matthewdcmoore
Traveller
1 comments
Posted 11 years ago
Hi, I am planning to go interrailing late next June for a month using the 22 day pass and have a few questions! First of all - what would be an ideal group size to travel with and how many is too many? Secondly, I was wondering if you could take a look at our provisional itenary and check we are not spending too long/too little in each destination and is good for rail connections! (and also whether there are any good locations we have missed entirely!).
At the moment the plan is to start in Amsterdam and stay there for 3 nights before validating our 22 day pass and then spend;
4 nights in Berlin
4 nights in Prague. Night train to Krakow
1 night Krakow. Night train from Krakow -> Bratislava
1 night Bratislava
3 nights Budapest
(train in morning from Budapest Vienna before catching the train Vienna -> Ljubljana
4 nights in Slovenia (Ljubljana /Bled)
Train to Belgrade then Night train to Skopje
Spend day in Skopje then get night train back to Belgrade and spend 4/5 nights here before heading back to UK!
are we spending too long in some places? If so what would you recommend swapping some nights in exchange for! Thanks in advance for your help
Matthew
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Hi Matthew!
Since you will be going in June I will just add some thoughts.
The 10in22 Flexi Pass would a better choice as you wont need more than 10 travel days.
Go Krakow - (overnight) Budapest - Bratislava - Vienna - Ljubljana if you want to sleep more on the night train (arrival in Bratislava is quite early); I would also recommend to stay one day in Vienna
Since you are already in the area you might think about travelling to Montenegro aswell since the railway line through the mountains down to the coast is really fantastic. If you are adventurous you might try a round trip Skopje - Albania - Montenegro - Belgrade; which you will have to do partly by bus (for instance the border crossings)
In my opinion you should not stay longer than three days at any of these places and try to see more different places - if you like some place very much you might come back later on a separate trip.
Flo 8)
matthewdcmoore
Traveller
1 comments
Thanks for the reply! my only concern with Vienna is the cost of living/hostels etc. looks lovely from the railcc pictures mind. I would be interested in that round trip in the south east (belgrade-skopje-albania-montenegro) but was wondering what transport you would use from Skopje and which destination would you go to in Albania/ Montnegro before getting back to Belgrade!
To make up some days/nights would you reccomend taking a night from each of Slovenia,Prague and Berlin?
Cheers again,
Matthew
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Living costs wont be very expensive in Vienna; you will find cheap food and drinks if you ask the hostel staff. I can recommend the Wombats Hostel chain but you will find other good accomodation as well.
How long do you want to travel overall? And how do you want to get back home? How do you want to get to the continent? You could take the Harwich - Hook van Holland ferry which would be a much more interesting way to start your trip than a dull trip on an airplane... ;) From Hook you can start your IR trip via Amsterdam or Bruxelles to Berlin. You might also want to look at Rail&Sail fares to Amsterdam and then start your IR ticket from there after an overnight stay.
So...if you'd start your trip with a 10in22 in Berlin, you could travel Berlin - Prague - overnight to Krakow - overnight to Budapest - Bratislava - Vienna - Ljubljana - Bled - Belgrade - overnight or day to Skopje and would use 9 travel days of your pass. The 10th day would be a spare day in case something does not go as planned or you want to add an extra stop on your way.
From Skopje you can travel by bus to Albania - there are supposed to be at least two departures to Tirana. In Albania you might want to pay a visit to Shkoder, the border town to Montenegro and then either go directly to Podgorica (and continue to other places in Montenegro) or to Ulcinj and travel to the north along the coast.
In Montenegro you might want to go hiking in Durmitor or stay at the beach in Budva; you should also visit Kotor... :)
Then, you can travel back to Belgrade by train from Bar and Podgorica; depending on how long you want to travel overall you could use your last travel day of the 10in22 for this or, which might be the better solution, just buy a regular ticket (can be done in Belgrade already including reservation, go to the Wasteels office at the central station).
And yeah, I would stay 3 days max at each location.
There is plenty time still to think everything through and plan your route, no worries. :)
To support the free information and the forum on railcc, please be fair and buy your official Interrail pass via our railcc partner link: [ux]https://rail.shop/interrail[/ux]
Thank you! :)
Flo 8)
Jaycho
Traveller
27 comments
[quote][b]Thanks for the reply! my only concern with Vienna is the cost of living/hostels etc.[/b] looks lovely from the railcc pictures mind. I would be interested in that round trip in the south east (belgrade-skopje-albania-montenegro) but was wondering what transport you would use from Skopje and which destination would you go to in Albania/ Montnegro before getting back to Belgrade!
To make up some days/nights would you reccomend taking a night from each of Slovenia,Prague and Berlin?
Cheers again,
Matthew[/quote]
In my personal opinion I wouldnt let the cost of Vienna put you off, I found it to be far cheaper than Amsterdam whewre you are also staying. on my summer interail we stayed for one night there and really regretted it as it wasnt as expensive as we thought, and there was so much to see and do :)