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Trains from North Italy (Turin and Milano) to the Netherlands during the summer

  • 24 January 2023
  • 4 replies
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We want to travel from the north of Italy (Turin) back home in July. We are with 3 children so we need a reservation but the only trains I can find are the TGV to Paris and than to Rotterdam/Amsterdam. But the reservations are very expensive. When I search for example in march there also connections to Basel-Frankfurt-Utrecht. Will that trains become later in the interrail-app? Does somebody knows that?

Karlijn

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Best answer by Hektor 24 January 2023, 19:07

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There's just no timetable for Italy yet. 

Plan with today's connections to get an idea what's possible. 

They will be similar in summer.

Most tlmetables from Milano to Utrecht are already available, even for the summer. Even better now as it shows just the reservation-free trains from Milano to Switzerland. But don't use the interrail travel planner for this, try for instance sbb.ch or the SBB app.

But it's also possible to do the whole trip without the need for a reservation. 

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De Interrail app of rail planner werkt niet zo goed. Krijgt maar 1 update per maand, en er zitten veel fouten in. Gebruik lokale planners of die van Deutsche Bahn, daar zit quasi heel Europa op correcte wijze in. 

De apps leiden je meestal via de snelste weg, vaak over Frankrijk dus met hun TGV's. Die zijn echter vrij duur, zeker voor de grensoverschrijdende TGV's. Thalys en TGV Lyria zijn zelfs peperduur met reservaties voor interrailers.

Je kunt alternatieven gebruiken. De IC-Brussel-Amsterdam ipv Thalys, zo via gewone Belgische treinen van/naar Lille (Fr), en een binnenlandse TGV van/naar Marseille - Lille te nemen ( of Lyon/Mulhouse /Straatsburg als je over Zwitserland reist). Dan met de TER's van/naar Ventimiglia waar je verder kunt op Italiaanse treinen. Dan kost dat je maar 10 (of 20) euro reservatiekosten pp voor die ene TGV.

Of je laat Frankrijk gewoon helemaal links liggen (wat ik je zou aanraden, Frankrijk is een vervelend interrailland met strikte reservaties, hoge kosten en beperkte flexibiliteit).

Reis over Duitsland, Zwitserland en/of Oostenrijk. Iets trager, maar veel flexibeler met bijzonder schappelijke  (en louter optionele) reservatieskosten (max 4,5 EUR per persoon, per reis,of zelfs maar 3 euro als je bij ÖBB boekt).

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Here is some useful information from the experienced travellers in the Community regarding both planning, reservations and activation of pass and travel days. 

 Planning

The rail planner is normally not up to date, as it only is updated once a month, so to be sure of the time table you better check the timetable and availability on the websites of the national railways. The bigger national railways, like DB (Germany) SBB (Switzerland) and ÖBB (Austria) cover several countries. 

 Reservations 

The advice from the experienced travellers in the community is to use other ways to make reservations than the Interrail/Eurail website.  You can look at the guide in the link:

https://community.eurail.com/train-connections-reservations-47/how-to-get-reservations-105

If you, after having looked at the guide, have questions about how to make specific reservation, please give your travel details (departure date, time and route) preferably in a new topic, and you will get advice.

Please note that Interrail/Eurail charges an extra fee of 2 EUR per person and train in addition to the fee for the seat reservation.

 Activation of pass

During the activation process you choose the start day of the validity of the pass. Once the validity has started it can't be changed even if you haven't travelled. The advice is therefore to wait with activating the pass and starting the validity until the first day of your travel as you only can deactivate the pass no later than 23.59 CET on the day before the validity starts. If your travel plans change in the last moment you can't deactivate the pass and change the validity. 

It can be wise to make a test and activate the pass with a start date well in the future and then deactivate the pass immediately, just to see that everything works.

 Activation of travel day

The advice from the experienced travellers in the community is also never to activate a travel day, that is connect a journey to your pass and create the ticket (QR code), until just before boarding the train, otherwise you might loose a travel day if your travel plans change in a late stage  You can't delete a travel day in the past. A travel day can only be deleted until 23.59 CET the day before the travel day.

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Juist vanaf Torino is via Swiss nogal lastig-vooral dan 1e stuk aanreis (dus ook dito laatste stuk erheen).

Zal wel best via Milano lopen. Direkte EC Milano-Swiss kosten 11€ suplmt, incl RES. Vanaf Basel kan je evt., indien gewenst, de nachttrein naar NL nemen (tot aank in NL nog op dezelfde reisdag), die NJ heeft ook 2 of 3 wagons die als DB-zitwagen gelden en zelfs zonder RES kunnen, wat ik bepaald niet aanraadt. Daarnaast de lig en slaapwagen via OeBB NightJet.

Maar met vroege start moet het ook best in 1 dag kunnenvia swiss-DE.

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