need to be in Genoa before 31/12 around midday. As the closest Friday, I used 9/12 for this. DB brings up the best option I could find of:

Paris-Bercy
Fr, 09.12.11 dep 18:54 13:27 2 EN, R
Fares not available
Genova Piazza Principe
Sa, 10.12.11 arr 08:21

Paris-Bercy Fr, 09.12.11 dep 18:54 EN 227 EuroNight
 Sleeper and couchette train, Subject to compulsory reservation, Global price, Bordrestaurant
Piacenza
Sa, 10.12.11 arr 04:44

 Transfer time 1:11 h

Piacenza
Sa, 10.12.11 dep 05:55 R 20376 Regionalzug
Voghera Sa, 10.12.11 arr 06:45

 Transfer time 28 min.

Voghera
Sa, 10.12.11 dep 07:13 R 2179 Regionalzug
Genova Piazza Principe Sa, 10.12.11 arr 08:21

...as well as some others, but says "Pricing not available" for all of them.

I then tried TGV-Europe, which says no options available when I say I'm in Australia. When I say I'm in France, it does give some options but the only realistic one leaves around 11 a.m. 30/12, which pretty much wastes two days (30+31/12). I tried FS instead, and they also don't give the German option, (nor SNCF option) but instead a 15:24 and 22:48 departure on 30/12, neither of which are as good as the DB suggestion.

My only conclusion from the above is that booking European trains is very complicated! If you have any suggestions or recommendations for this, I'd be happy to hear them.

Ok, so first of all a few general remarks. In Europe usually railways start selling tickets (including discounted ones) rather differently in terms of timing. Depending on country and connection it may be 92 days (DB for most cases), around 60 days or even 45 days, thus for any dates further than last day of the ticket sale you might experience problems with seeing fare, possible connection etc. Plus in your case the picture is even more complicated because of the timetable change, it might mix up timing of ticket sale even more. So we can only recommend you not to worry a lot about Dec/Jan dates and trains - time will come and you will see timetable and be able to buy everything without problems
From our experience DB usually releases their new timetable early-mid.October, while with FS or SNCF tend to be not that well organized, so usually you will have to wait a bit more with them. Also no big need to worry about fare/tariff changes. As a rule discounted and global price fares aren't effected that much, they still stay like 29, 39, 49 etc. EUR. Standard SCIC-NRT tariff might rise a bit, but it won't be essential, so no special need to expect grand raise, which essentially can influence your budget.
Now about your itinerary:
1) Frankfurt-Nurnberg: your best choice here (considering 3 passengers traveling) is Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket or Shönes-Wochenende -Ticket (first is for the weekdays, while second for the weekends). Basically both a passes for families and group up to 5 passengers, passes valid for all the German regional trains, thus perfectly fit you need (more info and price is on own Germany page) - all three can travel rather cheaply and no need to prepurchase anything in advance since you can buy this passes even 5 minutes before departure.
Obviously it's difficult to travel here overnight since distance is rather short.
2) Nurnberg-Berlin: here you can as well use those group passes, but in this case the journey is a bit more lengthy - by regional trains it takes from 7 hours and at least two changes. But here you can also travel overnight by CNL train. DB sells a limited number of discounted tickets for these trains (you can check it on DB website), but it's still will give much higher fare per person in comparison to group passes.
3) Berlin-Paris: here the only cheap rail option is to catch discounted Europa-Spezial ticket (or alternatively even fly by mean of low-cost airline), depending on choice of seat, couchette or sleeper fares start from around 50 EUR per person. Europa-Spezial ticket should be purchased as early as possible on DB website. As you probably understand, the number of such tickets is limited and during holiday times they get sold out really quickly, so try to do it as soon as sale starts.
4)Paris-Genoa: from our opinion wisest rail choice here would be to use overnight train from Paris to Milan (you can buy discounted tickets for this one from tgv-europe website), while then just use regional train from Milan to Genoa, they run pretty often there and cost only 10.55 EUR per person.
5) and 6) Italy: within Italy you have two major options: either hunt for discounted MINI offer tickets for the high-speed and InterCity trains (can be bought from FS website) or don't worry about any such tickets in advance and just use cheap regional trains. For short segments like Milan-Genoa, Milan-Verona, Bologna-Florence, Florence-Pisa they are totally fine and rather fast, so, imho, no need to overpay for the fancy EuroStar trains.
7) Italy-Frankfurt/Munich: cheapest option again is to hunt for discounted tickets on FS website. And again it will be a bit difficult because of the peak season.

Regarding child age on DB: as far as we know, the age group you are interested is 6 to 14 for German railways, thus you won't have problems with that.

