European Railway System

[oip]

This summer I want to visit the show in Netherlands and to travel a little bit. At the moment my plan is:

Barcelona-Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam.

I plan to use trains. So I have several questions about European Railway system. Could you please help me? Thanks in advance.

1) Is it possible to book tickets through internet? And get it in several months in any ticket window in Europe. I don't want to use post. For Brussels-Amsterdam part I found http://www.nshispeed.nl/. But for other parts of my plan?

2) Should I book tickets in advance or I will not have any problems in buying them just before the train leave?

There's more questions to come...

Any additional comments or advices are more than welcome!

[Pete-Rock]

Hey,

if I were you, I would not book the train tickets in advance. You will always be able to buy them short time before the train leaves, especially in those big cities. It could be that you will be having trouble getting tickets in the night. But when you buy them at daytime, it wont be any problem at all.

What you can try when buying the tickets is to book a seat. You DONT HAVE TO DO THAT, it is just an option. But it may be helpful if the train is full. And it is not expensive (3 Euros or something).

Hope that helps you out.

[oip]

Thanks. Another reason for booking tickets in advance is that I can show these tickets in the Netherland's Embassy in Moscow and it will help me to get Netherland's visa.

[oip]

Also, if you can give me some reliable links for choosing and booking hotels in Barcelona, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, I'd be very happy. For now I found http://hotels.nl.

[slayerdiabolus]

I know you can book trains here http://www.eurail.com/ for multiple countries.

Do you need to get a visa for each country oip or will one visa do for all of Europe or how does it work? I've never looked into it...

[oip]

Thanks.

I need only one visa. All these countries are in the Schengen area. I plan to be 2 days in Spain, 2 days in France, 2 days in Belguim and 4-5 days in Netherlands, so I need the Netherland's visa.

[oip]

Could anybody explain me how to use that Interrail Pass? For example Benelux Pass. Is it valid for all trains in Belguim and Netherlands without any limitation? AS I understand I can buy this pass and travel all over Benelux without any additional actions and payments. Am I right?

[jarrur]

If I got this right from the FAQ. For non-european www.eurail.com. Interrail is for european only.

[oip]

Russia is in Europe, you know.

[Churchchair]

Belgian Railway:

http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/

- Choose International
- Buy Online