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boeloe1
Traveller
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Posted 13 years ago

Hey guys,

I'm planning a holiday to hungary and austria for the summer. I'll be travelling with a friend, planning to visit the city of budapest for a few days, then move to another part of hungary for a bit of camping/hiking and on the way back stopping over in Vienna for about two or three days. I have found out that with the Interrail 5/10pass this can be done as follows:

day 1. Sun. 14 aug: leave holland and train to munich, take the night train to budapest leaving at 23:40
day 2: arrive around 9.00, set-up camp and go explore budapesst
day 3,4: more sightseeing in budapest
day 5: moving to a new place in hungary (haven't decided yet)
day 6. explore the countryside
day 7. explore in the morning, travel to vienna in the afternoon/evening
day 8 vienna.
day 9. vienna
day 10: train back from vienna to holland (leaving 10-ish can get us back before midnight)

now, this would set me back around E169 + 20 supplement for one night-train, totalling E189. not bad.

However, I'd like to take about two more days for the trip, so I've researched other alternative tickets (including the 10/22interrail pass). So far this is what I've come up with:

Day 1. Sun. 14 aug: Use my student public transport in NL, then buy a 2-person sparpreis-ticket for the whole of germany to get to Munich (its E49 for 2 pers so E24.50/pp). Then take the CNL from Munich to Budapest a E49.
day 2: arrive around 9.00, set-up camp and go explore budapesst
day 3,4: more sightseeing in budapest
day 5: moving to a new place in hungary (haven't decided yet)
day 6. explore the countryside
day 7: explore some more
day 8: travel to vienna (less then a day i know) (ticket for Railjet was E19, travel in Hungary I expect to be cheap)
day 9: vienna
day 10: vienna
day 11:more vienna
day 12: train back to holland using Vienna - Munchen - Munster with the Europa-spezial ticket that Deutsche Bahn offers for travel in Austria and Germany for one day a E39. Then cross the border on a train from Munster to Enschede (have a friend who lives there).

Assuming this works it would cost me only E160.50 and give me two more days of travel. Can anybody confirm this is possible?

Main question:
How does train travel acros borders work with ticketing? for example, say I buy a sparpreis ticket that enables me to travel through all of Germany for one day and I decide to take it from Gronau (Ger) to enschede (first stop after the border). Do I need to buy a cross-borderticket or can I just get a ticket once in the Netherlands for the rest of the trip?

I know, lots of info but please help me find out what the best option is/

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Peter
Traveller
9333 comments

replied 13 years ago

Hi.
Just a short reply.
Your calculation looks good and should be correct.

Of course you can always buy special price tickets. If you know your exact travel days, if you book very early and if you don't have problems with being fixed on travel days, trains and times, these special price tickets are a good way to travel inexpensive.

Interrail is more a pass - a kind of ticket to move flexible trough Europe without being fixed to much on trains. If the weather is fine, the hostel a lot of fun, you met nice people, just decide to stay one more day and it is okay. No need to use a special train you have a special price ticket for.

I hope I could explain a little bit the differences. Both ways of travel have advantages - price or flexibility. :)

As much as I know you can travel until Enschede without problems.

Peter :)