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Fastest train rides from Paris/Rome and overnight trains

  • February 9, 2025
  • 3 replies
  • 123 views

Jaiki Roney

Hello There,

We are planning a trip to Paris/Rome/Venice/Barcelona this summer and confused about the ride times shown by eurail.com vs Google search. Apparently, Eurail may not be offering high speed train service as part of their Global Pass. Is there an easy way to select overnight trains? If anyone can please clarify I would be very thankful.

Best,

A Confused Traveler😏

 

  Departure Arrival stay nights Eurail times Google times
Paris Est-Rome Termini 9:06AM Mon Jul 7 11:31 Tue Jul 8 2 26 hrs 11hr 15min
Rome Termini-Venice S. Lucia 17:04 Thu Jul 10 15:14 Fri Jul 11 1 22 hrs 3hr 05min
Venice-Barcelona 13:30 Sat Jul 12 12:38 Sun Jul 12 2 23 hrs 14 hours

Best answer by thibcabe

Hey :)

Did you have a look at my answer in your other thread?

Eurail is valid on high-speed trains of course. However depending on the country/company, you need to add seat reservations (extra costs). Some routes are more expensive than others, esp. international ones.

Rail Planner is missing a lot of trains for July. For the most part, the railway companies themselves haven't published the times. As I suggested, look at a random April day.

There are no night trains on the routes you mentioned. In general, they're very rare in Western Europe (killed by low-cost flights and high-speed trains). The more east you go, the better it gets.

Here's a map: https://www.seat61.com/european-train-travel.htm

Some helpful links:

https://www.seat61.com/european-train-travel.htm

https://www.seat61.com/how-to-use-a-eurail-pass.htm

https://www.seat61.com/interrail-and-eurail-reservations.htm

This website is our reference. You can even enter Venice-Barcelona and it will suggest convenient options (not necessarily the fastest as most people don't want to spend 16 hours straight on trains).

EDIT: about that Venice-Barcelona journey in particular -> Google Maps might suggest overnight Flixbus or similar (you do not want that). As you probably can't extend the trip, please take a 1h30 flight or skip either city. Otherwise to put it bluntly, you'll spend the whole trip in transit.

3 replies

Forum|alt.badge.img+6
  • Full steam ahead
  • Answer
  • February 9, 2025

Hey :)

Did you have a look at my answer in your other thread?

Eurail is valid on high-speed trains of course. However depending on the country/company, you need to add seat reservations (extra costs). Some routes are more expensive than others, esp. international ones.

Rail Planner is missing a lot of trains for July. For the most part, the railway companies themselves haven't published the times. As I suggested, look at a random April day.

There are no night trains on the routes you mentioned. In general, they're very rare in Western Europe (killed by low-cost flights and high-speed trains). The more east you go, the better it gets.

Here's a map: https://www.seat61.com/european-train-travel.htm

Some helpful links:

https://www.seat61.com/european-train-travel.htm

https://www.seat61.com/how-to-use-a-eurail-pass.htm

https://www.seat61.com/interrail-and-eurail-reservations.htm

This website is our reference. You can even enter Venice-Barcelona and it will suggest convenient options (not necessarily the fastest as most people don't want to spend 16 hours straight on trains).

EDIT: about that Venice-Barcelona journey in particular -> Google Maps might suggest overnight Flixbus or similar (you do not want that). As you probably can't extend the trip, please take a 1h30 flight or skip either city. Otherwise to put it bluntly, you'll spend the whole trip in transit.


ralderton
Railmaster
Forum|alt.badge.img+8
  • Railmaster
  • February 9, 2025

I agree with ​@thibcabe With your short amount of time, it would not make sense to spend two days travelling from Venice to Barcelona. In fact your whole itinerary seems to involve a lot of travel and not much time in the cities. Will you have time to see anything?

Paris to Rome will take you all day, even with high-speed trains. You can save a little time by taking an afternoon TGV to Turin (5.5 hours) then night train to Rome, although it’s a horribly early arrival in Rome.

Rome to Venice is fast and frequent.

Venice to Barcelona - fly or skip Barcelona and pick a closer destination?

 


Schelte
Full steam ahead
Forum|alt.badge.img+6
  • Full steam ahead
  • February 9, 2025

If you want to avoid flying, you could consider switching around your itinerary a bit: Start in Barcelona instead of Paris and head from there directly to Paris (6h50 by a direct TGV). Then continue from there onwards to Milan (direct train from Paris, possible to connect onwards to Venice), Venice and then Rome.

Other option, staying closer to your original itinerary and avoiding a flight: there's a ferry from Civitavecchia (about an hour away from Rome) to Barcelona that takes 21 hours but offers onboard accomodation. Interrail/Eurail passholders are supposed to get a 20% discount but I don't see it working.