pentix
Traveller
6 comments
Posted 9 years ago
Hello guys, hello girls :D
I really need your advise as its our first time doing something like this..
We are planning to travel for 23 days.. me and 3 of my best friends(guys). They have traveled abroad before (using only airplane) but for me is the first time.
Our main plan Is: Starting from Greece (our country) traveling by airplane to Vienna on November 22th, and arrive there at 10am! Staying for one day and then on 23th our interrail ticket is starting (ticket for 22days continues)..
We are going to stay MAX 2 days in every city, im going to write them down.
Vienna(1day)->Prague(2Days)->Berlin(2Days)->Amsterdam(2days)->Brussels(1Day)->London(2Days)->Paris(2Days)-Bordeaux(without an overnight)->Madrid (2 Days)->Barcelona(2 Days)->Montpelier and Marseilles are just stops and then Milan(2 Days)->Rome(2Days). 19Days in total.. We considered from the rail map how many hours in total we are going to travel and its about 52, so lets say that there are 3 days of traveling plus 19=22.. is it possible for all of these?
we just don't know how we will return to greece (airplane possibly) because we don't know how far we can go for our final destination!
Also i want to know if our planned budget is okay.
First of all we are going to stay in hostels, or cheap hotels, we want just something clean. we have some friends in amsterdam and london to stay overnight, and we may couchsurf for 1-2 times and travel by night if its possible.
We know that you have to pay something more for nighttrains or highspeed trains and i think that its not a problem to do it for 1-2 times.
About eating, we have no special preferences, we can eat everything.
We already paid our airplane tickets, our 22days pass and the things that we are going to take with us.
We are planning to take with us 2000..some cash and the rest of them in cards. is it okay?
Consider that we may wanna visit a museum or a football match (we know its expensive) and we are not really into buying expensive gifts or anything.
Thanks in advance guys, waiting for your reply!
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Hi!
I hope you purchased your tickets at [ux]https://rail.shop/interrail[/ux] to support our free information, thank you.
From Vienna to Bruxelles it is easy, no reservation needed.
To get to/from London you can either travel by Eurostar (very expensive), ferry (quite cheap but takes a while, you should calculate a whole day) or bus (usually cheapest), there are topics in the forum about these options.
Paris - Bordeaux - Madrid with just a stopover in Bordeaux wont really work, the trip from Bordeaux to Madrid takes quite some time, calculate again with about a whole day. Also, you will need reservations for almost all trains within Spain and for TGV (high speed trains) in France.
Barcelona - Montpellier - Marseille is possible with regional trains without reservations if you travel along the coast via Portbou - Cerbere, which is what I would recommend.
Marseille - Milan is also possible without reservations; for Milan - Rome I would suggest a high speed train again.
Overall your plan might be a bit overambitious...I would _not_ calculate with the hours on the map but with the use of a proper schedule planner: [u]https://rail.cc/en/search-interrail-route[/u]
Budgetwise you should be really fine, 2000€ equals almost 100€ per day which will be easily enough.
Flo 8)
pentix
Traveller
6 comments
Hello again, thanks for your reply!
We purchased our tickets from railcc :)
I know it is overambitious but i checked the train connections through the site and i think that we will be fine...
Maybe we will get tired travelling every 2-3 days but i thing that it is possible to do this whole trip.. you think no?
We also do not have problem, pay for extra ticket fees to go somewhere faster if you say that 2000€ are good!
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Great, thank you! Please give me your order ID beginning with AA.... in order to set your account to premium. :)
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Well...travelling every 2-3 days should be normal on an InterRail trip in my opinion - I like to see as many different places as possible. :)
Your route is definitely possible within the 22 days but I just wanted to point out that you might need a bit more time to get from city to city than you would expect. For instance you cannot get from Paris to Madrid within one day if you want to spend a few hours in Bordeaux in between.
What you could do if you want travel with night trains:
Wien - night train to Berlin - day train to Prague - night train to Amsterdam; this way you could save quite a bit of time, money wise it wont be much difference since you will need extra reservations for the night trains:
[u]https://rail.cc/en/interrail-night-train/vienna-berlin-en-60406/45[/u]
[u]https://rail.cc/en/interrail-night-train/prague-amsterdam-cnl456/14[/u]
To get to London you could think about the Dutchflyer ferry from Hoek van Holland to Harwich; not that cheap (expect around 80€ on an overnight ferry) but you can travel overnight and dont have to spend money on a hostel: [u]https://rail.cc/blog/from-london-to-amsterdam-with-the-dutchflyer/[/u]
To get from London to Paris I would take the Dover - Calais ferry during the day (I personally dont like buses); another interesting alternative would be the Portsmouth - Le Havre overnight ferry operated by LD Lines which is just 25 GBP, no cabin booking needed.
pentix
Traveller
6 comments
Thank you for your reply!! Our id order is : xxxxxx Thanks! ;)
We had Bordeaux as an opinion in case of not finding a night train from paris to madrid... i saw that there is a night connection so maybe we are ok..
