Train Questions

Hey everyone,

We're planning a two week trip to 5 different countries and we're wondering if it's worth it to buy the EURAIL pass. Also I'm wondering how it works.

We're landing in Amsterdam, then heading to Bruges, then pairs, we want to take an overnight train to Munich, and then Zurich, and then another overnight train to Hamburg, and finally Berlin.

Is there a website where we can find what stations/trains we need to take from each of these places to the next place, whether or not we need to change trains/stations, also will that same website give us a price for the fair with and without the EURAIL pass?

we're basically trying to plan everything so we know what time we need to be at the stations to catch the next day's train and how much if anything it will cost us.

If the site gives the address of the station that would be great too, as we're thinking we'll use google maps to get us from the stations to the hostels.

Thanks in advance,

Sean and Ben

The most comprehensive and user-friendly site for schedules is the Deutsche Bahn website. You can select "without ICE" or "without ICE and IC" to select cheaper (but slower) trains (though in Belgium IC trains don't cost more than slower trains). They only give prices within Germany, but you can check out the national rail websites of the other countries to get prices for those.

The Netherlands: www.ns.nl
Belgium: www.b-rail.be
France: www.sncf.fr
Don't know the Swiss one

If you look around those sites, you might find prices for international trains to/from that country too (I know the Belgian site has them, don't know about the others).

As I'm European I've only used an interrail pass (years ago, am well over 26 now) and I don't know if the rules are different for a Eurail pass (or have changed since), but I remember you had to pay a supplement for IC trains in some countries (Germany, but not in Belgium, Holland or France). You always have to pay a supplement for high speed trains (ICE, TGV) and on some high speed trains (Thalys) it isn't valid but you can get a lower fare if you book a lot in advance. If reservations are required (the German railways website will also mention this), you have to pay those as well, of course, but that's usually not much.

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Is there a website where we can find what stations/trains we need to take from each of these places to the next place, whether or not we need to change trains/stations, also will that same website give us a price for the fair with and without the EURAIL pass?

For train schedules, I've never found a better resource than Deutsche Bahn. It can give you schedules for all over europe, and regular fares for most legs that include Germany. It can't give you prices for those with passes.

I'll also throw in my usual comment that I think you're trying to go too many places, too far apart, in too short of a time. My estimate is that you'll be spending between 26 and 30 hours on trains over a two week period, a lot more if you're avoiding trains that require supplements. That's a lot.

eurail pass is very much worth it if you want to avoid most if not all of the hassle of travel (closed itinerary, tight schedules, cancelled flights,etc.).
you go to the station and in most cases you just get on the train and the conductor punches the pass. reservations are necesary sometimes but the lines are still shorter then buying tickets and are usually less then 20 euros for even long trips (paris to rome).
(for me, for short trips (four to five hours), belly up to the bar, forget about sleeping in a rocking train, and consider making a late reservation in the next place)
train stations are usually central to town and public transit, unlike cheap airports which are always placed in distant lonely places. airplanes are faster until you have to get there two hours early for registration (strip search) and are bumped, cancelled, or resheduled which has never happened to me on a train. the trains in most countries are scrupulously on time (especially the germanic ones you will be on).
since you are in major cities there will be multiple daily trains. eurail is prepaid, you do not pay any money for most trains, reservations and special seating ( couchettes, etc.) are cheap and easy.

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I'll also throw in my usual comment that I think you're trying to go too many places, too far apart, in too short of a time. My estimate is that you'll be spending between 26 and 30 hours on trains over a two week period, a lot more if you're avoiding trains that require supplements. That's a lot.

Oh, I absolutely agree. 5 countries in 2 weeks? That means less than 3 days per country, including travel. Doesn't sound like much fun to me personally (I felt awfully rushed going to 2 countries in 2 weeks last year), but I know there's people who do enjoy this kind of trip. If you find out during the trip that you're not that kind of person, you can always decide to ditch Switserland, for example. If I were you, I'd just do Amsterdam to Berlin with stops in one or two places along the way. Berlin is worth at least a week if you haven't been before.

