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We are active, in our 50s, and know this is a bit of a marathon but looking to see some of each country to then plan future trips back on ones we liked best or traveled through that piqued our interest.

Does this route make most sense or what would be best to be switched and where would night trains make the most sense travel from Sept 10-Oct 3

looking to go from-to the following cities in the current order London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Munich, Prague, Vienna, Venice Rome, Cinque Terre, Nice, Lucerne, Paris then back to London.  Brussels and Venice were just parital day stop overs.

Hoping to use fast trains as much as possible was thinking we need the 22 days pass to make this make the most sense .  Also if going from London to Brussels Sept 12 how soon do we need to book the Eurostar reservation or does it change much if we go straight to Amsterdam?  

Was planning to book hotel at next stop day in advance--not looking fancy-- just clean and budget friendly--hoping this is viable at most near main attractions/trains or within a mile walk. 

Thank you

The best website for timetables: www.bahn.com/en .

But it seems a very okay itinerary, stops at reasonable distances. Nice tour around Europe.

Best get your Eurostar (London-Brussels, and the return from Paris) reservations as soon as possible, they can sell out. Best way to get them is via www.raileurope.com (but you have to click “add raillpass” to get the correct booking fees, should be 30 EUR per person / seat).
You can avoid the (excessively expensive) reservation fees of Eurostar between Brussels and Amsterdam by simply taking the ordinary IC-train. Bit slower, but much cheaper.

Same for the TGV Lyria from Switzerland to Paris, you can avoid it’s expensive fees by just hopping on a regional train to the first station in France, and continuing further.

Get your night train reservations also in advance, as they are popular but have limited capacity. Be wary of delays (especially when travelling through Germany), don’t plan tight connections ( less than 2 hours, when travelling by night trains).

Your hotel idea seems okay, the busiest travel season will be over. Although you might want to check hotels in advance the very touristic areas (Amsterdam, Venice, Cinque Terre,...)

 I’lld suggest to take a look at following webpages:

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

https://www.seat61.com/how-to-use-a-eurail-pass.htm (especially the reservation section)

And after that you’ll know everything to make it a nice holiday :)

Hello @Carol N 

Please note that Interrail Passes cannot be used in Switzerland for most mountain excursions and lakes. You have sometimes reductions. Reservations are mandatory or recommended for the Panoramic Trains, but you have local trains on the same lines without reservations.

https://www.interrail.eu/content/dam/_new-structure/doc/res/See_Switzerland_by_train_2024_Geltungsbereich.pdf

I would say Venice deserves more than a partial day if possible.

In terms of which order to do things in, Munich seems to be a bit out of the way of the main itinerary, and Cinque Terre > Nice > Lucerne > Paris is very zig zaggy. You could pick Nice or Lucerne if you want to speed things up?

Amsterdam - Prague is a good option for a sleeper train. 

Cinque Terre to Nice is easy, then sleeper or TGV to Paris.

I would be tempted to skip Munich, or perhaps put it in between Vienna & Venice.

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