anonymous
Traveller
2469 comments
Posted 10 years ago
Hi!
I tried searching this trip but did found just slightly similar routes. I am planning an ambitious interrail for the summer 2014, and I'm not quite sure if its doable in +/- 25 days.
The plan:
Prague-Bratislava-Vienna-Ljubljana-Split-Sarajevo-Belgrad-Bucharest-Sofia-Thessaloniki-Athens
I'm planning on buying the 10/22 global pass.
I've counted that it would be approx. 2 days per city if i count out the travel times, and for some cities I'm planning on just staying for the day, since this is hopefully not going to be my last interrail trip..
Has anyone done this route or similar before? Is it too little time for this many cities? I also dont want my entire trip to be just running around in a hurry..
If this is not doable I'm thinking about cutting the trip short with changing Prague, Bratislava and Vienna to another summer. Any tips etc for a first-timer in eastern europe are highly appreciated.
Also, if anyone knows about beautiful cities around the rodopi mountains south of Sofia, please let me know, I'd love to go hiking!
Thank you in advance!
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Hej!
Your route is a bit awkward since train connections to Sarajevo and into Greece are currently very bad, in fact almost nonexistent.
The only international connection to Sarajevo is the daily train from Zagreb, from Split you would have to use a bus (not included in IR), also to get to Belgrade you would have to rely on a bus (not included...). You could travel by train only still: Zagreb - Split - Zagreb - Sarajevo - Zagreb - Belgrade but this would cost you quite a bit of time compared to the direct buses.
There are no trains at all into Greece. There is a daily bus Plovdiv - Sofia - Thessaloniki though were you get a discount with IR, however this would result in the same price as getting a student ticket...
Anyway, your route is doable, however you might think about just using regular tickets instead of an InterRail pass. For instance you could get to Belgrade with regular tickets (bus and train), then get a Balkan Flexi Pass and cover the remainder of your trip with the BFP.
Do you want to start from Brussels by train to Prague?
Flo 8)
HarisActionST
Traveller
2 comments
Correction: There have always been working in Greece!
but in 2010 only the connections with international trains have been cut, as flow said
you can either take a bus from Skopje to Thessaloniki or take a bus from Sofia to Xanthi(Greece)
In Greece most people prefer to use coaches (named KTEL and are quite cheap)
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
I only wrote about trains _into_ Greece which have been withdrawn in 2010 as you have said, I did not say there we no trains operating at all within Greece...
Anyway, there will be trains again from Thessaloniki to Skopje - Belgrade and Sofia, current starting date is 10 May.