which 5 countries for rail pass?

[GoJoel]

For my trip to Europe this summer, I know I will need a rail pass, and I am going to go with a 15 day flexipass. My problem is, I don't know which 5 "adjoining" countries to put on the pass, since I will be travelling to more than 5, and to some more than others. Maybe I'll just list my itinerary and hope someone can offer some good advice!

Here is my 2-month itinerary. It sounds crazy with all the backtracking but there is a method to my madness! And, forgive me for not listing the time in each city--I was just going for an idea of location

fly into London
-Brugge
-Paris
-Dijon/Beaunne
-Milan
-Cinque Terre
-Florence
-Tuscany
-Northern Italian town
-Innsbruck
-Vienna
-Prague
-Munich and Bavaria
-Venice
-Rome
-towns in Southern Italy
-Athens
-Santorini
-Naples
-Amalfi coast
-South of France
-Pamplona
-Madrid
-fly out of Madrid

That will be 8 countries, not including Great Britain and Czech Republic, which don't count for the railpass anyway.
I will obviously be spending some more time in Italy and Germany, but on the other hand, I won't be covering a lot of ground in Germany. Also, I won't be in Austria for that long, but will go across the whole country. Would my best bet just be to find out how much money I would spend on point to point tickets in each country and just leave off the least expensive ones?
Thanks for your help!

P.S. I meant to ask if Greece is a worthwile country to add to the railpass. Does the ferry from Italy to Greece count? I seem to remember hearing that railpass holders get a discount on the ferry but didn't know if you had to include it as one of your countries. If I didn't count Greece, the only train I would really ride would be from Patras to Athens.

[herrbert]

Did you consult railsaver yet? It is supposed to give you the best pass for the trip. It takes some work, but you'll end up with a good advice.

If you never the less, stick with the 5-country plan, you just have to buy p2p-tickets for some places. Brugge seems to be a obvious choice (a ticket from the French border to Brugge, and back -> considering, you would use the pass for France). If I where you I would also investigate if taking a pass for Spain is worthwhile, as you only, take a trip from the French border to Pamplona, and from there to Madrid. (Spain has some of the lowest fees for trains (AVE excluded), and in other situations, you could consider traveling by buss instead.) As you write yourself: I can be useful to check some websites, and to get some rates for the trainjourneys, you are going to make.

I see that you have Milan on your list, there is a Easyjet-flight from Milan to Athens, which to my best knowledge at this moment, is the cheapest way (from Italy) to go to Greece, I can imagine that you want to trip with the boat (as an experience on it's own), but you could decide to fly to Athens from Milan, and getting back by boat, working your way up north again.

Flying can also help to save money, as in a lot of cases it is actually cheaper to fly.

[GoJoel]

Thanks for the info, herrbert. I actually checked railsaver before posting, and while it helps a lot in figuring out which passes to buy, it doesn't tell you which countries to include. Since I posted the thread, I realized (not sure how I missed it before) that there is a Eurail option that gives you travel in all 18 countries on nonconsecutive days. I thought it only gave you consecutive days so hadn't considered it before. The Eurail youth flexipass is $651, which is only about $60 more than the select pass. When I factor in the extra money I would have to spend on p2p tickets in my 6th country, it makes more sense to get the flexipass. I will be looking into the flight option to Greece, too so thanks for the help!