Europe tour InterRail

Europe tour done in summer 2005 (Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Prague and Denmark) was a great experience. We have decided to have a new experience like that during summer 2006 but a little more far from France. The choice was difficult to do between 2 weeks in Eastern Europe and 2 weeks in Scandinavia. The decision will come from my job...

As I had to resign before moving to Belfast my contract finished on the 13^th of July. So we decided to travel during a full month in both Easter Europe and Scandinavia! We could use the famous Interrail Global pass that allows us to travel all around Europe during 1 month.

Below is the route travelled during this Europe tour:

• Prague

• Košice

• Romania

• Budapest

• Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Pécs

• Venezia

• Roma

• Ljubljana

• Pula

• České Budějovice

• Bratislava - Brno

• Kraków

• Warszawa - Berlin

• Göteborg

• Bergen

• Oslo

• Stockholm

• Turku - Tampere

• Narvik

• Kuopio

• Helsinki

• Stockholm

• Århus

• Amsterdam

It's difficult to manage the time between visits and travelling, especially if you want to move a lot. To spend as much time as possible in the cities and to go in all the cities we want to see we decided to travel during the night and every night so we have a full day for visit.

This crazy idea has a good point because we don't have to spend money in hostels but the bad point is that we have to sleep in trains... and that's not the best place for good nights!

We made a plan so we could spend at least few hours in train every night. However, even with a good schedule everything was changing every day! We finally did the following trip during this month:

• Eastern Europe:

• Scandinavia:

InterRail Global Pass... and a lot of mess

InterRail is a pass that allows you to travel by train all around Europe. There are different Passes depending how long and where you travel.

You just have to pay an extra on some trains if there is a reservation required or if you take a bed in a night-train.

It has changed since we did our Europe tour. At this time European countries were grouped by zones and there were 3 different Passes:

• 1 zone during 1 week
• 2 zones during 3 weeks
• All zones during 1 month (Global Pass)

We used the first one in 2005 in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Denmark so we just had to pay to cross Czech Republic as we went to Prague as well. The last one (Global Pass) still exists and is the most flexible one as it allows to travel within 30 countries. The Global Pass is now 399 euros (385 euros in 2006): this is the Youth 2^nd Class price.

However now there is no zone anymore so you can't use the 1 or 2-zones pass. Now you have what is called the InterRail One Country Pass. You can decide to travel 3, 4, 6 or 8 days within a month in 1 country. The price of this Pass depends on the country you want to travel in (there are 4 different groups of countries, then 4 different prices).

Even the Global Pass is different. It still allows to travel anywhere in Europe but it can be between 5 days within 10 days, 10 days within 22 days, 22 days continuous or 1 month continuous.

There are also different categories depending if you're Adult, Youth or Child and depending if you travel in 1^st of 2^nd Class.

More info about the different fares at the page InterRail ticket fares.

Every pass can be ordered online or in a railway station. Actually if you want more information don’t hesitate to ask a staff member in the nearest train station. Both times we bought a Pass we spent around 1/2h with a staff member to have information and to buy the pass and it was a nice and very helpful chat each times.

Departure for our 2^nd Europe tour is not done in a hurry like the past year: this time we have to catch the train at 1pm and I don't have to run away from work. This is also nice to avoid too much stress! We even have the time to eat in a pizzeria with my brother Romain in Rennes before going to the railway station.

We catch the train on time and we arrive in Paris that we have to cross to go from Montparnasse to Gare du Nord. We then take our train after waiting some time.

Dans le métro à Paris

We arrive in the evening in Frankfurt where we have to get our 3^rd train to go to Praha - Prague. This time we only have few minutes between the 2 trains but we don't have any problem to get it.

And here we are ready for our first night in a train, which won't be very comfortable but we will have to get used to that. Anyway this is now the trip that can start: this is the beginning of a great adventure!

Look at the Story board to have more details about all these days all around Europe.