one month: France, Italy, Spain, Bruges, Amsterdam

Roundtrip to Paris, May 25 – June 25. We wanted to start and end our trip in Paris. Don’t know much about trains, was planning on getting the 4 country 10 day/2 month eurail selectpass (is that enough days for our travels??). We don’t want to fly within Europe, so trains are the way to go for us. Still need to book hostels too. We’re trying to do this somewhat cheaply; we’re just a couple of college kids. Thanks for helping!

I know you are saying you don’t want to use flight’s but for some portion’s of the trip they may work out better. Seville to Amsterdam can take about 24 hour’s on a train and will require several change over’s. Either use flight’s for the odd leg of the trip or change the place’s to one’s in the same region.

I changed it to Seville to Bruges since that makes a bit more sense for our trip. We actually want to experience the scenic route and so we’re partial to the train. I’m aware it’ll take a long while but that really is okay with us. Long road trips are our thing, anyway. And that one in particular has to be one of the best yet.

I do not mind, however, stopping in France again along the way, spending a day or two in a new city, and then leaving for Bruges. That might be an option. Is it best to get point-to-point tickets from the U.S. or from the train stations?

If you are getting point-to-point tickets, definitely wait until you get there…

If you want to do it by train i would defiantly recommend at least one more stop after Seville to break up the trip.

Thanks for the info guys! Helped a lot!

Nanner, Just a few options to think about.
Have you broken down and gotten the details (departure/arrival times, duration, name of train stations) for each of your train rides? You have very long train rides that can be broken down so you can visit another city along the way. Have you made a “MUST SEE” list of the museums, monuments, historic sites, etc. that you have to see on your trip so that you know how much time you need to spend in each city. Depending on what you want to see, 4 days in Florence may be too long. My groups stay 2 nights and they are ready to leave. What about Venice, Cinque Terre, Italy, Munich, Germany and many others.
Why are you traveling from Spain to Brugge and Amsterdam and than spending another day on railpass and backtracking back down to Paris? From Paris, to Amsterdam, you have to travel on the high speed Thalys train and it can be an expensive seat reservation in both directions. Why not look into doing a loop, Paris, Brugge, Amsterdam, to Italy, to Spain and back to paris or even the other way around if you want Amsterdam as your last party stop.
When traveling down to Rome, if taking an overnight train, skip Florence on the way down and go directly to Rome. Than take the Eurostar from Roma Termini to Firenze S.M.N. (Florence) and stop a few nights. To save on your railpass, buy a point-to-point ticket from Firenze S.M.N. to Pisa (1 hour), see the leaning tower and continue on to Cinque Terre, Italy(1 hour+). From C.T. take the trains up to Nice, France and on to Spain.

Wow! Thanks for all that information!!! I do not know yet what we want to check out specifically in each city, since I’m waiting for my friend to come back from home from college in a few weeks so we can sit down and decide together.
Unfortunately, I’ve already booked my Paris and Florence hostels. So I guess I’m stuck in that direction. Long train rides don’t bother us and the long ones will depart at night according to my online ticket research through TGV (hope to have the same outlook when I come back from my trip ).
I was looking into taking the Grimaldi Ferry from Rome to Barcelona and then spending time in Seville and maybe Cordoba, then going back up to Barcelona for a while. I would like to have enough flexibility in my scheduling so that if I would like to stick around in a city for a while longer, I can do it without worrying about missing my hostel reservations and train reservations. But at the same time, I’d like to know I’ve got a bed at the end of the night. I remember reading that it’s best to reserve all train tickets at once upon arrival in Europe, but I don’t know if I can do that without having a detailed itinerary.

Clearly, a first time traveler.