zwirni
Traveller
6 comments
Posted 10 years ago
Hi everyone,
as mentioned here ([u]https://rail.cc/de/oesterreich-kroatien-montenegro-tuerkei-griechenland/f11168[/u], in German) two friends of mine and me planned to do an Interrail trip this summer, heading for Southeast Europe. Well, we haven't heard of us since then, and the main reason is that we actually did that trip. Just to say two things before everything else: It was awesome! Thank you for the help! :)
The topic of this thread is probably a bit misleading, but as there's not enough space for all the places we went to I just took these three. However, we decided to skip some of the destinations we planned to visit originally, but still our route could be called ambitious (at least we were told so). In the following I'd mainly like to go into more detail about the route we travelled and not talk too much about what we did at all our destinations. Still, if you got any questions regarding that, feel free to ask of course! I'll also post links to the hostels we went to because we didn't have any bad experience with them. They all got rather good ratings on hostelworld and were comparably cheap. Sometimes I'll also comment on the hostel, mainly if we had some extraordinarily good experience :)
Short note to keep in mind: we were adviced here not to buy an Interrail pass for the whole journey because we would be reliant on busses / ferries most of the time in Croatia. For the rest of the journey in Southeast Europe a Balkan Flexi pass bought locally proved to be the much cheaper alternative.
August 18 - 19:
Night train Munich - Budapest (103 € incl. BahnCard 25)
Hostel: Shantee House
August 21:
IC Budapest - Zagreb (29 €)
Hostel: My Way Hostel
We spent one whole day in Plitvice [u]https://rail.cc/en/plitvice-lakes/c[/u] which was really cool, even though it was very touristic and slightly crowded. Originally we had planned to go to Split from there directly, but the last bus went too early for our case so we decided to go back to Zagreb and take the night train instead.
August 23:
Night train Zagreb - Split (29 €)
Catamaran Split - Korcula City (11 €)
Hostel: Appartements Veselka Korcula Lumbarda [ux]https://rail.shop/bookingcom[/ux] (the perfect spot for us to relax after the exciting but mainly stressful night. We arrived at 10 pm and were directly offered dinner and homemade wines and liqueur by the landlady.)
We needed to sleep on the corridor in the train because it was totally crowded. Some guy even slept in that noisy area between two waggons. Crazy ride! Afterwards we really needed a day off to relax, and Korcula turned out to be the perfect spot for that. Beautiful island and old town with a cute museum about Marco Polo who they claim was born here.
August 25:
Catamaran Korcula City - Dubrovnik (12 €)
Hostel: Dubrovnik Apartments Kovacecc - (only stayed there for one night, but that place was almost luxury and not even that expensive)
Probably a must for Game of Thrones addicts. Even without the city is worth a visit. We paid a visit to Hotel Belvedere, a former luxury hotel until the Yugoslav Wars started. In other countries this place would have been closed off all over, but here there are several ways to get inside and have a look at everything (including folders of bills from the late 1980s, old kitchenware, ...). Besides that it's the perfect place to get some nice views of the city.
August 26:
Bus Dubrovnik - Kotor (14 €)
Hostel: Montenegro Hostel 4 U (beach just across the street)
Nice ride along the coastline. Sit on right hand side to enjoy it best. Kotor is by the way a very cool place for several reasons: Not mainly because paying with Euros was a nice feeling, but they also have a fjord just like in Norway (difference: 20 °C ;) ) and the city wall along the mountain. Really worth a visit!
August 27 - 28:
Bus Kotor - Podgorica (8,50 €)
Night train Podgorica - Belgrade (22,50 €)
Hostel: Bongo Hostel (haha that was fun. Wanted to go to bed early after one night in a seating compartement, but instead we had several bottles of Rakia and some lessons in Serbian language with the girl working at the hostel. The hostel opened only in August, so everything's still new, and besides it's very close to the city center.)
Podgorica was seriously the worst place we went to on our whole journey, even if it was for two hours only. We wanted to buy our Balkan Flexi pass (53 € for 5 travel days) there, but the railway employees could hardly speak any English, let alone knew what a this pass was. In the end we were happy to be able to buy that single train ticket and decided to buy the pass in Belgrade. It was quite hot outside during the train ride, but there were people selling water and beer walking through the train all the time. Beautiful landscape in Montenegro after leaving Podgorica by the way. Most of all: No problems to buy the Flexi pass in Belgrade, very competent lady behind the counter there who even laughed :)
August 29 - 30:
Night train Belgrade - Sofia (6 €)
Sofia - Plovdiv
Hostel: Hostel Mostel
The train departed on time in Belgrade, but it had 2 h delay when we arrived in Sofia without any special event during the ride. Quite relaxing vintage train otherwise.
