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Europe Trains Guide Forum  |  General discussion  |  Travel plans, routes and timetables  |  EUROPE MADNESS IN MAY-JUN 2012
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Author Topic: EUROPE MADNESS IN MAY-JUN 2012  (Read 8073 times)
ZTEO
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« on: February 22, 2012, 05:12:40 am »

Dear friends,

The following is my itinerary for my Europe trip this summer break. I am trying to keep my travel expenses to the min., so I sincerely hope all of you can advice us on the type of ticket to buy, as I find the Eurail pass too steep. My point of comparison will 30 days Global pass 567 euro. I'm currently a youth under 26 and I will be travelling with 2 other youths.

Barcelona to Avignon (hope to drop by Aries for a short visit, hope to get a overnight train from Barcelona)
Avignon to Nice (hope to drop by Toulon/Aix en Provence for a short visit in the day, final stop will end at Nice)
Nice to Monaco (heard of the 1 euro bus trips)
Nice to Cinque Terre (overnight trains will be prefered)
Cinque Terre to Milan
Milan to Venice
Venice to Florence
Florence to Rome
Rome to Sorrento (include visiting Pompeii and isle of capri)

Sorrento back to Rome for internal flight to Budapest

Travelling within eastern europe:
Budapest
Vienna
Prague
Munich (tentative)

My key concerns are:
Should opt for globalpass or choose to buy individual tickets such: Barcelona to Avignon , France inter state tickets, nice to cinque terre (France to Italy ticket), Italy region ticket (which allows us to travel to Cinque terre, Milan,Venice, Florence,Rome,Pompeii and Isle of Capri) within a time period of 13 days and 5 days Eastern Europe traveling pass

Looking forward for your advice! Thanks a lot!!
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tUt
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« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2012, 08:13:00 pm »

The good thing is that you already have a clear sum for comparison, thus at the end you  can exactly see which options suits your itinerary better. To start with it's nice to have a daily price of the pass, in your case 567/30=18,9. Within your itinerary it means that any day (from those 30) you travel for sum > than 18,9 pass 'wins' you money, but if not (regular point-to-point ticket costs less or you simply don't travel at that day) - you lose.
Barcelona-Avignon: unfortunately for you it's basically impossible to travel overnight here, since there is only a few expensive Elipsos trains departing Barcelona and going north (Paris, Zurich and Milan), but neither is good for you. And not only because of expensive obligatory reservations, but also since they don't stop anywhere besides Perpignan and then already Italy or Switzerland. So day travel it is.
First you'll need to catch regional train Barcelona-PortBou-Cerbere, standard full ticket fare just around 12 EUR, while already in Cerbere (as first French station) you can catch further trains that can get you to Avignon. Here full ticket cost essentially more - 40,7 EUR
Regarding your 'Aries': are you sure that you meant Aries? Maybe you meant Arles, which is near Avignon?
Avignon-Nice: here you can actually catch high-speed TGV trains, which will get you to Nice in like 3 hours + you can do it cheaply, since French railways sell discounted tickets (TGV Prem's) in such cases. So here you can travel for as low as 20 EUR, but will need to purchase such non-exchangeable/non-refundable ticket in advance online (tgv-europe.com). Full ticket Avignon-Nice cost 40-50+ EUR depending on connection.
Nice-Monaco: standard full fare ticket cost just 3,6 EUR. But bus is obviously cheaper.
Monaco-Cinque Terre: not sure where exactly in Cinque Terre you plan to stop, but you'll anyway will need to travel first Nice/Monaco-Ventimiglia (first Italian station), while already from there go further. Monaco-Ventimiglia full train ticket cost only 4 EUR. While from Ventimiglia to the farthest part of Cinque Terre - La Spezia full fare ticket for regional train cost 17,7 EUR, Ventimiglia-Genoa 12,8 EUR, Ventimiglia-Milan 21,65 EUR.
Also in Italy for a longer distance it makes to use fast and high-speed trains for which you can as well purchase discounted tickets (MINI offer) starting from 9 EUR. So from Ventimiglia you can also prefer fast InterCity train to Genoa/La Spezia/Milan and pay even less than regional train fare. The only inconvenience is that again such tickets are in limited number, thus need to be purchased in advance.   
Milan-Venice: same as above, you basically have two major options: a) purchase in advance MINI offer ticket for InterCity or EuroStar trains (can be done via TrenItalia website); b) don't bother buying anything in advance, but just use cheaper regional trains, then you'll pay just 17,95 EUR for Milan-Venice no matter when you buy the ticket.
And pretty much same thing with Venice-Florence, Florence-Rome, Rome-Napoli (with further idea to visit Sorrento) and again Napoli-Rome.
Budapest-Vienna: and once again two major option: a) purchase in advance discounted one-way ticket, which costs only 13 EUR or b) don't bother and get regular one for 25 EUR even 5 min. before departure.
Vienna-Prague: here difference between discounted ticket (29 EUR) and full fare ticket (60,4 EUR) is greater, thus it makes sense to opt for the discounted ticket option. It can be purchase from Austrian railways website
Prague-Munich: discounted ticket here as well start form 29 EUR, while full fare is 65 EUR, thus again in case it's possible in advance purchase of the discounted ticket preferred. It can be done either via Czech railways website or German railways website. But with Prague-Munich it's not the only option for group, since you can also get Bavaria-Bohemia ticket (Bayern-Böhmen-Ticket), it cost only 34 EUR and allows group up to 5 people travel in Bavaria and neighboring regions of Czech Republic. In case of Prague-Munich trip it's valid from Plzen, while for Prague-Plzen segment you can just get domestic Czech ticket (as low as just 300 CZK for all three). You won't even need to change trains in Plzen, but just board Prague-Plzen-Munich direct train and before Plzen show conductor Czech domestic ticket, while then your Bavaria-Bohemia group ticket.

So your task now is to go over all the above info, check out websites and fares we described, then sit and count your actual travel days and finally do the math ;) If you'll have any question in between or just can't/having trouble finding something etc., then we are glad to answer any further questions
« Last Edit: October 16, 2013, 02:42:28 pm by tUt » Logged
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