I agree with what everyone else is saying regarding your itinerary, just thinking about it makes my head spin... But if you just want to talk prices, I was in Belgium this past weekend and to do the train trip from Amsterdam - Brugge you'd have to change at Brussels and Amsterdam - Brussels was €37 one way and Brussels - Brugge was €13.

I agree you're trying to squeeze in too much for two weeks. Seven cities is two days each not counting travel. Hamburg is another city to consider if you were sticking to the north. It's 5 - 6 hours from Amsterdam and 2 hours or less to Berlin.

I don't think a pass is worth it. If you did try to do your original itinerary, a five country select pass with six days of travel would be $628. If you slow down and travel a bit less, you should be able to do a lot better buying point to point. Also, if you can nail down at least some of your travel dates, you can get big discounts by booking a couple of months in advance on the Die Bahn website.

You can check out the various Eurail pass options on BootsnAll, and if you have questions be sure to call Dave, our Eurail expert. He'll be able to tell you whether, based on your trip, it's cheaper to get a Eurail pass or book each ticket individually.

I find the following to be a good rule of thumb.

Travel between cities 2+ hours apart:
Minimum, half day lost.

Cities 8+ hours apart
Minimum one day lost

Unless you love riding the trains, which I do.

So you've got 6 trips.

We're landing in Amsterdam, then heading to Bruges, then pairs, we want to take an overnight train to Munich, and then Zurich, and then another overnight train to Hamburg, and finally Berlin.

Amsterdam-bruges 1/2 day

Paris- 1/2 to full day


Munich, overnight train, half day

(Tiredness, settling in hostel,)

Zurich full day, including hostel settling

Hamburg 1/2 to full day, don't know distanc off hand

Berlin, probably half day in the least.

This is conservative.

3 days to five days of travel in two week itinerary.

Too few days in each place.

Best off to cut out Zurich, I think, which eliminates at least a full day of travel and saves you tons of money.

That gives you two days more in a rushed itinerary.

I'd spend more time in Paris, because its just so worthwhile, and I hear Berlin can be really exciting, so you can spend more time there before you go home. From Berlin, Prague can be a day trip, and Prague might even be a replacement for Munich and switzerland if you really want to run around. If you cut Hamburg, then you'd have a more reasonable schedule and still run around to your hearts content.

Just my take on it.

Then again, my pen name IS Tortuga_Traveller.

Sorry for the delay in my response. Thank you everyone for your help and comments. let me elaborate a little bit about what our plans are.

We're going as a group of 4 possibly 5 people and we're not going to get another chance to travel like this again for probably a long time. We really want to see a lot, and we're not looking forward to spending a ton of time on the trains but we understand it's necessary.

We are landing in Amsterdam on Sept 18th in the morning. we also have to be in Munich on 25th and 26th as we have Oktoberfest reservations, and we are leaving out of Berlin on the 4th of October. Other than those specific dates we're trying to be flexible. We want to try to travel in a line from amsterdam to munich and be able to see as much as possible along that linear path, this is why we decided to go somewhere in belgium and then paris before taking the overnight train to munich. From there we saw that we were close to switzerland and would like to check it out. From switzerland we figured we would follow another linear path towards berlin up through Hannover (overnight train, if such a train exists which I'm not sure if it does or not) and maybe Hamburg.

from what I gather from you guys(and girls) is that cutting out belgium and Switzerland would be a better trip for us because of the reduced time spent traveling.

I'm in favor of not spending time on the trains if we don't have to, but i'd rather not skip out on seeing bruges if we have the chance to, and i'd also like to see switzerland(but if it is going to be a giant hassle to get there and it's going to be really expensive, maybe we'll save that for a later trip some day) If either Hannover or Hamburg is more worth seeing than the other maybe we'll cut one of those cities out and spend the extra day in the other. Can anyone make a recommendation as to which one has more sights to see or things to do?

