You’re probably right that point to point tickets is cheapest, but you can try www.railsaver.com to see. Follow the “I have a good idea of my itinerary route” and check “I prefer using railpasses (to point to point tickets ‘only when it saves money.’” If it doesn’t recommend a railpass it will give you a pretty good estimate for the base price of the tickets. If it does recommend a railpass, put in fewer legs of the itinerary to get an estimate. Railsaver will give an artificially low price for the Paris Amsterdam ticket as it uses “regular” trains as opposed to Thalys. To get that price you have to make a couple of connections. I’d look for specials on the Thalys train instead.

For your Amsterdam to Paris leg, try www.thalys.com That site’s pretty user friendly in English. The French rail site, www.sncf.com is, IMO, terribly confusing and does switch you from English French without warning. The Spanish rail site, www.renfe.com is a little easier to use, but still switches to Spanish. www.trenitalia.com is pretty straight forward for Italy. You could also try www.italiarail.com for Italy. It’s a travel agency/railpass site, but their prices are closer to accurate than the inflated prices you’ll find at the other railpass websites. You really don’t need to be able to read the language to figure out how much a ticket costs from any of these websites.

Do not buy the tickets from the states unless you can buy them from the official website of the national rail company, or the Thalys site. You might want to buy the Thalys ticket in advance as Thalys trains sometimes sell out. If you buy tickets on-line from a railpass site you’ll end up paying nearly double for the tickets due to inflated prices, shipping costs and handling fees.

Hey Oldlady,

Thanks for the reply. I tried the rail saver site, and they recommended a 3 country 5-day pass and city-to-city tickets for some of the trips in Italy, but when I calculated the cost with the pass, and the individual legs it ended up being the same price, as just getting city-to-city passes. As for the thalys site, they switch to dutch (i think dutch) when you go to reserve. I see prices at 105 Euro and 52,50 euro, but I can’t understand what types of seats they are.

Do you think I should wait till we get to paris to get tickets for Barcelona? I would prefer a couchette (since the trip is long), and I was a little confused from the railsaver site, they had a $860 price for comfort class with first class couchette for 2 people, but I entered 4 people into the system, and when I selected that option, the total was $860, so I’m not really sure if thats for (2) 1st class couchettes or just 1….

Anyway, thanks for the continued help…this is the second thread you’ve helped me on. I appreciate it!

-Eugene

If you use “comfort 2” in the pulldown on the first page, you will get 2nd class — It shows “Librys Comfort 2” on the reservation page. They are probably different prices for the same seats…. 105 euros is probably the regular price (which will be fully refundable, changeable, etc.) and there are specials (probably an off-peak time and a non-refundable ticket, but possibly will still allow some changes) for 52,50 euros available on some trains. I would not shell out the extra money for 1st class (171 euros) on a Thalys train.
I would buy this ticket as soon as you get to Europe — at the train station at the Amsterdam airport. I’d try looking that one up from the French rail site. This may help: http://ourworld.comp… Most of the pricing is with a railpass, but it lists the price without railpass for some of the accomodations. I’d look at a T4 compartment for this trip. Have you looked at flying this segment? It may be cheaper than the train..

For info on the Paris-Barcelona (or Figueres or Girona) overnight train look here: http://www.elipsos.c…

A berth in a shared tourist-class sleeper is 175 euros per person, but there are discounts (look in the bottom right corner when you go to the website).

When I did my search, I used “comfort 2”, but I’m skeptical on buying from the site since I can’t read it. As for Paris – Barcelona, the cheapest I found was 98 euro per person for a four-person couchette from Elipsos, but if I want to buy online it send me to sncf, which brings up my dilemma again, where I can’t read the information provided on the actual purchase screen.

We were originally going to fly, but considering the cost and time of getting to and from the airport, plus the additional night we would stay (instead of taking a night train), and the general feel of traveling europe by train, we all kinda decided we would like to take this, our longest one way stretch, by train.

So I’m thinking….The price I saw on elipsos is very good (30%) off since we are traveling as a “family” and if reservations in europe are anything like they are in the states, we would pay a premium for waiting till we got to Europe…tell me if I’m wrong? In this case, how can I buy them while I’m here, and actually understand what the hell the purchase screen says?

Thanks for the help!

-Eugene

Hey Augustin,

I looked at the site you provided. Although I couldn’t get fares as far out as September, I did a general search for May 26th (Random) and got a price of 98 euro from Paris – Figueres (we want to see Dali’s museum, and stay a night and day in Roses before heading to Barcelona)…

The problem is, If I want to buy online it transfers me to sncf, and the purchase screen isn’t in english…but I’m afraid if I wait till I get to Amsterdam, we’ll pay a lot more….

Any recommendations?

-Eugene

Some options — in my order of preference.

1. Bite the bullet and buy from the rail company websites. You’ll get the best prices and will be able to take advantage of specials that require advanced booking and/or might sell out early. I bought tickets from trenitalia.com and was very pleased with the service (although the e-mail confirmation showed up in my spam folder). It was easy to print out the tickets at the kiosk in the train station (very user friendly in English). Check your guide book or a phrase book for train terms in other languages.

2. Buy the tickets after you get to Europe. It will be easy to buy them at the station — and always ask if there are specials available. Some specials will only be available on line or in advance, so you will probably end up paying full fare for most the tickets. Use the automated kiosks in Italy to avoid waiting in line. There are automated kiosks in other countries, too, but you usually don’t have to deal with really long lines except in Italy. You can usually buy any ticket at any major train station so you could buy them all at the station in the Amsterdam airport or at Amsterdam Centraale. Look for an “international” window. You will not be able to buy international tickets from a kiosk and usually can’t buy tickets that don’t either start or end in the country you are in at a regular ticket window. You will probably not be able to take advantage of any specials if you’re not in the country who’s rail company is offering the special.

3. Look at a railpass. Some sort of pass may save money on this trip. Try www.railsaver.com

4. You can buy these tickets from any of the railpass websites like www.railpass.com and by clicking on “booking” and then “rail tickets” at the top of this page. However, you won’t be able to take advantage of any specials and with inflated ticket prices, inflated reservation prices, shipping and handling the tickets will probably cost 35 to 50% more than the regular priced tickets will cost in Europe. An exception is Italiarail.com Their prices, while still higher than you’ll pay in Italy, are usually closer to regular price.

I’d personally take option 1 from the above post. Perhaps try a translation website to help you with the process? The last time I took that Paris-Barcelona train (3 yrs. ago) the SNCF website wouldn’t allow you to purchase from the U.S. and I ended up buying my ticket in Paris the day of departure.

Hey Augustin,

There’s a place where you enter which country you will collect the ticket from. I did the search with Netherlands, cause I figure I would pick up the tickets there, or buy it online?

Anyone know if this is the case? I’d hate to buy tickets, and not be able to retreive them.

-Eugene

Do the electronic or paperless ticket option if it’s available. Then you just show your confirmation printout to the conductor. If not, use the country where you’re going to pick up the tickets. It will probably be a simple process of entering your confirmation number at an automated kiosk or showing your confirmation printout at a ticket window.