Safety

MisterSteve
Traveller
916 comments

Euro rail isn't a thing, Eurail is just a joint pass promoted by many different train operators across many countries of Europe. There may be certain districts of some cities where you wouldn't want to be late at night but that wouldn't be on your route anyway. In general the trains are probably as safe or even safer than the places they go to at the times they go there.

Your biggest problem is that it is difficult for anyone to go from Portugal to Spain (which you have to) by train because there are so few connections. From Lisbon there is no direct connection, you have to change trains at Entroncamento when the joruney has barely started, then go to Badajoz where you will then find a train to Madrid. It's possible a couple of times a day but takes so long you won't be going much further that day. From Porto you can head north (which is the wrong direction really) to Vigo in Spain - and then start again heading east. From the Algrave you have to use a bus that isn't covered by the pass to reach Huelva or Sevilla. Once in Spain any reasonably fast train requires reservations but not all are available in advance for pass holders - tickets with reservations included are easy to get online. France is slightly easier than Spain, Italy has restrictions for the pass since many regional trains are not part of the deal. Switzerland and Austria are easy if you want to go that way round but either way you have Slovenia next, which has limited cross border connections but is otherwise OK and then there is Croatia where things are very erratic - to the point that the Austrians have stopped handling their through cars to Germany because they are so often very late and delayed Austrian trains.

I think the key safety issue in your plan is where you stay at night.

nltrainer
Traveller
1342 comments

This is tipically a Q only posted by norte=americano´s. It often baffles us, Europeans, what they mean in fact by it.
Toss a coin as to what is the best buy: a pass means a fixed sum-plus for this case the first part a fairly hefty extra load to pay in the extra REServ etc.
Pay as you go is the most expensive way-as then you wont get advance sale discount. With your age you also do not get any discount (yet-these may start from 60, more often from 65/67). The latter means you tie yourself into a fixed time/day. BUT it also lets you use other means-bus, fly, whatever, if that would be a better choice for that particular stretch.
Better sites giving more info: seat61.com, community.eurail.com (dr google somehow still thinks this site is still done by peter&flo-2 kind austrian/germans, who have left it pre-covid). Even tripadvisor/forums have a load of info on particular countries and is much more aimed at those funny norte-americano´s (who think the only choice to possibly make is between Hilton or Hyatt)

MisterSteve
Traveller
916 comments

I'm often baffled by what you post. Peter is still around, he dealt with several spammers over the past few days - and I saw a post from Flo recently. And Tripadvisor forums are often garbage.

Arend7
Traveller
592 comments

I second that. But now I'm here, I want to make a remark over that sentence that we speak 30 languages. Everybody should be able to use Google Translate. Spare(s) us time.

argon
Traveller
351 comments

I already wrote Peter an Message regarding the 30 languages and he will fix it soon !

MisterSteve
Traveller
916 comments

To be honest I find Google Translate to be getting worse and often only comedy value - try deepl.com, not as many languages but the ones there are done better.