Europe by train

[Princess Alison]

Ok so following on from my thread about August holidays, I'm pretty set now on the idea of a family interail trip around Europe.

Has anyone done this please as I'd be keen to hear your itineraries. Would be two adults and two young teens.



At the moment I'm drawn to Italy, Switzerland, Austria, possibly Germany and France

[jim jehosofat]

Try this for starters seat61/

[Princess Alison]

Originally Posted by jim jehosofat

Try this for starters seat61/

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Thank you, my sister just sent me the same link!

[cornishfrogboy]

I have travelled the Frecciarossa from Naples to Rome and back. The line goes up at least, I believe to Milan and elsewhere.

The travel (booked months in advance) was cheap (€125 Or so for 4 of us return), Fast (non stop at 188mph ) and extremely comfortable as well as smooth. The trains were immaculately clean and the staff were more like airline stewards than train guards in appearance. That 160 mile or so journey took 1 hour 11 minutes as advertised (not 1 hour 10 or 1 hour 12). It was totally contrary to the smaller, private train that goes from Naples to Sorrento and was shambolic.

I believe that the French and German trains link in and are of similar standard and as well apparently, affordable.

I think that you have a great idea and that it is important to remember that European mainland trains between the major cities are rather different to our own in quality of rolling stock, as well as straightness and modernity of the routes and also, quality of the lines. Most of ours were laid down in the 19th century with numerous stops. I would have no enthusiasm at all for a tour of the UK by rail, but plenty for the EU mainland.

Hope it helps.

[ashc13]

Some ramblings as mentioned above seat61 is a good site. German rails own site bahn.com is great for checking timetables (even for trains outside Germany). If you buy tickets from station inside Germany and travel to Switzerland you can get cheap fares. Point to point tickets booked in advance (non refundable tend to be cheaper than a pass, but do you need to do the sums, seat reservations which you pay for are needed in some countries in addition to a pass).

Any ideas on iterinary?

[sigur]

This site was invaluable in planning a NYC > Maine > Quebec > Montreal > Ottowa > Toronto > Poconos > NYC road trip a couple of years ago.

We're now thinking about a european train trip. Hoping to start/finish in the following Berlin/Venice, whilst taking in Bologna and Salzburg.

We did Pisa > Florence > Rome > Pisa a few years ago and comfortable using trains over there.

Any suggestions/tips on the above would be greatly appreciated.

[janey2000]

Very interested in following this thread! Keep us updated with your plans

[jengibbo]

Hi,

We had planned on doing this this summer but after looking into costings we decided against it.
You can get various inter rail passes and if children are under 12 then their ticket is free. We had our route planned out but you are only entitled to one journey in your own country which made things difficult as we were planning on buying a ticket which was for 7 days within a month. As we live in the north west we would have to train down to London for the Eurostar which isn’t included although tickets can be bought at a and cheaper rate. This would have made a very long day arriving in Europe (Paris) late and would have used one day of our 7. So we then thought about buying our tickets to London separately and staying overnight and getting an early Eurostar ( these trains aren’t discounted so this added £400 to our costs)
Also every high speed train in Europe requires a reservation which could be up €25 per person so this made it €100 every journey. This could be avoided by taking slower trains but then you see less countries or need a longer holiday. We just felt it would make the holiday more expensive. So we decided to modify the holiday and include some train journeys. So now we are flying to Ljubljana, hiring a car and driving to Lake Bled for a few days then getting a train to Venice for a few days, then train to Milan pick up new hire car and drive to Lake Como and then fly back from Milan. Flights cost less than the Inter rail pass and with the car we can explore more.
We will definitely do a trip at some point when kids have left home though.

[Lostbrain]

We didn’t interrail, but did go to Bordeaux by train last summer. The only annoying bit was Eurostar, because you have to be at KX 2 hours before for customs and security it’s difficult to get a train to London if you want to leave fairly early, so we drove to London (we live about an hour away) and parked in NCP, which was quite easy and not as expensive as we’d feared. Neither KX or Gare du Nord are set up for so many people waiting so long to board, so that’s annoying, but no more so than airports I guess.

TGV Paris to Bordeaux was fantastic, punctual, comfortable, good coffee, spotless, decent wine on the way back too.

We had planned a longer train journey to Spain in 2020, but 2020… (was going to be our year without flying lol) we found that interrail was more expensive than buying individual tickets, but seat61 has absolutely all the info you could wish for on trains.

[sigur]

Originally Posted by jengibbo

As we live in the north west we would have to train down to London for the Eurostar which isn’t included although tickets can be bought at a and cheaper rate. This would have made a very long day arriving in Europe (Paris) late and would have used one day of our 7. So we then thought about buying our tickets to London separately and staying overnight and getting an early Eurostar ( these trains aren’t discounted so this added £400 to our costs)

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We are in the North of Scotland. Flying to Europe and starting there is far cheaper than flying to London and getting on the Eurostar.