August 31:
Bus Plovdiv - Istanbul (20 €)
Hostel: Taksim Lounge
(very helpful staff with lots of good ideas. Having breakfast on the roof terrace on top of Istanbul is also not the worst start in the day :) )
We decided to take the bus and not the train that's included in the pass because of all the construction work currently going on along that route. However, our bus got broken somewhere near Haskova in Bulgaria, so we were forced to stay in the middle of nowhere for 4 h :) Bus by Metro Turizm with some basic catering, included also the transfer from the main bus station to Taksim where our hostel was.
September 4:
Bus Istanbul - Thessaloniki (35 €)
Hostel: RentRooms Thessaloniki
Very relaxing ride, only seven people in that huge bus. Catering inclusive and no incident this time. Metro Turizm bus would have cost around 45 €, ours was by Ulusoy. Transfer from Taksim to the bus station.
September 5:
IC Thessaloniki - Athens (20 €)
Hostel: Hotel Dioskouros
(great breakfast buffet and in walking distance to Acropolis)
Absolutely ridiculous. Even though we were told at the counter in Thessaloniki that we didn't need to buy any reservation we were forced by the conductor on the train. We met some other interrailers who paid 15 € for it at the counter, so better do it over there.
September 6 - 7:
Athens - Patras (reservation compulsory but free)
Ferry Patras - Bari (22 €)
Without that Flexi pass the ferry would have cost around 75 €, so it definitely paid off! The ferry was almost empty when we got on board in Patras so we could choose where we wanted to sleep, ended up in some staircase in the end. However, tons of people boarded in Corfu in the middle of the night and they slept basically everywhere (including tents on deck), quite funny and surprising to see in the morning.
After splitting up in Bari, I used an Interrail 5 days in 10 pass (184 €) for travelling home via Italy, Switzerland and France:
September 8:
Night train Bari - Roma (3 €)
FrecciaRossa Roma - Milano (10 €)
Hostel: Hostel Colours
Free wifi on the FR, quite nice. Didn't feel like 300 km/h though. Anyway, 3 hours from Rome to Milan tells its own tale.
September 10:
Milano - Tirano
Tirano - St. Moritz
St. Moritz - Chur
Chur - Disentis/Mustér
Disentis/Mustér - Andermatt (8 €)
Andermatt - Hospental
Hostel: Jugendherberge Hospental
(Not that there are that many hostels nearby, but this place was in fact really good! They had breakfast for 6 Sfr with a huge variety of coffee, tea and other hot drinks and also the possibility to have comparably cheap dinner at that place.)
Sounds a bit stressful, but it worked without any problems, thanks to Swiss railway. It took me 11 hours from Milano to Hospental, but you can save one hour if you skip St. Moritz. Had a longer stay in Chur where I grabbed some food. Keep in mind that there's only 50% reduction on the Glacier Express between Disentis/Mustér and Hospental, but it was no problem to buy that ticket on the train for 10 SFr. Nice views on all the trains in fact, mainly of course on the Bernina/Albula railway as described here ([u]https://blog.rail.cc/zurich-milano-albula-bernina/[/u]). It was a rather spontaneous idea to stay in Hospental for two nights, but it was totally worth it: There's lots of nice hiking trails in the vicinity, so I decided to go to Gotthard pass and up to 2500 m. Finally some nice views not from the inside of a train :) Also to get moving between two days of basically sitting in trains only was a very welcome thing.
September 12:
Hospental - Andermatt
Andermatt - Göschenen
Göschenen - Locarno
Locarno - Domodossola (1,50 €)
EC Domodossola - Montreux
Montreux - Zweisimmen
IC Zweisimmen - Zürich
Sounds again stressful, but it was totally worth it! Especially the GoldenPass between Montreux and Zweisimmen offered plentiful of nice views. That was also a panoramic train without any additional fee. The same thing applies of course to the Centovalli railway between Locarno and Domodossola, but that one was quite crowded. I used my stay in Italy to grab some comparably cheap food :)
September 14:
IC Zürich - Basel
TER Basel - Colmar
TGV Colmar - Paris Est (6 €)
Thanks for advicing me to take the TGV between Strasbourg and Paris, that was really worth it :) Besides, the train already started in Colmar, so I got on it already there. Also used my time there for a short visit to the old town, especially the cathedral, quite nice!
September 17:
Thalys Paris Nord - Cologne (41 €)
I know you typically don't advice to take Thalys here, still there were several reasons for me to take it:
- 3 hours from Paris to Cologne is much faster than any other connection, which also made it possible for me to enjoy some more hours of Paris
- I would have needed to pay some money anyhow to get back to Germany, so it wasn't that unreasonably expensive
- simple curiosity of mine
Okay, that was it in very few words. If you got any questions, again I'm eager to try to answer them. Other comments are very welcome of course, too! If you'd like to I might also upload some pictures from the trains or the less known places such as Kotor.
Oh, and just to mention that: Of course I ordered my Interrail pass and the Thalys ticket via railcc. We also booked most of our hostel via the partner link on the web page, even though I'm not sure how much you profit from that.
Best wishes
Henning
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Thank you! :D