Regarding rail pass vs.point-to-point : we given you some suggestions about the later ones and obviously, in case you succeed with catching all the discounted tickets listed, the total sum will beat any pass. But on the contrary for the peak Christmas time it will be a bit of a hassle to catch all those tickets you need (particularly Berlin-Paris, Paris-Milan and Italy-Germany on your way back)

Thanks, that's given me a lot to work off, and I’ll do some more planning.

I wanted to try some options/prices with the Baden-wurttemberg Lander ticket, but when I go through the buy online link on bahn.com, it asks for the travel details, then brings up some choices, but all prices are showing 48Euro for 2A/1c for Frankfurt-Nuremberg for the Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket. I tried even Stuttgart to Nuremburg in case it was extra for multiple states, but that didn’t change the price. When I changed it to 3 adults the price went up to 54Euro, and when I went back to 1adult it stayed at 48Euro. Are there some other surcharges on the 29Euro, or did I misunderstand something? (They're all just RE trains, so I don't believe it's the train.)

Regarding trip 2, you mentioned a CNL option was available. However, looking at the booking engine and http://www.bahn.com/i/view/mdb/bahnintern/international/schweden/MDB81178-cnl_all_routes_at_a_glance.pdf the two lines don't appear to connect/have a night option. As it's not so long it doesn't seem so bad, but if there is a night option, I'd like to consider it.

Regarding trip 4, I've found why I'm not finding any sleeping information. I found an evening Artesia running at 8 p.m. from Paris to Milan in November, which would be preferable, but in December, there's only a midday one. It turns out that "Due to works planned on the french railway network, the Artesia night trains between Paris and Venice (trains nr 221 and 220), are temporary unavailable for bookings on the following travel dates:" I'm not sure what that means as it says bookings are "temporarily" unavailable but if they're doing trackwork, I would presume that would mean the services are permanently unavailable on those dates.
I also found that there's a strike of Italian sleeping car workers so they aren't selling any couchettes nor sleeping cars on the Paris-Milan route - nor are there any restaurant facilities at the moment. Really not having much luck with this! :-( Fingers crossed sleeping cars and night trains return by end of December.

P.S. Sorry, it was railEurope and tgvEurope that have the 11/12 child crossover point.

Are there some other surcharges on the 29Euro, or did I misunderstand something?

You misunderstood something Lander tickets are valid only within certain German Lands(=like provinces), thus in case you enter Frankfurt and Nurnberg or Stuttgart and Nurnberg your starting and final destinations are located in different Lands, thus no possibility to use one specific Lander ticket. For travels between multiple Lands you need either mentioned Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket or Shönes-Wochenende -Ticket , both valid throughout whole Germany. And your quoted fare 48 or 54 EUR exactly the price of Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket that DB automatically offers to you.

Regarding trip 2, you mentioned a CNL option was available. However, looking at the booking engine and http://www.bahn.com/i/view/mdb/bahnintern/international/schweden/MDB81178-cnl_all_routes_at_a_glance.pdf the two lines don't appear to connect/have a night option. As it's not so long it doesn't seem so bad, but if there is a night option, I'd like to consider it.

Well, you right there is no direct CNL train from Nurnberg, but nevertheless DB sells overnight tickets like Nurnbeg-Augsburg-Berlin. That will be one through ticket, but you will need to make a change in Augsburg for the CNL train, basically you will need to travel for an hour from Nurnberg to Augsburg and there wait for your CNL for around 40 min.
Just enter Nurnberg-Berlin on DB website and it will show you this connection and some other similar overnight options.

Regarding trip 4, I've found why I'm not finding any sleeping information. I found an evening Artesia running at 8 p.m. from Paris to Milan in November, which would be preferable, but in December, there's only a midday one. It turns out that "Due to works planned on the french railway network, the Artesia night trains between Paris and Venice (trains nr 221 and 220), are temporary unavailable for bookings on the following travel dates:" I'm not sure what that means as it says bookings are "temporarily" unavailable but if they're doing trackwork, I would presume that would mean the services are permanently unavailable on those dates.

Don't worry about this. Planned works usually mean that the train will proceed a bit differently (either slightly modified route or timetable), and it's just that SNCF and FS didn't yet totally agreed/decided on such implementations. As soon as they will finalize those, they will open sale. It's really rarely, that "works" mean total train cancellation for certain dates. But you also can always email SNCF directly and ask about it.

I also found that there's a strike of Italian sleeping car workers so they aren't selling any couchettes nor sleeping cars on the Paris-Milan route - nor are there any restaurant facilities at the moment.

Such 'actions' from Italian (and not only) railway workers are rather common thing, and unfortunately there is never a guarantee that they won't do something like this before holidays   But if to worry too much about all such potential things, then there is simply one way to avoid it - stay always at home, which is definitely not an option either. Life is full of surprises