tamar9
Traveller
6 comments
Posted 8 years ago
Hi all,
Despite the fact that's still summer I'm looking forward to the winterrail trip our family is going to make from 1 february till the 1st of march. It's going to be our first Interrail ever and also the first Interrail with our 4 year old. Our starting point will be our hometown Amsterdam and in order to reach as far as possible in the first stretch we want to take the nighttrain to Zurich. But what can you recommend after that? Heading to eastern Europe for a real heavy winter (seems really romantic but maybe it isn't at all) or travel to the Southern of Spain and maybe Portugal? Are there any winterrailers who can give me some advice?
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Hi!
Bad news first: The Amsterdam - Zurich night train will be withdrawn from December. In fact, DB will withdraw all CNL night trains. ÖBB will take over on the routes Zurich - Berlin - Hamburg; Innsbruck - München - Düsseldorf/Hamburg.
Good news: We can certainly help you planning a nice trip. I've made Interrail trips in February of 2010-2013, visiting Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Romania. I guess that a good mixture of sun and snow could be interesting. Lisbon is fantastic and in February not as crowded and hot as during summer so would be definitely worth the long way. As you are travelling a full month you could then still include some parts of eastern Europe. What kind of pass are you going to buy?
We are official partners of interrail.eu - 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! :)
Flo 8)
tamar9
Traveller
6 comments
Hi Flo
Sounds nice: the mixture of sun and snow! We were thinking of buying a 10 days within a month pass but that depends on our travel scheme. Romania somehow attracts us but isn't it way too cold then?
Too bad that the nigh trains from Amsterdam will dissapear!
Thanks for your advice
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Alright...with a 10 day pass you could think of a route something like this:
Amsterdam - Paris - San Sebastian - Lisbon - Barcelona - ferry to Civitavecchia and onwards to Rome - Vienna - Bucharest - Budapest - Prague - Berlin - Amsterdam.
This would take all 10 travel days (no travel day needed for the ferry, buy ticket Civitavecchia - Rome locally). You can use overnight trains on many routes (San Sebastian - Lisbon, Lisbon - Barcelona, Rome - Vienna, Vienna - Bucharest, Bucharest - Budapest, Budapest - Prague) and of course the intermediate stops are not set in stone. You can save travel days buy travelling Amsterdam - Lisbon with just one intermediate stop using two travel days only and travelling Budapest - Amsterdam also without intermediate stops with just one travel day, so you could still add extra stops in Portugal, Spain or Italy. However, since you have one month time you can also cover smaller trips with tickets bought locally; for instance you could travel Bucharest - Brasov with tickets bought locally, then go to Budapest with Interrail.
When I was in Romania in Feb 2013, I went to Bucharest and Brasov and while it was cold and snowy, it wasnt too cold...but winters can be hard there of course. Also, especially in Brasov I had some troubles with icy sidewalks...
tamar9
Traveller
6 comments
wow, can't wait to go after seeing these pictures , that's exactly how I imagined it would be. Thank you for your advice. Maybe 10 days is not enough but I think our son needs to 'land'in a place for a few days in order to give him some rest during our trip. But maybe I'm wrong since he's a huge fan of public transport and we can;t give him a bigger present than travelling on a train, bus or boat
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Travelling in winter is great, I really enjoyed my trips. Less tourists, more locals, more authentic experiences. :)
I bet your son will enjoy the trip - and go with the 10 day pass. As you can see above you can cover a trip from Lisbon to Bucharest with it and in case you would still want to add a spontaneous extra trip you can simply buy a ticket locally.
tamar9
Traveller
6 comments
Thanks for all the good advice. I'll let you know when we figured everything out