Also, if anyone has some recommendations as to maybe altering our current trip to make it easier for us to travel or to reduce our travel time without missing the sights and scenery we'd appreciate it, maybe something like, you should got o XXXX instead of bruges, it's closer and cheaper and has more to do. Recommendations like that would be helpful.

as far as the trains go, if we have the eurail pass and we are in amsterdam and want to get to, say bruges, do we just go find the train to Bruges (or Brussels rather then switch to the train to Bruges) and get on it? or do we need to find a ticket purchasing booth and show our passes and obtain tickets? We are traveling with two people over 26 so we're all going to get the Select Pass - first class saver option that way we are all in the same class of ticket and can get seats next to one another.

Also, another question I have is regarding our trip from Paris to Munich overnight. We know that we need to leave from Paris to munich on specific dates, and there is no way around it because our reservations in Munich cannot be changed. I want to make sure that we can reserve a room on the train so we can all sleep as it's important that we get sleep that night.(we've got a long day of Okotberfesting the next morning) How can I make that reservation? Is the train station we arrive in paris at most likely the train station we'll be leaving paris out of? This is the only part of the trip I have anxiety over and I'm really trying to make sure all of our ducks are in a row.

Thanks for listening to me rant and offering advice.

With that additional information, I’d look at it like two one week trips. The first week, you’ve got seven days on the ground which Amsterdam and Paris could easily occupy. If you really want to see something in Belgium, I’d just do a day in Brussels or Brugges.

The second week, you’ve got eight days not counting your departure date. Again, Munich and Berlin have plenty to keep you interested and entertained for eight days, even without Oktoberfest! But some intermediary possibilities would be Prague, Dresden or Nuremberg. Berlin via Nuremberg (only an hour from Munich) has the best connections and Prague the worst. But I’d probably forget about Zurich – it would be taking you away from Berlin before you double back and most likely waste a whole day on the train.

If you do get passes, you should talk to BnA’s Eurail expert. But generally, although you don’t need a ticket for each train a lot of the faster trains require a seat reservation even if you have a pass. So you’d need to get those at the ticket counter. Also, if you want a bed or a couchette on an overnight train, that’s extra and needs to be booked separately. I wouldn’t leave that until your travel day though. And you’d probably be arriving (Nord) and leaving (Est) from different stations in Paris.

You should check the DB(German rail) site as several people have recommended. You can work out all your possible itineraries there. If you’re buying point to point tickets instead of using a pass, it doesn’t have pricing for Sep-Oct yet, but you can see what they are now to get an idea, at least if all or part of the journey is in Germany.

If you don't need to pay for a supplement or reservation, yes you can just get on the train with your pass.

From Amsterdam to Brugge, you should change trains in Antwerp, not Brussels.

Paris seems kind of out of the way for getting from Amsterdam to Munich. Unless you really have your heart set on Paris (I don't like it much, but opinions differ), I would suggest just stopping somewhere in Belgium (Brugge, or Gent, or Antwerp, or somewhere in the Ardennes) and then somewhere in Germany, e.g. Cologne.

I haven't been to Hamburg or Hannover, but from what I've heard there's more to see/do in Hamburg. But personally from Munich to Berlin I would prefer to stop (if you feel you must add another stop) either in Regensburg and/or Leipzig, or Prague. The latter may be a bit out of the way, but less so than Switserland. And it will certainly be less expensive.

If you want to save money, you could also take a bus (Eurolines has the biggest network) for the overnight journeys instead of the train.

What Hampden said.

Paris is worth seeing, especially if you give it 3 days minimum. One day to walk about, and two days to see one or two of the long laundry list of possibilities.

Amsterdam..there are two camps on this one. One can easily occupy oneself for three days there with great profit.

If you like history, Brussels has a great town center and is a day trip away from Waterloo, which has a quite impressive museum there and a dandy statue.

It just makes little sense to spend a day in transport that to Zurich, that could be spent seeing places in your trip of the lifetime.

I'd definitely end up in Berlin, and give one or two days for side trips to Prague and perhaps Dresden..etc.

Remember, the world is your oyster, and you're the oe that has to crack it open.