From brussels to london and from London to paris, i think we might use train with extra fee, because we want to be there fast and not spent our time in ships (all of us are residents of Santorini island, Greece , so ships are boring for us :D )
Your opinion about Wien - night train to Berlin - day train to Prague - night train to Amsterdam is a nice one that i didn't thought about and thank you :D
My main problem is the budget..i don't know if 2000€ are enough. you said that they are but im afraid about it :/
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
What overnight connection between Paris and Madrid are you talking about? The direct night train has been withdrawn quite some time ago; however you could take the night train Paris - Irun and then continue with a day train to Madrid, but this would take almost 24 hours. You could also think about going from Paris to Hendaye/Irun by TGV, then continue across the border to San Sebastian, spend one night there and continue the next day to Madrid.
Keep in mind that the Eurostar for travel Bruxelles/Paris to/from London fare is about 90€ each way for InterRail travellers!
Regarding the money: Have a look here: [u]https://rail.cc/en/overall-costs[/u]
2000€ equals about 100€ per day; I would calculate with 30€ for accomodation, 10€ reservation, 15€ for food each day. Sometimes you will need more, sometimes less but 100€/day is really enough! :)
pentix
Traveller
6 comments
..so we will have a problem going from paris to spain..we really want to visit madrid and barcelona or at least one of these two cities.. i will try and find out a different route but i think that it won't be easy!
I saw in here that eurostar, from and to london, is about 75 for interrail card holder...isn't it? London is another must see for us..
pentix
Traveller
6 comments
And what about these two links??? i found them in here :
1) [u]https://rail.cc/en/interrail/paris-to-madrid[/u] this one is okay for us..we will be sleeping almost the entire trip, we can sleep everywhere :P
2) And this one is the night train im speaking about: [u]https://rail.cc/en/interrail/paris-to-madrid[/u]
pentix
Traveller
6 comments
And one last question.. I told you our potential destinations. We are not going to follow our plan exactly as it is, but we must have one, just to be sure about what we are doing..but i already said that you know much more than us...Considering our travel route, do you recommend something to visit (a village or a city) ? or maybe skip something? (im not sure about berlin. i don't know if its nice)
Sorry for disturbing you with my questions , but im trying to figure out what will be the best for our trip, and you seem knowing almost everything :P
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Current Eurostar fare for passholders starts at 89€...sorry, we will update this on the website!
I would not recommend the connection 1) since you will have to pay about 25€ for the TGV reservation (the 9€ is outdated, sorry...); but option 2) is a very good idea! I would recommend this option - you would then miss out Bordeaux but if you _want_ to see Madrid and Barcelona this is the better option since you will have more time in these two cities.
You already have a quite impressive plan with many destinations; I would recommend to try and stick to this plan. Of course, you could try to add a few stops in between if you want; think about:
On the way from Prague to Berlin: Dresden
Amsterdam - Brussels: Rotterdam (if you fancy modern architecture and city development), Antwerpen, Gent, Brugge (Rotterdam and Antwerpen are on the way from Amsterdam to Brussels; Gent and Brugge are just about one hour away from Brussels).
Barcelona - Montpellier: Girona, Collioure, Perpignan
Milan - Rome: Bologna, Florence, Siena, Perugia, Assisi
You see there are loooads of other places along your way which are worth seeing and I only listed a few. ;)
Do you already know how you want to return to Greece?
Hey, you bought your tickets from our partner, so it is the least I can do to try and answer all your questions. ;)
pentix
Traveller
6 comments
thanks :)
No we don't know how we will return to greece, because we don't know where will be our last destination..we will decide i think when we are already on the mid of the trip and possibly return using airplane but we don't really know..we know that we can use a ship from ancona to patras, using our interrail pass, but with this option we must lose 1 day, since the ship needs 22hours to be to greece.
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
OK.
Yeah, also keep in mind that you would lose quite a bit of time if you would return back home using the InterRail ticket since it would have to be valid until you reach Greece - if you dont use your IR ticket to get home it would be enough to reach your final stop on the last day of validitiy of the ticket, then you can stay there a few days before you return home.