It is a “cheap“and” comfortable ” way for visiting several cities in one holiday and really SEE many places (not least because, unlike air and ship, it allows you to enjoy the scenery in a unique way).
I used quotes because those terms are to be carefully considered:
It is CHEAP because you pay only a train ticket of variable cost (we chose the global pass flexible, that allows us to travel through different nations in non-consecutive days, for 5 days (out of 10 of validity). It costed us about 170 € for the Youth category (up to age 25). With this you can get all the trains involved in the Interrail program … that means on all regional trains Europe.
All trains without reservations required, for the railways participating in the initiative, are also included. But this means long trips, for sure longer than it would take with a faster train, often with multiple stops, delays, problems … that’s why I said “comfortable.”
Just to give you an example, we had not absolutely scheduled to end up taking our train in Dresden, even if we later found out that it is a beautiful city worthing a brief visit.
We left this morning from Prague, with another friend crazier than me, where we arrived by flight two days ago for our graduation trip. We stopped there two nights and three days, more than enough to “fall in love with Prague” as a local girl told us shortly after our arrival…Prague is a beautiful city, clean, elegant, romantic…..
And cheap, too ! We spent a total of € 55, including frugal meals, lots of beer,
and the entrance ticket for clubs and the ice bar (go for it, the cost is relatively high
in the evening but includes admission to a fantastic disco,5 floors of different music and theme settings),
junk food in the room and also a great dinner of local cousine! Not bad really!!
Well, after having spent two wonderful days in the Czech Republic, our program included State shift, next stop Berlin. I looked a lot for information about all the train connections before leaving, being this our first time with this kind of experience; we decided we preferred to sacrifice a little of freedom in exchange for a fixed route and a little more of organization.
So I thought I had as accurate information as possible, obtained comparing datas from the official website of Interrail and other sites, and that the trains would have been when and where we expected them to be. But it was not like that, so this morning we arrived at the station at 12pm expecting to take a train to Berlin, and we found out that it not only doesn’t exist, but that we would also have had to change 2 trains and a bus. Moreover, the actual train was 40 mins late so we would have probably lost the other coincidences. This whole thing happened in Prague, where very few people speak a good english (not even if they work at the railway station) and they are often not very happy to help you.
Panic? A little bit … it is normal … you’re in a foreign country with a different language, you know you should get to a certain place but do not know how …you have to be able to endeavor, to be active, to ask, to make yourself understood even by gestures, do not panic.
We finally managed to catch the right train, get off at the right stop, find the bus in the famous city of Ústí (??), Take a quick tour of Dresden and embark again to Berlin. And the day has flown, including chat, some beautiful scenery and lots of photos.
And this is just the beginning …in 3 days we will move to the new destination, Copenhagen … and who knows what will happen that time! I’m a bit worried, as that trip should be 6 hours and this was supposed to be 4…but it ended up taking the whole day!
We’ll see! For now, the difficulties have given interest to the trip … what should we tell otherwise once we get home? ;)
Berlin we are comiiiiiiiiing!