Inter Rail

Jk_Eire

hey.
Anybody go inter railng last summer?
Thinking of heading away for 3 weeks this summer. Eastern europe countries hopefully? .
Anynody know if there is decent student discounts offered by any of the companies selling inter rail tickets?
Anybody got any decent stories either?
Or does and donts?

ebowdia

Check out Usit's website for details : http://www.usitnow.ie/trains/rail_europe.htm

Interrailed for a month a few years back - would highly recommend checking out as must of Eastern Europe as you can - most of it is amazing, very pretty. I went to Germany, Poland, Czech Rep, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany - in that order. Loved every minute of it!

Best thing to do IMO is to get a cheap Ryan Air flight to some place like Frankfurt Hann (as I did), and then go from there....

Jk_Eire

thanks for the reply..
Yeah flights seem cheap enough anyway..Dublin ---> London ---> Berlin all for €65 inc allthe crap.
Rougly how much did ya spend excluding plane/train tickets?
Hard to work all the this stuff out

ebowdia

Can't really remember how much I spent - it was 4 years ago. Think it was about 1,000 Irish at the time - excluding tickets. The more time you spend in eastern countries the cheaper it will out for you....

seanos

'lo
Did the whole thing last summer for 3 weeks at end of August.
The whole event cost 1500 Euro, but when I went, we by no means tried to save/skimp on money ...
Eating in decent place each night with bottle of wine or two, and staying in fairly decent acommodation [Hostels/Apartments/Hotels].

We went through London initially [it was due to a gig - added a fair bit to journey doing it that way]. I'd advise flying straight to prague [if your going for Eastern countries...]
Went to Czech, Hungary, Poland, Croatia, Slovakia.
Czech : don't bother with [excuse all further spellings ...] Czechky Bodivecha [Where Budwar is brewed ... purely industrial city] .. however Czechky Crumlov{the other one about hr and half away], is brillant, and well worth the 3-4 days!

We stayed 3-5 days per country, depending on how we liked it ... places I'd defintely advise if around the area :
Czechky Crumlov {Czech}, Prague {Czech}, Krakov {Poland - A definite must-see}, Croatia [the southern Islands beautiful - however can you put up with the 12-14 hour train journey down?}, Budapest!

I would say most of those are must sees ... Only place I'd strongly advise staying clear of : Warsaw ...

Tips : enjoy it, try every wierd different thing you can, I ended up trying lots strange wierd, cool foods, and was one of the most enjoyable parts of the holiday, and didn't die from food once!

Hint : If in Budapest, eat in Duo's [H-1052 Budapest, Vaci u. 15; 1200 - 2400. Nicest food I've eaten in my life [and hell still have business card from nearly year back heh].

Can't stress pack light enough .... only take what you _really_ need, or your pay for it.
Try take all-purpose gear, i.e. 1 jacket/fleece .. something which maybe doubles over for pillow + 2-3 other things ? I took 1 fleece [which I didn't end up using once ... but handy bringing one all the same], and camo jacket which was invaluable [plenty pockets, perfect for blanket/pillow, and in general invalueable].

Bring some books, stuff to keep you entertained, keep in mind again; 12 hour train journeys, and waiting for buses.

Language shouldnt be too much of a problem, and you _will_ get into the habbit of opening sentences with "Hello, do you speak English, I'm Irish" .... as it's a fact they treat you a _lot_ differently ...
The odd train station may provide some problems, for most part is fine however.

Em, pickpockets etc, I had no problems, once ya have cop on, shouldn't be a problem, if any girls in group tell em not to bring handbags/other retarded items which scream "Ive money, take it!", keep wallets on you, same for passports at all times etc.

Well worth it; best of luck hope you enjoy, and common sense gets you everywhere...

edit : Student card gets you the Interrail ticket thing, which I believe is ~180ish + another 120 - 150 for flights!
then it's sweet sailing!

Jk_Eire

hey thanks...
you`ve so many question for me and friends..
€1500 including interrail ticket and flights?
Anyway I think there has been a change in the interrail pass..You cant just get a pass for 1 zone for 3 week like we had initially intended. I think ya have to buy a 2 zone pass for 3 weeks now which costs €289...
Tried working out a route and came up with a Backwards C lookin thing...
Starting in berlin..go right into towards Poland and then down through east europe until we reach Crotia and then travalling back west through austria and Switzerland and ending up at some tiny airport in southern germany from where Ryanair do flights to Stansted for €99 (excluding the add on crap) .
Hoping to squeeze this all into 22 days ...
I think it seems to much ,but we will take in more countries but not have enough to take them in.
And I suspect theres gonna be a crazy f,uckin rush to get the plane home. Some of my mates fail to see the amount of travel involved..

Do you think its too much?

seanos

cost approx 1500 for everything [each obviously ]
including buying cloths abroad due to laziness.

