Userpic

Zug22guZ
Traveller
1 comments

Posted 1 year ago

Hi everyone,
I'm solo-travelling and currently looking for an option to get from greek home to Germany for Christmas.

From Budapest or Zagreb I found great connections but to get there is hart. Does anyone has experience?

I would be so happy about all answers:D

Follow this topic
Userpic

nltrainer
Traveller
1404 comments

replied 1 year ago

NO trains at all-since some 2 yrs over borders with GR. And also NONE over borders in the parts that once were Yugoslavija.
seat61.com has the answers-in /en/ it describes overland routings from GB to all EUR nations. To/fro GR its mostly as ferry to ITaly, then on these iron monsters over rails onward. Other as many like to read: there are NO really free ferries on an interrailpass.
Falls du so wieder so-ne überpünktlich DE ´es muss alles auf Schienen´ bist: das erschwert das Leben ziemlich viel

Userpic

Zug22guZ
Traveller
1 comments

replied 1 year ago

Okay, thanks! Just for the sake of curiosity, why do they have stopped those trains?

Userpic

MisterSteve
Traveller
1090 comments

replied 1 year ago

why they have stopped those trains?

1. A few years ago Greek Railway were, like the country, almost bankrupt and couldn't afford maintenance.
2. They were eventually bought by Trenitalia - Italian state railways. If you know that then the reason why they are happy for people to travel via Italy instead of the Balkan countries becomes obvious.
3. During the years of the pandemic (probably not planned that way) Serbia shut down large parts of their network to rebuild them, they are starting to reopen but ....
4. The trains in Balkan countries are not good compared to western Europe.

Bottom line - it makes more sense to fly or go via Italy.