The Great Circular European Railway Challenge

MarkLester
Traveller
2 comments

Posted 12 years ago

Hello Dudes,
Actually we are going to brand the T-shirt as the disOrient Express. I wanted to submit this as a suggested itinerary but there doesnt seem to be a place to do that.

Here's the basic plan, start London, go to Brussels, Amtserdam Copenhagen, Oslo,. Narvik, Stockholm, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, Istanbul, Sofia, Belgrade, Ljubljana, Trieste, Venice, Rome, Milan, St Moritz, Geneva, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, Paris, and back. In 2 weeks!. Oh and there wil be at least 10 of us. The messy bit is actually when you get off the train and try and do a pre-arranged tram tour. And yes we know it's moe than a bit stupid. There's a blog that's easy enough to find, just replace European with Indian on your search and you'll see the feasibility study we did in India last year. If we can crack that, which we did, then flashy renfe and euronight sleepers, and local rapid transits that do what they say on the tin, should be a doddle.

Our main focus right now is on the fine details at city level. We've done quite a bt of research on most of them (note we have between 3 and 10 hours at each of the above destinations, bar Amsterdam but we've all been there loads of times havent we). Istanbul, where we'll need to make camp in some hostel somewhere, is one we havent worked out yet, but there's an obvious cicular route back and forth across the Bosphorus that we'll do, as well as the market fo course etc.

Anyway, here's the macro schedule. The dates are soft, we'll probably go a few weeks later, I wanted to synch with Narvik for summer solstice, but several of us have kids and that's just too early in summer term.
we're not really looking for recruits, but if you can prove you are solvent (i.e. 2 grand for the above is peanuts) , and amuzing, and dont need baby sitting, then if you want to spend 2 weeks on a train with a bunch of computers guys and gals, and a few wise old men of steam, then send me your CV. Othwerwise tell us how much you agree or disagree with any of this. The only seriously risky bit on the plan is the Bucjarest connection, which is stil a mere 2 hours. If you know anyone who's done budapest-bucaresti-istanbul recently please let us know.

Day 1 – Tuesday June 18th 2013

Train 1 - EST 9216 – 373 km – duration 2:36
08:57 London St. Pancras International
12:12 Bruxelles midi Eurostar

Train 2 – THA9339 – 212 km – duration 1:54
15:50 Bruxelles Midi
17:44 Amsterdam Centraal

Train 3 CNL40447 – The Borealis – 1333 km – duration 15:01
19:01 Amsterdam Centraal
Day 2, Wednesday, June 19th
10:02 Koebenhavn H

Train 5 – IC 488 -353 km – duration 3:18
13:46 Koebenhavn H
17:02 Göteborg Central

Train 6 – R 938 – 350 km – duration 4:03
17:42 Göteborg Central
21:45 Olso S

Train 7- NZ405 – 553 km – duration 7:55
23:05 Oslo
Day 3 – Thursday, June 20th
07:00 Trondheim

Train 8 – DF471 – 674km – duration 8:54
07:40 Trondheim
16:36 Fauske

actually there's a flight from Bodo at the end of the line, so we'll do that instead of this bus and be sat down in Narvik for 9pm
Bus 1 – 22 720 – 274 km – duration 4:50
18:10 Fauske
23:00 Narvik

Day 4 – Friday June 21st

Train 9 - IC 25 – 437 km – duration 5:44
10:02 Narvik
16:46 Boden Centralstation

Train 10 – NZ91 – 688km – duration 13:13
17:12 Boden
Day 5 – Saturday June 22nd
06:25 Stockholm Central

Train 11 – X2 10529 – 644 km – duration 5:13
10:06 Stockholm Central
15:19 Koebenhavn H

Train 12 – ICE 32 – 353 km – duration 4:32
15:44 Koebenhavn H
20:16 Hamburg Hbf

Train 13 – ICE1005- aprox 285 km – duration 1:50
21:21 Hamburg Hbf
23:11 Berlin Hbf
Day 6 – Sunday June 23rd

Train 14 – EC173- 192 km – duration 2:07
08:45 Berlin Hbf
10:52 Dresden Hbf


Train 15
12:17 Dresden Hbf
12:30 Radebeul Ost

Train 16
12:56 Radebeul Ost
13:23 Moritzburg
13:33 Moritzburg
14:00 Radebeul Ost

Train 17
14:43 Radebeul Ost
14:59 Dresden Hbf

Train 18 – EC177 – 193km – duration 2:28
15:08 Dresden Hbf
17:36 Praha hl.n.