I've no idea of current system tbh, some trains abroad _can_ be pricey if not using the interrail pass [some can be dirt cheap also ofc].
Route-wise ....
Get a basic plan, and bring a map with you of all countries seeing [generalistic - nothing too detailed, just make sure that the map uses each country's own language for names etc .. i.e. Warsaw == warschawa [or something similar] - makes big difference when trying to pronounce names/catch trains].
You should have a general idea of what you want to see ... but most of planning will be done over there, as you see some places, and just stand there 5mins thinking/saying 'wow....', and your plan of being there 1 night goes out window, and you'll want to stay 2-4 nights heh.
Seeing a lot is nice, but make sure you spend time in each place also ... again, don't plan too much now.
Again, the 1500 was for 3 weeks, and only eastern europe .... you'll be going to Germany/Austraia, which is more expensive - but it depends what you'll spend money on ; we didn't drink much abroad, or go on nights on the piss .....
Nice meal, in nice restraunt, bottle of wine each, costs bout 10-20 euro/each ... which is very cheap [for the food you get] ... so that once or twice a day tends to bring cost up - so just budget accordingly.

As for too much, depends what you want, how much you want to see, and how your prepared to do it.
Talk to people your going with, get a list of places which are Definite MUST see's ... and then second of where'd be nice to see ... and make rough line according to that - but don't stick to it.

Enjoy

Jk_Eire

Woohoo.
Finally got our flights people.
Despite how much peopple bi,tch about ryanair they do damn cheap filghts

Getting there:
Dublin ---> Stansted
Stansted ----> Berlin

Getting home
Karlsruben (sp) ---> Stansted
Stansted ---> Dublin

All for the cheap cheap price of €117 (Tax,insurance and credit card charges included :cool:

isolde

Hey,

I did something similar a little while ago and it worked out cheaper to buy point-to-point train tickets so I thought I'd give you an idea of how much some of them cost in case you're thinking about that...

Berlin - Warsaw: approx €26
Warsaw - Krakow: less than €20
Krakow - Budapest: around €60

Sorry can't remember exact prices but that might help a little. A word of caution: Switzerland is *really* expensive.
The Karlsruhe Airport is actually in Baden-Baden, so be careful when booking train ticket there.

And I think you're trying to cover far too many countries. In 20 days I was in: Berlin for 3 days (would def recommend staying 3 days there), Warsaw 1 night (1 max needed or skip it if possible, not much to see there, but you probably have to go there since you're coming from Berlin), Krakow 4 days (give it as much time as you possibly can.. also you can make a day trip to Auschwitz and Birkenau from there if you're interested in that), Budapest 2 days, Bratislava 1 day, Vienna 3 days and Prague 3.. I know my numbers don't add up, haven't included night trains etc. We were originally hoping to go to Croatia but then I realised that was madness. You have 22 days so I'd pick a max of 7 places to visit. Also remember night trains take up a lot of time and leave you really tired the next day esp in Eastern Europe where the trains are pretty **** and you get woken up every 2 hours or so by border guards!!

~ isolde

Jk_Eire

hey thanks for the reply, you cleared up a lot of stuff for me.

I think we are definitely going for the interrail pass to be on the safeside.
Yeah i was kinda thinking that we were trying to take too much in but we hoping to spend at least a couple of days in croatia..
Did you have much trouble booking hostels ?
Or any trouble with keeping your back-pack and stuff safe?
And how did ya go about keeping your money??..Credit card,cash,traveller cheques..etc...(sorry about all the Qs)

isolde

Hostels.. no, but I was there in March, t'will be different at this time of year. If you tell me what cities you're planning on going to I can recommend/warn against a few.

Backpack.. no trouble, it never fit in lockers though, it's an odd shape one, but anyway I just kept my money/passport/digital camera in a small bag that went round my neck at all times. In the hostels where there were safes I used those.

I just used cash and had my bank card with me and took out more every few days as I needed it. Only thing about that is that if your card gets stolen you're ****ed
Travellers cheques seem like more hassle but are a good backup I guess.

Just bear in mind how long it can take to travel to some places..

~ isolde

Jk_Eire

Well we hope to go to Berlin,Krackow,Bupapest,Prague and Zagreb for couple of nights..
Yeah id say the railways aint the most modern in the eastern european countries and the journeys will be a killer..
Trying so save up about €1000 :rolleyes: to spend but the longer we the in the east the less ill need to spend hopefully

Moonbeam

Did czech republic,slovakia,croatia and poland last summer for 3 weeks it was brilliant:)
Everyone should do it!
We went to england first for a music festival and from there to prague travelled around then back to prague then to london then home.
Prague was the cheapest to fly out from and was cheaper to go thru London

Moonbeam

we got a 1 zone ticket for the 3 weeks,
Used bankcards everywhere we went.