Every combination from Regensburg to Nimes has at least one leg that is not reservable. Most common is Brussels to Nimes or Lyon to Nimes...also Stuttgart to Strasbourg. I have checked out into February and find the same result. Hard to imagine every train is full completely.
Answer
Why so many trips have legs with no seats available? Looking at early Jan 2024 for Regensburg to Nimes
Best answer by ralderton
It is probably best to break this journey down into individual trains.
Looking at the timetables, it seems this is a long journey with many routing possibilities. You could go via Brussels or Paris, or via several different options through Germany/ Switzerland and then Lyon.
The quickest route seems to be
ICE Regensburg-Frankfurt (no reservations required)
ICE Frankfurt-Lyon (€18 reservation, available from Eurail, among others)
TGV Lyon-Nîmes €10 or 20 reservation, available from Eurail or B-Europe, among others)
You can also get (more slowly) through Germany and Switzerland to Lyon without needing a reservation at all.
+8It is probably best to break this journey down into individual trains.
Looking at the timetables, it seems this is a long journey with many routing possibilities. You could go via Brussels or Paris, or via several different options through Germany/ Switzerland and then Lyon.
The quickest route seems to be
ICE Regensburg-Frankfurt (no reservations required)
ICE Frankfurt-Lyon (€18 reservation, available from Eurail, among others)
TGV Lyon-Nîmes €10 or 20 reservation, available from Eurail or B-Europe, among others)
You can also get (more slowly) through Germany and Switzerland to Lyon without needing a reservation at all.
+8For the French domestic TGVs, check here: https://travel.b-europe.com/Eurail-GE/en/booking-tgv#TravelWish
For the cross-border TGV or ICE, check on the Eurail booking page: https://www.interrail.eu/en/book-reservations#/
For the Eurostar Germany-Brussels-Paris, check here (although that is likely to be a longer, more expensive route): https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish
I tried every combination and permutation mentioned here, and then some. I even went out several months for the individual legs, and got the same results. Sometimes I could get two legs out of three. Sometimes the leg I wanted would show up on Monday but not on Tuesday.
I bounced from Deutsche Bahn to SNCF to Swiss Rail and Italian rail to eventually get reservations where Eurail indicated "not available".
One leg from Regensburg to Frankfurt direct at 0837 was available and I bought the reservations, printed them out, but forgot to save it in my trip. I went back a day or two later to save it. It did not appear in Eurail. After repeatedly checking everyday for several days, it reappeared, and I quickly saved it to my trip.
Finally, the stars aligned and I was able to get all three legs Regensburg-Frankfurt-Bruxelles-Nîmes to line up.
Then I eventually got Nîmes -Lille-St Pancras to line up. At one point Eurail did not recognize Lille. Finally got the Eurostar leg from their site.
The frustrating part is that you have to go thru all the steps up to payment to verify that each leg is ok before you do it for real.
Altogether it took the better part of a week.
It should not be this hard.
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