Train prices - first trip and a bit confused

I%26#39;m traveling to Europe for the first time and traveling with a senior 65+. Itinerary is as follows:

London to Paris

Paris to Venice

Venice to Florence

Florence to Rome

Day trip to Naples (Pompeii)

The point to point prices for this itinerary including senior discounts where applicable, 2nd class seating on day-time trips, double cabin overnight train to Venice and roundtrip Rome Naples is about US$1,131.

The purchase of the 4 day France/Italy select saver pass 1st class, a discount on Eurostar and double cabin overnight to Venice is about US$910.

I used www.eurorailways.com to arrive at these numbers.

Finally to my questions:

1. It appears that the pass discount with the France/Italy pass on the Eurostar is only good on Paris to London and not London to Paris. But I have received conflicting information. Does anyone know which is correct? The 2nd class regular price is $255 for adult and $90 for senior. The pass discount is $75 for each...a much better deal. I also discovered from another forum thread that I can get a roundtrip for $90 for each and not use the return so if I can%26#39;t get the pass discount, I%26#39;ll go that route.

2. With the pass, if I take the day trip from Rome to Naples to visit Pompeii and return later that day, is this counted as one day?

3. I assume that the overnight from Paris to Venice is only counted as one day.

4. What is an %26quot;open ticket.%26quot; The point to point tickets to Naples were described this way.

5. I read that if you pass through a country you will be charged extra. Is this usually included in the original purchase price of a ticket or will you be charged somewhere along the route of your trip? I am assumning that we will pass through Switzerland on our way to Venice. The double cabin price is $229 each or $102 each with a pass discount. Will there be another charge along the way?

6.What is validation and can you make reservations (we%26#39;ll be traveling in July and figure that we%26#39;ll need them at least on the overnight and the Eurostar) can you make reservations without the validation?

Wow!!! This does seem to be alot...any help from the friendly folks here on TA would be greatly appreciated.

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You are tying yourself in knots for no very good reason.First off, if you purchase point-to-point tickets from the original vendors you can certainly make all the trips you are suggesting for WAY less than US$1,131 in FIRST class never mind second. At a wild guess I would estimate the first class ticket prices to be around $750, but I haven%26#39;t checked.

If you travel second class on all but your overnight trip from Paris to Venice, I%26#39;d guess at a total of little more than $500 if you are booking far enough in advance to get discounted tickets on the Eurostar Paris-London leg. Second class is really adequately comfortable, since none of your trips is longer than about 3.5 hours, and two are considerably less.

Is there a particular reason you want to make the very long trip from Paris to Venice by train? Two discount air carriers operate this route, the better of which is probably MyAir which flies from Orly to Marco Polo. Ryanair flies from the much less convenient Beauvais to the much less convenient Treviso. Tickets, including taxes, can be as cheap as about $75.

If you fly to Venice on the cheapest available ticket, and get the least expensive Eurostar tickets, your total should be no more than about $400.

I have to ask ... How long is this proposed trip supposed to take? If you are trying to do it in less than four weeks, I would say you are trying to do too much in too little time. London, Paris and Rome deserve at least a week each, and Florence and Venice no less than a week between them. For me four weeks would be a flat-out minimum and six would be a whole lot better.

And why the one day trip to Naples? Not that I have anything against Naples in particular, but you%26#39;re looking at about 4 hours train time for that one day alone. Why?

Take a look at all these aites:

www.eurostar.com

www.voyages-sncf.com

www.trenitalia.it

www.myair.com

www.ryanair.com

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And by the way, you%26#39;ll need reservations on ALL these routes unless you want to travel on slow trains in Italy that stop at every intermediate station - which you don%26#39;t. If you buy point-to-point tickets online from the sites I gave you, the price includes the reserved seat fee.