Sweden (Goteborg) to Portugal (Lagos)

nltrainer
Traveller
1404 comments

Hej pa dej,
there is now community.eurail.com where there is very active from now and a complete overveiw of all the various REServasjoner du maste.
NOTE; this is NO more an easy to do route-as many former trains have been cancelled, notably in ESpana and will even with a pass cost you a considerable extra sum in supplmt to pay=much more as even a cheap RYAnair would cost.
Har de liten tid, in the forum are also many hints and more advice about how to cut cost=-take regional toget, but this will thus lengthen time needed.
IF you really insist on doing it all over rails-a very quick estimate (check yourself on bahn.de=works for nearly all of EUR): start pm Gbg-snall to Hamb-next day to Paris-overnight to border FR/ES-by day in superexpensvie AVE IN Espana till Sevilla=stay HTL, then alas, the rails nearly stop and its bus. 3 nights! All over rails is via Lisboa and will even take much longer.

MisterSteve
Traveller
1092 comments

"shortest time possible" may be longer than it was in 1982! Links to North of Hamburg and Portugal are two regions where things have gone backwards. Travel from Sweden to Germany is now harder than it was before the Oresund link opened, partly because the Vogelflug route is no longer in use by trains. Overall seat capacity being Kobenhavn and Hamburg is usually tight. Many useful overnight services no longer run. And getting from Spain into Portugal is not easy. The best run I can find is over 42 hours from Goteborg to Sevilla, you need a night when the Snälltåget train from Malmö to Hamburg runs, you can take a regional train as far as Malmö. From Hamburg there is a chain of three fast trains, (change of train at Karlsruhe then change stations in Paris) and arrive Barcelona last at night. And then you need a hotel. Early next morning you continue to Madrid (change) then on to Sevilla arriving just after noon. From here it makes more sense to get the bus to Faro, there should be one mid afternoon arriving Faro around 18:00 in time for the 18:25 train to Lagos arriving 20:08. Because Portugal is in the western time zone that makes it over 51 hours from Goteborg

With interrail you need to find and pay for reservations with Snälltåget, SNCF (two trains) and RENFE (two trains) which added to the night in Barcelona will cost more than a flight. RENFE are notoriously difficult to get reservations from. It could be much cheaper with seperate advance booking train tickets (usually with cheap airline style conditions), in which case try booking Hamburg-Barcelona as one ticket - RENFE is easier if you buy a ticket with inclusive reservation. Portuguese local trains are cheap and you buy at the station. Try www.alsa.com/en/web/bus/home for the cross border bus.