Malaga, Florence, Naples, Bari, Athens by train and ferry

nltrainer
Traveller
1404 comments

specify what type of EUrail that would be-and where you have seen it. I think this price is not correct, seems far too low to me.
YOU MAY be better off with using NOt the full global pass, but just the 3 country: ES-FR-IT and pay that ferry spearately-in that case you have a far, far wider choice of ferries anyway. Dozens of ferries link, certainly in main season, most ports at Adriatico side of IT with Korfu-Patras in GR, Some of these give discounts to Inter/Eur-l and some say its 'free'''but as with airlines you still pay the porttax, the fuel surcharge and hi-season supplmt- alltogether around 30/40 €/pp+ cost of any sleepers etc.
For just the railtrips-and stopping at places wher it just happens the service ends-which might not really be your planned stays, you can do it in 4 days.

hanucka
Traveller
2 comments

Thanks very much for your reply nltrainer. I'm fairly new to railcc, I saw that ticket price somewhere in the website before I registered in. If a pass is more than 200 euros then our plan B is to stay longer in Spain and then fly from either Madrid or Barcelona to Athens (easyjet tickets range from 78 to 196 euros with one oevrnight stopover in Rome) and stay longer in Greece.
But we dearly want to see Italy. How or where can I see ticket prices and timetibles for the 3-country fares?
Would it be faster and cheaper to go from Malaga/Barcelona to one of the northern italy rail hubs (Genoa or Milan) so we can head down directly to Naples and from there to Bari or Brindisi?
I understand that we can only buy Europasses (and not Interrail passes) but what about the Globalpass?
What about Point-to-Point tickets, would they be cheaper and easier? For the Naples-Bari(or Brindisi) leg we'd certailnly want a sleeper or couchette!
thanks again for your great advice

nltrainer
Traveller
1404 comments

sorry, I myself am not that familiair with EUrail, as European I mainly deal with InterRail-and for young persons.
EUrail has NO senior discount, and its 1st cl only for those >26. 1st cl is pretty useless for most nighttrains though. here should be plnety of sites giving all possible prices for all possible types of passes-there is a 15% discount for couples=saver pass, but then you travel together of course. There should also be a low-season discount, but I do not know from what date.
VUELING is the Spanish EZ and has cheap no-frills flites to many towns around Mediterranean from Espana.
As for the train route: look at a map. There IS just 1 feasible line: from North-east Spain (thus Barca) via France: MOntpellier-Marseille-Nice into Italy, then along coast- and as far you can go-changes bring the whole of Italy in reach. Alas, there used to be nice overnight trains along this route, but they have all been cancelled. There is now a hi-speed TGV-line Spain-Fr, and in Spain you can cover the whole also on AVE hi-speed, daily direct train Malaga-Barca too. Just use any of the tran-route-planner, also linked in this site and then see that 3-4 changes will be needed. IF you choose for pass-only the nr of TRAVELdays (Not the nr of trains you use during that day) counts. To do ES (south)-IT (ROma or around) you need 2 travel days and hence a stop somewhere in south France.
My passes overveiw tells me, that a EUrail SELECT pass is for 4 countries, that need to border (no gaps in between), as 3-5 countries has been withdrawn. For 5 days in 2 month (the min.) its 407€ full fare or 347 saver (pp for couple).
185 shows only as 1 country=Austria (the first to look) for 3 days and for youth.
The alternative is to book ASAP on the various national sites (some are linked to this) your tickets-in some cases substantial discounts are offered, sometimes it hardly matters. If you are completely unfamilair with how Euro-trains work, this is likely an endurance test, and not all will sluck all those funny strange cred cards from too far abroad.
For IN ITaly it will hardly matter-in general trainfares there are quite low, there is not much of discount and in fact most of the medium trains are non reserved, so there is no sweat about assumed ''full''ness and all that. Just pay when you go. Napoli-Bari is by now too short for overite-there is still an overnite Roma-Brindisi, but ferries to FR are also overnite and perhaps not daily in oct. Most are fairly rundown old ships and get not that god reviews. In autumn there may be storms and all that too. In GR most trains have been withdrawn anyway-as a big saving when they fell out of €€ nearly.
IF yo fancy a longer boatride, you may consider Grimaldi line from Barca to some towns in Italy, but thats not very cheap.
IN Spain as senior>60 you can buy for 6 eur a Carta dorada, which gives 25/40/50% off normal train fares. However, with some luck for long distance (larga distancia) prebooking is even lower. THis card is for 1 year.

nltrainer
Traveller
1404 comments

the current promotion for EUrail is to get 1 extra travelday on all passes with initial 5 days or more-which is thus of not much help to you. Order before 30./9.
Global pass= for all participating countries, about the whole of Europe out of Russia and its former areas and for EUrail also NOT UK.
Select= for 4 countries, without gaps. 1 country=just that.
One always has to pay extras for REServations-on hispeed trains and in some countries (ES, FR, IT are all in) for about any long-dist trans. Local trains work just like a metro-stand if full. Cost of RES is from 4-10 eur/pp/ride.

hanucka
Traveller
2 comments

Hi nltrainer: I appreciate very much your kind advice. I spent a good deal of time browsing websites related to train travel in Europe and to make the story short: we've decided to fly from Barcelona to Athens. We simply don't have enough time (nor the stamina) to hop-on hop-off along the way in Italy.
Just to 'contribute' with some info to railcc forum, we'll take a hi-speed AVE train from Malaga to Barcelona (around €75, but if we take the 'regional train is about €37 and takes only 2 more hours).
We'll stay in Barcelona 2 days and then fly one-way non-stop to Athens for € 108 (Vueling or Aegean airlines). We'll head back home from Athens by Air Canada.
As you can see this way the overall cost is lower than by buying the Europass but of course we must admit that we will not be able to see the beautiful Italian small towns and countryside and enjoy the wonderful train rides. Ansd that is a shame.
I wonder what the future will be for the european railway industry if the cheap air fare regional jet companies keep droping their ticket prices, I mean the competition will be pretty fierce and in all honesty and dirregarding the beauty of a train ride, who will spent hunderd of €s in train tickets when yo can fly around Europe for anything from 35€ to 185€.
God willing we still have plans to come back to Europe next year and travel around by train, we just love it. Every little town in the old continent has churches, palaces, abbeys, fortresses, plazas, museums, etc that are a delight just to contemplate and image how was life back in the 17th 18th centuries, just amazing.
We are canadians but with southamerican background and have found in Europe (we visited it in 2002 with our two daughters) so many similarities with weather, food, dancing, and peoples attitudes that we just felt in love with.
Anyway I do not want to take more of your time.
Your forum is excellent source of info for wanabe travelers and will keep an eye on from now on with some frequency.
Thanks a lot and 'buen viaje'

nltrainer
Traveller
1404 comments

Over 90% of the millions of passengers on EUR-railways do not go long distance-just short trips to school/work/hospital/dad etc. The average trip length is about 30-40 kms. The average taking on some railways is just less as 2 eur/trip/pax. This nr is also still growing.
It is indedd true that the overnite trains are slowly all disappearing, also due to more hi-speed routes being opened and to the EU-sponsored promotion of those cheap no-fruills airlines. I can fly too-if I book smartly-for 20-25 eur/single from here, NL to many towns in Spain, Italy, Poland etc. Train will never be able to compete with that.
Have a nice trip anyway.