katwoman
Traveller
8 comments
Posted 11 years ago
Hi guys,
I am planning my first Interrail trip for September with a friend of mine. We decided to buy the 22 days pass and we want to visit cities in Italy, Spain, Portugal and France. We thought about visiting the following cities:
Milano - Firenze - Pisa - Genua (we think about visiting 2 of these Italian cities but have not decided yet because we`re not sure yet which are most worth visiting) - Lyon - Barcelona - Madrid - Lissabon - Biarritz (maybe for one day only) - Paris
Do you think this is possible within 22 days? We don`t want to have a too stressful journey. Can you recommend any train connections for this route? Start and end will be in Austria.
Thank you!
Kathi
Loiseau
Traveller
231 comments
Hi,
i think your plan sounds nice for 22days. Maybe you can safe money by using the 10in22 pass?!
Maybe you can start with an night train to italy - As example the night train Wien-Firenze/Roma.
From Firenze to Milano and than via the famous albula- and Berninapass to Lyon via Zürich, Geneve should be possible on one day. You just have to start 6h20 in Milano. :( Or you go by Gotthardtroute to Zürich and than to Lyon.
From Lyon you should reach barcelona by local trains. If you want to go - and you should go - by the petit train jeune you maybe should plan some stoppover in Montpellier - a very nice city-worth to see or in perpignan.
So than you can go from Montpellier via Perpignan, villefranche de conflet, latour de Carol to barcelona.
Barcelona - Madrid - Lisboa is quite simple per Ave and night train. Than night train to Hendaye, but than i would prefer to stay in San Sebastian, because Biarritz isn't that great city sounds like. ;)
From Hendaye you can go by nighttrain or by TGV to Paris. Than maybe you can think of Nighttrain Paris-Munich and than you came back to austria.
So - i think this is a quite good route for 22days. You can stay in each point 3 or more days which is really good.
Lyon is very nice, but if you don't want to go the long way trough the alpes you should think about staying in Nice or better Marseille.
Travelconnections you will find here: [u]https://rail.cc/de/suche-interrail-verbindungen[/u] Just click around and you will find what you want. ;) For nighttrains look here: [u]https://rail.cc/de/interrail-nachtzug[/u]
And don't forget - buy your tickets here, so you simply can help those helpful guys here. :)
katwoman
Traveller
8 comments
Thank you for your great answer and your advice, Loiseau! We will think about all that and probably adjust our route.
Is there a way to find out online if a reservation is compulsory for a certain train?
Peter
Traveller
9333 comments
Hi Kathi.
Yes, check the railcc schedules for extra reservations and free connections (see link above).
And have a look here: [u]https://rail.cc/en/interrail-train-reservation[/u]
If you have detailed questions concerning your connections, just buy your Interrail pass here at railcc [ux]https://rail.shop/interrail[/ux] and I can set your profile to PLUS. Thank you! :)
Peter :)
katwoman
Traveller
8 comments
Hi Peter, thanks for your quick response.
We will buy our passes next week and we'll buy them at railcc for sure :)
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Hej!
Do you already have a fixed travel route?
I would recommend to get to Lisbon as fast as possible so that you wont get stuck there with not enough time to return. The best option to get the most out of the ticket would be to start with the night train from Linz to Zurich, then continue to Lyon via Geneve. Do not use a TGV Lyria between Geneve and Lyon but stick with the regular TER regional trains which you can use without a reservation.
Then from Lyon to Paris - you can travel with regional trains as well, or get a reservation for the much faster TGV. I would recommend to get a reservation at the station in Austria already. Make sure you get one for 6€, and not for 18€ (which happens if all 6€-reservations are already sold).
From Paris to Biarritz you will need to take a TGV - again the best option is to get this reservation before you start.
From Biarritz to Hendaye by local train, then with the overnight train to Lisbon. Yet again I recommend to get this reservation beforehand since there is only this single train each day.
From Lisbon to Madrid again there is just the overnight train, no day trains. You can make this reservation for instance in Lisbon (depending on how much time you spend there); if the train would be full you could still try to get a reservation for the night train in direction of Hendaye and get off at Salamanca or Medina del Campo to make your way to Madrid.
Madrid - Barcelona is best by direct AVE trains, 10€ reservation.
From Barcelona onwards you can finally travel quite easily without any extra reservations, however you will need to add one or two overnight stops on the way to Italy, for instance in Marseille or Nice.
If you still have enough time and motivation before you return home, I would also recommend, as Loiseau already did, the Berninabahn: [u]https://rail.cc/blog/zurich-milano-albula-bernina/[/u]
If you leave Milan in the morning you can easily reach the night train back to Linz in Sargans or Zurich.
Hope that helps, thanks for purchasing your tickets on railcc. :)
Flo 8)
Do you already know how you are going to Milan? I would suggest taking the night train from Linz to Zurich and get off at Buchs SG or Sargans and then travel the beautiful Bernina route to Milan as described here: [u]https://rail.cc/blog/zurich-milano-albula-bernina/[/u]
katwoman
Traveller
8 comments
Hi Flo,
thanks for all your advice! Sorry for not replying earlier, I was busy and did not check railcc very frequently in the past weeks.
We discussed about our route again and it changed slightly ... we dropped Italy and decided to start in Paris, go to San Sebastian, then Lisboa, next Madrid, Barcelona and finally Nice. We would like to go most of the way by night trains and take the petit train jaune from Barcelona to Nice.
Do you think it is possible to go back from Nice to Linz direcly without any stopover? We would love to have another city in between but we decided to focus more on Spain, Portugal and France because itˋs kind of easy to go to Switzerland or Italy another from Austria another time.
Thank you :)
Peter
Traveller
9333 comments
Hi.
Flow is currently interrailing to Montenegro and back... :)
So here my reply...
You can do it in one travel day... but there will be trains with reservations on this route.
Nice - Ventimiglia - Milano - Verona - Innsbruck - Linz
Or for example Nice to Milano, then crossing of the Alps ([u]https://rail.cc/en/train/milan-to-zurich[/u]) and by Sparschiene night train from Zurich to Linz ([u]https://rail.cc/en/night-train/zurich-vienna-en-467/63[/u])
If you decide for the route and give me the date, I can have a look for exact schedules.
Peter :)
katwoman
Traveller
8 comments
Hi Peter,
passing the Swiss/Austrian border around midnight by night train sounds good. Thank you for looking up the route for us! Our travel day will be the 25th of September.
Peter
Traveller
9333 comments
Hi.
A long day - and it would look like this for the 25.09.2013:
Nice Ville dep: 0525 - free local train
Ventimiglia arr: 0613
Ventimiglia dep: 0633 - IC train. Free but reservation recommended: [u]https://rail.cc/en-type-country/intercity/trenitalia-ic/47[/u]
At a station or for example via Trenitalia website for EUR 3 - select the option Global Pass.
Genova Piazza Principe arr: 0848
Genova Piazza Principe dep: 0919 - again an IC train, see information above.
Milano Centrale arr: 1050
Here change to the route trough the Alps, which is free of extra fees:
Milano Centrale dep: 1220
Zurich arr: 2148
[u]https://rail.cc/en/night-train/zurich-vienna-en-467/63[/u]
Peter :)
katwoman
Traveller
8 comments
Thank you so much, Peter!!
That's gonna be a bit exhausting but it doesn't matter at the end of the trip 8)