JonRoberts84
Traveller
3 comments
Posted 12 years ago
Good Morning,
I have booked 2 30 day passes for myself and my girlfriend to travel on the 25th of July this year.
[b]The Beginning[/b]
We are from Wales, UK and will be travelling to London on the 22nd, staying the night there and catching the Eurostar to Brussels on the morning of the 23rd, we will spent 2 nights there and our Interail tickets will begin on the 25th as we travel onwards..
[b]The End[/b]
We'll end the trip by travelling to Paris, spending a night or two there and then catching the Eurostar back to London, with a train back to Wales.
[b]What I've done so far[/b]
Interail tickets booked
Travel to / from London from Wales booked
Eurostar tickets to Brussels and from Paris to London booked
Hotel in London booked for July 22nd
[b]The Middle bit..[/b]
This is where I need your help, I have a rough idea of the cities that we will be visiting in the different countries and how long we will stay in each, I've also looked at night trains and had a quick browse of hostels, as well as the various sights we want to see.
Cities: Brussels, Antwerp, Kinderdijk, Amsterdam, Rotterdam (possibly), Cologne, Berlin, Munich, Venice, Rome, Pisa, Milan, Lake Como / Locarno, A scenic train ride through Switzerland (Recommendations?!), Monaco (Day Trip), Trip round south of france (Locations?!), Barcelona, Tours (Rhine Valley), Paris.
My questions really are as follow:
1. With the 30 day pass, do you have to make a record of each train you catch in advance, like with the 10 days in 30 or 22 in 30 passes, or can you just travel on however many trains you want in that 30 day period.
2. With regards to booking hostels, what is the best practice to undertake, and have any of you been to the cities above that can recommend a good, cheap, clean hostel (the girlfriend wants private rooms instead of dorms) which is not far from the train station we will be using.
3. What should I do in regards to money, we should have up to or over £2000 GBP (Interail and Eurostar already paid for) by the time we travel, the currency exchange rate is great at the moment but what is the best way to exchange such a large amount of money, I've seen prepaid cards like [u]https://www.fairfx.com[/u], are these worth it?
4. If any of the places on the route seem like a waste or too far out of the way let me know and maybe I can include them on another trip, we like culture, just want to take in as many of the sites as possible but also not be rushed and worried about making trains and checking in to hotels all the time!
5. We want to travel very light because there is nothing worse than lugging heavy bags around everywhere, is this realistic? 1 rucksack each possibly?
6. For booking trains and reservations will I be able to do the majority of this on the fly once I am out there? Obviously plans may change and we want to be as flexible as we can. I will have an iPhone with WiFi enabled so should be able to get Online when I need to.
Many thanks for your help in advance, I know i've asked a lot but this is my first time travelling and want everything to be right in my head before we leave!
Thanks,
Jon
nltrainer
Traveller
1405 comments
thanks-at least a clear questioning, someobe who has thought about it and done his homework.
Cannot answer all, but some:
1.that ''report'' is rarely checked-just write down the trains/routes you use. can combine several trains on a combined route. Separate nighttrains and days though. There is NO differecne between those types IR-pass in how it works.
2.there is No sureproof way-some cities (like AMS here) are notorious for being booked solid long time before and in others you are spoilt for choice. Weekends are usually worse. DO take note that a tipical hoStel has mainly dorms and the old-style of the YHA/HI hardly have doubles (If they do-its family room-that simpy means a 4dormbeds). In SMALLER towns as the tipical capitalcity runs that 1st time IRers use-a pension room for 2=double often hardly cost more as 2 dormbeds, but will have no kitchen. There are dozens of hostelbooker/world sites, just read reviews- if there are more, it will give a reasonable impression. And do not worry so much-it is only for 1-2 nites, nah?
3.NO-these cards eat up a giant portion in hidden cost. Simply use your bankcard in the ATM-ask YOUR bank how much that will cost in extra-you ALWAYS pay extra. Simply leaving it in a safe home-bank-account and withdraw as needed is the safest way for 125%. Perhaps open a bankaccount on another bank if you intend do travel much more in future and IF that bank (youll have to ask that in UK-fora) offers better rates for foreign cash withdrawal.
4.KInderdijK: lies very close to ROTTERdam, on SUNdays in summer the buses to there are free (not the metro to Zuidplein=where that bus nr 90/ARRIVA starts from-ev, hour). cantake some nice further route-but long, along the river LEK-this bus ends in Utrecht.
5.sure can do-I only have a smaller backpack for shorter trips-works out fine. Take easy to wash clothes. Consider some throwaways.
6.on your global route-hardly any trains NEED to be booked, exceptions are;
in IT-the IC/superfast trains (if wanted)-do it when there on the touchscreen machines (can set to EN +many more)
ANY nighttrain. IF special accomm. is wanted then book advance-can do at any EUR station where they handle INTernational bookings-as much as 3 month advance-untill the day before. Find a small station with short ques for that.
This also means you do not have to prebook all that now-can travel as you please, stay longer/shorter or detour. Make Barca optional-Spanish towns are not very nice in blazing hot summer and its a fairly long detour.
about any Swiss traintrip is worthwhile-but consider the ''backdoor'' route from Milano: via TIRANO-RHaetische bahn(+private, but can use IR)-via Sankt Moritz (wow!)-Chur-then aliong the lakes to ZÜrich