Tag: train travel

St Moritz

Make the Most of an Interrail or Eurail Pass with this Route

On By Michelle LawsonIn European travel3 Comments

Following on from the previous post with tips for using a Global Interrail Pass (or Eurail for non-European residents), here’s a month’s Interrail route that makes great use of a flexible Europe-wide pass. On the whole it avoids countries that require seat bookings and supplements. All journeys were free with the pass apart from the the short ride from Jenback to Fügen (Austria) and the Swiss Bernese Oberland mountain railways/cable cars (the Interrail gave a 25% discount though).

Disclosure: This post contain affiliate links to accommodation that I’ve personally experienced and enjoyed. This means I get a small commission if you make a purchase through the links, at no cost to you.

Travel day 1 | Using the rail pass from London

From Devon, UK to Namur, Belgium. This was as far as we could comfortably travel whilst avoiding an expensive overnight in Brussels. It also avoided routes into Germany that were somewhat unreliable at the time. Namur is cheaper than Brussels and has a bar called Barnabeer with 47 beer pulls!

We stayed in BED Namur-Premium at the start and end of our trip. It’s a self-check-in property with a shared kitchen.

Travel day 2 | Belgium to Luxembourg by train

Namur to Luxembourg. Back when I was a tour guide in the 1990s, our coaches often diverted to Luxembourg to fuel up with cheap diesel. In frustration I’d gaze out at the city clustered above, below and along the edges of a deep river gorge, unable to leap off and explore. Now, after all those trains, it was a pleasure to walk this charming city. You can make use of elevators to move between the upper town and the valley.

We spent the night in the central Auberge Gaglioti, which was fine and fairly central in the new town. Luxembourg isn’t hot on budget accommodation.

Travel day 3 | Luxembourg to Strasbourg using trains

Luxembourg to Strasbourg (France). Strasbourg was a morning stop on our 1990s coach tours, although there wouldn’t be time for more than a quick stroll around the waterways and 16th century buildings of Petite France and a glimpse of the Cathedral’s astronomical clock.

Nowadays Petite France is busier, but no less enchanting . . . even when the peace was broken by a guitarist practising Wish You Were Here, the chords flying out of an open window on the upper floor of a half-timbered building.

We found the Aparthotel Adagio to be a good place to stay – out of the main buzz but still close to the centre. The mini kitchen in the room is a bonus when you’re on an extended trip.

Luxembourg City
Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg
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Swiss railway at the foot of the Eiger

Ten Tips for using an Interrail or Eurail Train Pass

On By Michelle LawsonIn European travel1 Comment

A long time ago in Lisbon, on what I thought would be my final Interrail trip, I celebrated my 26th birthday. According to my diary, the hostel wardens gave me a beer and a group of Australians bought me a glass of port wine.

Back then the month-long Interrail pass was limited to youngsters. Not any more! And now you can buy a pass limited to specific countries and lengths of time. You can even get Interrail to plan your trip for you, including accommodation. Note that Eurail is the same pass but for those of you who live outside Europe.

But I’ve always dreamed of returning to the freedom of a ‘global’ pass that’s valid across Europe. This year, celebrating 50 years of Interrail, the global Interrail pass was briefly discounted to half price. And adding a second month cost a mere £22 extra for a senior!

Two months of rail travel gave me the freedom to visit new places as well as embark on a memory trip. As well as interrailing in my youth, I’d also worked as a travel guide/ski rep in Europe. I used the rail pass to revisit a few places I continue to dream about some 30-odd years later.

The second month was used to revisit Poland some 50+ years after my Polish father drove us there for holidays.

10 tips for smooth Interrailing
Here are some practical tips that I picked up for using the mobile pass (the next post gives a brief guide to the first month’s route). Some people swear by using the old paper Interrail pass, but I’m a fan of the mobile pass, which uses the Rail Planner app.

Eurail is the version of Interrail for those of you who don’t live in Europe. You may find this post by GoNomad useful if considering a Eurail pass.

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Ivano-Frankivsk from the town hall viewing platform

Track changes, eastward bound: London to Western Ukraine by train

On By Michelle LawsonIn Western Ukraine11 Comments

When I booked the eight trains spanning four days of travel from London to the formerly Polish ancestral village of my father (now lying within western Ukraine), I hadn’t realised that I’d be following the same route, more or less, that my father had driven us as a family in the late 1960s.

A wartime Polish exile, unable to visit his real homeland when it became part of the USSR, he would drive us to Poland as a second-best option. Back then it involved what my nervous mother referred to as ‘going behind the Iron Curtain’ that divided the West from the communist East. I remember hours standing next to the car at checkpoints as unsmiling DDR border guards pulled out the back seat and slid mirrors beneath the chassis. Long days were spent driving along the transit corridor through the forests of East Germany and Poland, where small crowds would gather whenever we stopped, and I had the job of handing out sweets and oranges to the wide-eyed children.

Some fifty years later I decided to travel east again, although this time it was possible to keep going into Ukraine, to the town closest to my dad’s village – the town of Ivano-Frankivsk, closed off by the Soviets until the early 1990s.

The lack of direct flights to western Ukraine gave a good excuse to do it by train.  Ryanair’s forthcoming route to Lviv will win for speed and price, but a couple of hours strapped into a budget aircraft will hardly convey the same sense of travelling through central Europe to the east.  And a train trip encourages some wonderfully atmospheric stopovers. Just don’t expect it to be restful.

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