Day 7 – Monday June 24th

Train 19 – SC 514 – 370 km – duration 6:18
00:04 Praha hl.n.
06:22 Wien Westbahnhof

Train 20 -REX 7613 - aprox 74 km – duration 0:58
07:50 Wien Südbahnhof
09:01 Bratislava-Petrzalka

Train 21 – EC 273 – 214 km – duration 2:41
09:54 Bratislava hl.st
12:35 Budapest-Keleti pu

Train 25 – EN 473 – Ister Express – 857 km – duration 15:10
19:10 Budapest-Keleti pu
Day 8 – Tuesday June 25th
11:20 Bucuresti Nord Gara A

Train 26 – 461 – Bosfor Ekspresi – 828 km – duration 19:37
12:13 Bucuresti Nord Gara A
Day 9 – Wednesday June 26th
07:50 Istanbul


Train 27 – 81032 – Balkan Express - 621 km – duration 14:15
22:00 Istanbul Sirkeci
Day 10 – Thursday June 27th
12:15 Sofia

Train 28 – D292- 444 km – duration 8:43
20:10 Sofia
Day 11 – Friday June 28th
03:53 (+ several hours we hope) Beograd

Train 29 – D314 - 550 km – duration 10:19
10:20 Beograd
20:39 Ljubljana

Day 12 – Saturday June 29th
Train 30 – R 2630- 113 km – duration 1:50
08:12 Ljubljana
10:01 Sezana
Taxi to Villa Opicina (about 3 miles)

Train 31 – Tranvia – 5 km (it’s a tram really, but it’s more than worthy)

11:20 Villa Opicina 11:20 (might make an earlier one and hence an extra hour in Venice but to be on the safe side, we still need to cab it , I canna see a bus)
11:40 Piazza Oberdan

Train 32 – R2212 – 157 km – duration 2:05
12:44 Trieste Centrale
14:49 Venezia Santa Lucia

Train 33 – ES 9421 – 523 km – duration 3:43
17:27 Venezia Santa Lucia
21:13 Roma Termini

Train 34 – 855 km – duration 7:51
23:04 Roma Termini
Day 13 – Sunday June 30th
06:55 Milano Centrale

Train 35 – R2556 – 156 km – duration 2:30
08:20 Milano Centrale
10:50 Tirano

Train 36 – R1648 – 61 km – duration 2:41
11:27 Tirano
14:08 St Moritz

Train 37 – RE 1152 – 89 km – duration 1:59
15:03 St Moritz
17:02 Chur

Train 38 - IC 586 – 116 km – duration 1:14
17:09 Chur
18:23 Zurich HB

Train 39 – IC 736 – 279 km – duration 3:04
18:32 Zurich HB
21:15 Geneve

Train 40 – EN 274 – Elipsos – 828 km – duration 10:02
23:41 Geneve
Day 14 – Monday July 1st
09:43 Barcelona Estacion de Franca

Train 41 – AVE 3152 – 621 km – duration 2:52
15:00 Barcelona Sants
17:52 Madrid-Puerta de Atocha

Train 42 - HOT 332 – Lucitania – 630 km – duration 9:16
22:25 Madrid-Chamartin
Day 15 – Tuesday July 2nd
07:41 Lisboa Santa Apolonia

Train 43 – R 19211 – 30 km – duration 0:33
09:30 Lisboa Cais do Sodre
10:03 Cascais

Train 44 – R 19244 – 30 km – duration 0:33
11:08 Cascais
11:30 Belem
then a bit more tramming, if we can face it

Train 45 – 311 – 940 km – duration 14:40
16:30 Lisboa Santa Apolonia
Day 16 – Thursday July 3rd
07:10 Henday

Train 46 – TGV 8524 – 805 km – duration 5:49
08:01 Henday
13:50 Paris Montparnasse
Metro 2 – Montparnasse to Gare du Nord

Train 47 – EST 9059 – Eurostar- 492 km – duration 2:16
20:13 Paris Nord Eurostar
21:29 London St. Pancras International