Tophie
Traveller
6 comments
Posted 13 years ago
My Girlfriend and i have just booked 22 days off work in June of next year, we are looking at a interail (10 in 22days) pass and are particularly interested in Eastern Europe.........
Nothing has been booked yet (including flights out of the UK), so looking for any advice what so ever in regards to flights, trains, hostels, possible routes etc etc etc
Some of the cities/towns/areas that we are interested in are:
Dalmatian Coast
Sofia (any other Bulgarian recommendations?)
Bucharest
Somewhere on the black sea coast (Romania or Bulgaria)
Budapest
Bratislava
Salzburg (Austria)
Krakow
& anywhere in between :D
This is a VERY rough start to planning, simply by looking at a map and spotting places. we haven't looked into routes or trains/buses yet......Any advice on possible journeys or suggestions for *must-see* places around any of the areas mentioned above would be massively appreciated.
anonymous
Traveller
2469 comments
Hey Tophie,
if you want go to the black sea coast, i recommend you to go to varna (Bulgaria).
Normally Bulgaria is cheaper than in Romania. And the people a very friendly there.
If you have time you also should go to istanbul.
Our route this summer was:
Bratislava - Budapest - Bucharest - Varna (at the black sea) - Istanbul -
Belgrade - Budva (Montenegro) - Dubrovnik - Sarajevo.
Exept of Belgrade i can recommend you every stop of our trip.
Jaykob
Tophie
Traveller
6 comments
thanks :)
how many days did you do this trip in?
Would you recommend an Interail pass, or buying as we go.
Sophie (and Tony) x
anonymous
Traveller
2469 comments
hey we do this trip in 22 days like you want to do this.
We had also a flexipass with 10 travel days.
In my opinion a interrail pass is cheaper, becaus the high sped trains in austria are very expensive
Tophie
Traveller
6 comments
:)
Sounds good, we now looking at a very similar plan.
how much did the 22 days cost?
thanks
x
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Hi!
Have you considered not going by plane to get to your destination area? It's certainly more ecological than taking the plane and, at least for me, it is a better way to start the journey on the train the just taking a plane. ;)
Of course, you'd have to cover quite a distance to get from York to Eastern Europe but it is certainly an interesting journey.
In fact, you'd have two, maybe three, options to do this. All of them include the overnight ferry Hull - Rotterdam as a first step. From Rotterdam you can head to Amsterdam (get regular train tickets for this short trip), spend the day there and then start your InterRail trip with a night train to:
a) Warszawa. From there you can continue to Krakow, your first destination
b) Praha. Either stay there, as it is really nice, or continue to Bratislava.
c) München. Continue to Salzburg.
With all three options you'd lose on of your days off, so if you just have 22 (and it is not possible to get 23 or 24) I understand that you do not want to take this option - but I wanted to bring it up anyway. ;)
Now some words about your destinations.
The Dalmatian Coast is a little off the rest of your trip...the most sensible way to include it would be to get from Budapest to Zagreb and then with overnight train down to Split (or whereever you want to go...consider that the railway line mostly runs inland). On the way back, go again to Zagreb and then with night train to Salzburg (attention, very early arrival).
The rest I'd do like this: Krakow - Bratislava - Budapest - Bucuresti - Black Sea - Sofia; depending on whether you will fly or take the train to get to the first destination
Flo 8)
Tophie
Traveller
6 comments
thanks, the idea in theory good, but lots of travel time and cost = £££ as can get a plane to many citys in eastern europe for £30 - 4 hours, whereas the Ferry is about £70(cost more for a single) - 1night and 1 day extra travel.
As we live very close to Hull a trip to amsterdam is a regular trip as often on buy on get one for free in the winter, so a great cheap weekend away. But think next time may take a train and visit another county (for some reason I have never thought of that!!)
thanks :)