anonymous
Traveller
2467 comments
Posted 9 years ago
Hi,
I'm going to travel trough Bulgary, Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary from 28 June till 19 July together with a friend. We're thinking about buying four 'one country' passes of three days for each country because that's cheaper than buying an global pass. I was looking for a balkan select pass, but I could only find a balkan flexi pass and we needed to buy them 6 months ahead (so allready too late now) and actually it's also more expensive than the seperate passes.
Now I have some questions about how we need to arrange a night train from one country to one another. Will we lose a day of every pass by doing this or what's the best way of taking care of those things?
Thanks,
Jalta
Flo
Traveller
10723 comments
Hi Jalta!
What are your destinations in Hungary? How do you plan to get to Hungary/back home?
You can buy the Balkan Flexi Pass (which will be cheaper than multiple IR One Country Passes) locally at the station in Belgrad; to get from Budapest to Belgrade buy a Belgrade Special for 15€ one way at the station in Budapest. It should be also possible to buy the Balkan Flexi Pass at the Wasteels office at Budapest Keleti (if you enter the main hall to the right) but I am not 100% sure about that.
Flo 8)
anonymous
Traveller
2467 comments
We're visiting those countries in this ordening. From Bulgary to Republic of Macedonia we will probably travel to Thessaloniki first because there's no direct connection between Sofia and Skopje. But still need to figure out how we'll get from Sofia to Skopje (Republic of Macedonia).
Then we'll go to Serbia and finally go to Hungary. We don't know yet wich places in Hongary we'd like to see. Because it's our last country to visit, we still hava plenty of time to arrange this on the train. We'd probably buy a pass for 3 days, so I think we'll do three different big cities in Hongary. From Budapest we're taking a plane back home to Belgium.
So if we wanted to buy the Balkan Flexi Pass we can only buy it in Belgrado and then we've allready done the first two countries.. So I guess it's not possible to fix it that way..
Thanks for helping us out Flo!
Flo
Traveller
10723 comments
Ah ok; well this makes no difference really: You can of course purchase the Balkan Flexi Pass at stations in all participating countries, so it is no problem to get it in Bulgaria as well, however only at RILA offices at the following stations: Sofia, Varna, Burgas, Plovdiv, Russe, Pleven, Gorna Orjahovitza, Vratza, Stara Zagora, Dimitovgrad, Blagoevgrad.
A Youth (<26) pass for 5 travel days within a month is 53€, 7 travel days will be 70€, 10 travel days 89€.
Please note that that there might be special rules in the country where you buy the pass: It could be that in the country of issueing (in your case Bulgaria) you are only allowed to travel from the station where you bought the ticket to the border; this rule varies from country to country and it is not clear how the situation is for passes issued in Bulgaria. Please inquire locally and then let us know. ;)
If you were only allowed to get to the border this is no real issue as single tickets bought locally a really cheap.
The most comfortable way by train to get to Skopje from Sofia would be to go via Thessaloniki, an alternative would be to take the Sofia - Belgrade night train and change to the Belgrade - Skopje day train in Nis, however you would have to spend several hours in the middle of the night in Nis so this isnt probably the most tempting option.
A faster option would be to take a direct bus, the bus station is adjacent to the train station in Sofia.
Depending on what cities you are going to visit in Hungary a One Country Pass could be a good idea; as mentioned before you can travel Belgrade - Budapest for just 15€; if you would visit Szeged you can get there with local trains from Subotica, buy tickets locally.
In case you go with a OC Pass for Hungary:
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! :)
nltrainer
Traveller
1346 comments
B smarter-use bus for many trips, much quicker and cheaper.
The Balk Flexi can /is best bought LOcally-of course, much cheaper too.
From Sofia to Skop use BUS, unless you have an urgent desire to also visit Thessaloniki in GR.
Wasteels in BPest is now closed since at least 1 yr, reports are that wasteels in Beograd is now also closed.
Be aware that in Serbije most trains are delayed very much-many hours. There is also the remains of the recent floodings. Bus has the advantage its much easier to find alternative roads as rails.
Without telling what other trips you have in mind in those countries, many 1-c IR seems an awful waste of money.