17 Days Around Europe with Eurail Passes Travel Blog

The first thing you want to do when planning for a EuroTrip is to decide which countries you would like to visit. I wanted to see as much as possible in two weeks. After knowing I had two weeks to travel, I purchased the 15 day continuous global rail pass on eurail.com (interrail.com if you are an EU citizen) and got 2 extra days for free since they were having a sale.

https://www.eurail.com/en/eurail-passes/global-pass

This pass allows you the freedom to explore all your dream European destinations using the Eurail Global Pass. This convenient train pass gives you access to rail networks in 28 fascinating countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, although be aware that you will have to pay a reservation fee in specific countries or for night trains.

Once I knew which cities I wanted to visit, I downloaded the Rail Planner app to see how long it was from each city and which cities would not be direct trains. I took notes beforehand and had a general idea of when I would be traveling but still had the flexibility to plan as I went if I needed more time in a specific location. The great thing about Eurail passes is you don’t have to worry about missing a train. You can hop on whatever train you’d like without a timed ticket. You can download the apps here – IOS, Android.

Rail planner shows you all the available times, type of train and possible connections for the city of your choice. The application is done by Eurail and the cool thing about it is that it is available offline! I used the app the entire time during my travels and was fully satisfied with it!

There are some cases when you will need to reserve a seat on your trip and pay a reservation fee. This can be done at the train station. For example, it is mandatory to book your seat on a night train. We did this a few times. The average cost of a bed on a night train is around 20-40 Euros. We had time to sleep while traveling, which was awesome to wake up in our next location! One example of when we did this was from Madrid to Lisbon.

You will also usually need to book your seat when using a fast train that is marked with an R on the Rail Planner App. This can be as low as 3 Euros or as much as 30 Euros. Sometimes you will have the option to take the same route on a slow-speed train but I think it is worth it to just pay the fee in some instances. High-speed trains are common in France, Italy, and Spain.

Additionally, you will need to reserve your seat on popular routes that may not have free seats.

Stop 1: Amsterdam

https://mandytravelstheworld.news.blog/2016/06/20/amsterdam-netherlands/

Stop 2: Berlin

https://mandytravelstheworld.news.blog/2016/06/20/bamberg-germany/

Stop 3: Prague

https://mandytravelstheworld.news.blog/2016/06/22/prague-czech-republic/

Stop 4: Vienna

https://mandytravelstheworld.news.blog/2016/06/22/vienna-austria/

Stop 5: Bratislava

https://mandytravelstheworld.news.blog/2016/06/23/bratislava-slovakia/

Stop 6: Budapest

https://mandytravelstheworld.news.blog/2016/06/24/budapest-hungary/

Stop 7: Lake Bled

https://mandytravelstheworld.news.blog/2016/06/25/bled-slovenia/

Stop 8: Florence

https://mandytravelstheworld.news.blog/2016/06/27/florence-and-pisa-italy/

Stop 9: Nice

https://mandytravelstheworld.news.blog/2016/06/30/nice-france/

Stop 10: Marseille

https://mandytravelstheworld.news.blog/2016/06/30/marseille-france/

Stop 11: Barcelona

https://mandytravelstheworld.news.blog/2016/07/03/barcelona-and-montserrat-spain/

Stop 12: Madrid

https://mandytravelstheworld.news.blog/2016/07/01/madrid-spain/

Stop 13: Lisbon

https://mandytravelstheworld.news.blog/2016/07/03/lisbon-portugal/

Stop 14: Porto

https://mandytravelstheworld.news.blog/2016/07/03/porto-portugal/

Check out the links to each city’s blog for more information on the specific places. If you have any more questions about the Eurail pass or planning a EuroTrip, please comment below!