bettibanhidi
Traveller
3 comments
Posted 10 years ago
Hi everyone!
My boyfriend and I are planning to go interrailing this summer for about 18-20 days.
We definitely want to see Italy (Tuscany + Rome) and Greece (Athens + a bit of a beach time somewhere) and the rest would look something like this:
-Macedonia (Skopje, Ohrid)
-Montenegro (Budva and/or Kotor)
-Bosnia-Herczegovnia (Mostar, Sarajevo)
-Slovenia (Ljubljana, Lake Bled)
Would this fit into max. 3 weeks? Would it be an idea getting a 5 in 10 pass for the Italy - Greece part and then just buy individual bus / train tickets?
What would you add to this itinerary or skip? I am open to all suggestions!
Thank you in advance!
Betti
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Hi Betti!
I like the idea of getting the 5in10 pass to cover Italy+Ferry+Greece and buy single tickets for the remainder of the trip.
How do you plan to get to Italy/get back home?
From Skopje onwards you will have to rely on buses for quite a while. The closest you could get to Lake Ohrid by train would be Bitola, from where you can take a bus or taxi to the lake, but there are also direct buses from Skopje.
From Ohrid there should run an overnight bus to Ulcinj in Montenegro (also worth visiting), from there you will find plenty of domestic connections to both Budva and Kotor.
Then you could go to Mostar (you could also think about going via Dubrovnik), from Mostar you can travel by train again via Sarajevo - Zagreb to Ljubljana and Lake Bled.
Flo 8)
bettibanhidi
Traveller
3 comments
Thank you for your answer!
Getting there and back would be by plane but nothing is sure yet. Not even the itinerary. Now I've been thinking about leaving out Italy sincce we will go to enough warm places and we could do Italy another time with just a 5in10 pass. Instead we would just fly down to Greece and work our way up to Slovenia. Then go home by the rout Vienna - Berlin - the Netherlands. The problem with that is that I don't know if it is worth doing since we could use trains in Greece - Macedonia and then later on from Bosnia but not train inbetween for like a week. We might better do it with point to poin tickets?
Anyways, if we find a route where it is worth it using the interrail ticket, I'll make sure we both buy it in the railcc shop!
Betti
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
OK well in that case I would just go with regular tickets bought locally. Depending on your final route you might think about getting a Balkan Flexi Pass which would cover trains in Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Hercegowina. The minimum validity period would be 5 days within a month for just 53€ (under 26). :)
If you decide to get home by train then you could think about getting special fare tickets which will come cheaper than an InterRail pass when purchased a few weeks in advance.
bettibanhidi
Traveller
3 comments
Sorry for the late reply but didn't want to write until we knew at least something for sure. Which is still not a lot but we bought tickets to Skopje for the 5th of August. So that's where we'll start and we will have about 3 weeks for travelling.
The first part of the route would be the following:
Skopje (2 days)
then go to Montenegro for 3/4 days via Belgrade by train or an overnight bus from Skopje to Kotor ( in that case maybe 1 day in Ohrid before going to Montenegro)
then Mostar (1day)
Sarajevo 2 (days)
Zagreb (1 day)
Ljubljana ( 2days)
This part is pretty sure but I don't know what to do from here...
Plan A would be that from Ljubljana we go to Vienna for a day (I've been there many times but my boyfriend hasn't + we want to check out the ZOO), then Vienna - Prague (because Prague is wonderful and we just want to take a walk + grab a beer) and finish off in Berlin for 3 days or so. From there it's very easy to get back to the NL.
Plan B would include going to Italy for a couple of days, namely to Tuscany from Ljubljana via Venice. And the problem is that we wanted to include Berlin but the trip from Milan to Berlin seems pretty long... so maybe a suggestion on how to get back to the Netherlands from Milan while stopping on the road and seeing interesting things?
My other main problem is that to me it seems that it doesn't matter which route we choose, both are pretty mixed and it is not worth it to buy an interrail ticket for the first part but maybe for the second part yes, so it just seems difficult and too expensive that way... 5in10 + Balkan Flexi + buses or 10in22 + buses, that is both 300 or more which we were not necessarily planning to spend on transport only.
So I need an advice on what to do. Thanks in advance and sorry for the rather long and complicated post! :p
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Sorry for the late reply! ;)
IMO the only IR that would make sense is a 5in10 to cover the following routes:
Sarajevo - Zagreb
Ljubljana - Wien
Wien - Praha
Praha - Berlin
Berlin - NL border
If you just want to grab a beer in Praha you might think about leaving Wien early, spend the day in Praha and leave late for Berlin - this would also allow you to cover Zagreb - Ljubljana with the IR (a single ticket would be cheaper than one IR travel day but you save money overall since you could cover Wien - Berlin with just one travel day.
You could also look for advance fare tickets:
Wien - Praha: [ux]https://rail.shop/oebb[/ux]
Praha - Berlin: [ux]https://rail.shop/cd[/ux] or [ux]https://rail.shop/bahn[/ux]
Berlin - Amsterdam: [ux]https://rail.shop/bahn[/ux]
However, since you wont get a cheap Ljubljana - Wien fare and the regular fare for 2 persons is about 100€ you probably wont save much compared to a 5in10 - and lose flexibility.
The remainding trips from Skopje to Sarajevo can also be done with regular tickets or with the 5day Balkan Flexi Pass...the latter probably is a bit cheaper...depends on whether you go via Beograd or not.
For plan B my suggestion (of course, it's my favorite line :D ) would be the Bernina line in Switzerland: [u]https://rail.cc/blog/zurich-milano-albula-bernina/[/u]
However it might make more sense for you to stopover somewhere else, more in the middle between Milan and Berlin. In fact you could just think about getting the Milan - Wien night train and then continue as planned with plan A. :)
Flo 8)
bettibanhidi
Traveller
3 comments
Thanks for the reply, very helpful, as always!
Ye, the big question is now if we should skip Ohrid... because we don't want to do a retour 6 hours on the bus from and to Skopje just to see Ohrid if we continue via Belgrade afterwards... I really don't fancy buses but if we choose for Ohrid, that is the only way. So we are really in doubt on that one and could use your suggestion.
I also thought about the Bernina line after my latest post and we really like the idea of doing it and want to include it in our itinerary. Not sure though if we would have enough time to do plan A and B combined...
Then the second part of the IT would look something like this:
-Milan- Zurich [u]https://rail.cc/en/interrail/milan-to-zurich[/u]
-then the same day Zurich - Vienna 16.40-00.24
-the next day Vienna - Prague: [u]https://rail.cc/en/interrail/vienna-to-prague[/u]
-then in the evening to Berlin: [u]https://rail.cc/en/interrail/prague-to-berlin[/u]
This is already 3 travel days? Because then if we go to Italy as well, we are definitely better off with a 10 in 22 pass, right? Especially because we want to do some travelling around Tuscany. Or maybe it is better to visit that area in another time e.g. spring or autumn?