stezbot
Traveller
31 comments
Posted 16 years ago
my boyfriend and I are interailing starting in amsterdam (we're going to start the global pass after 3 days in amsterdam so we get more use) and have finally whittled down the preferred countries to 10 (3 of them are maybes as the other places seem better)
i would like some opinions on our suggested route and stop offs. I'm not sure on how long we'll spend in each place and about trains yet but i'm still looking into them every time i get time (we're not going for another 7 weeks anyway)...i've put in the maybe places as ? and the definite places as *
-ok so starting in amsterdam*
-down to frankfurt?
-down to lausanne (switzerland)*
-quick stop off in milan?
-over to venice but probably just through?
-then into slovenia (lake bled)*
-right to budapest*
-up to vienna for a quick stop?
-up to prague*
-into berlin (maybe a stop)?
-up to denmark (no stop) & either into sweden round to norway or straight into norway*
-round top of norway into finland & down through until helsinki*
-depending on whether we decide to go to a festival will be where we go from there
(it'll probably be either berlin or frankfurt hence the ?)
any thoughts? anyone done a similar route? too ambitious? I just don't want to get stuck in going to galleries, going shopping, looking at buildings and i'd rather mix it up which is why we're going from a city to a lake to mountains etc
thanks!
anonymous
Traveller
2469 comments
between berlin and frankfurt i'd definitely choose berlin. frankfurt is a more industrial city, berlin is quite interesting to see.
how long are you going for? if you're going for a month, you can easily make the stops you marked with a question mark (venice, vienna, etc)
in scandinavia, sweden is really beautiful. I took the night train from malmö to trondheim (it goes through stockholm and storlien). It's a very beautiful track (from what i saw in the morning). I'd definitely recommend it. The part from Storlien to Trondheim is also very nice.
And from Trondheim (i'm not sure about this) i think you can take the train down to oslo or bergen (but it isn't marked on the interrail map).
The track between oslo and bergen is also very beautiful.
In switzerland.. well... what made you choose lausanne? (not that it's not a nice city... i'm just curious). In summer it's very nice to take the boat across the geneva lake (lac leman) if you have the time. You can go to Evian/Thonon and back or all the way to Nyon/Geneva. I know that the ferry is run by the swiss railway company and back in the day i could use my swiss GA card to go on the ferry, but i'm not sure what the deal is with interral tickets. It's not shockingly expensive anyway... 20e for a return Lausanne-Thonon les bains at most.
Way to go on lake bled! it's beautiful :)
Have fuN!
cheers,
AO
stezbot
Traveller
31 comments
oh lake bled came from someone who mentioned it was the best sight she'd ever seen so i checked it out - now i'm really set on going hiking and canyoning there!
the only reason we thought of frankfurt was because it was kind of on the route to switzerland but of course we can look into it a bit more and i'm thinking berlin is more interesting anyway due to the fact it's berlin!
as for lausanne, mainly because of lake geneva but i read about an art gallery there that hosts drawings from schizophrenic patients so we thought if it's got that then it must be interesting. it's hosting the majority of the olympic things though so it may be too busy. my boyfriend has been to interlaken before so i reckon we'd probably camp there anyway and not spend too long in lausanne. anywhere you'd suggest instead of lausanne? what's bern like do you know?
i've been thinking through that list and if we'd have time and I put an approximate timescale on for each place and it seems like it could work so it's nice to have back up judgement from someone else!
we decided against sweden because norway and finland seemed the much better options (i really want to see the midnight sun considering the northern lights aren't really visible in june and moominvalley is in finland but sweden didn't really stand out) but i'll look into that connection through sweden.
thanks for your help!