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Hi all,
Trying to plan a bit of country hopping in September. I'll be returning from a few weeks in Asia, and spending a couple days at my girlfriend's in Gottingen, Germany, and then would like to visit a couple countries by train, before returning to Germany, and then back to the UK.
I think I will have 5-7 days (starting and finishing in Gottingen). I would like to visit Poland (Krakow?) and Czech Republic (Prague) in that time.
Firstly, does that make sense? Distances too great? Better places to visit (especially Poland, anywhere a little closer to Germany worth visiting?)?.
Secondly, what's the best way to go about train travel in main land Europe? I hope to meet up with a mate who will be inter-railing, but I don't think it makes sense to buy a inter-rail ticket for such a short period of time/few locations. Buying tickets right before journeys would give me a lot more freedom, but I imagine prices will be way cheaper if I book asap?
So, any tips/advice on train travel within Europe? What sites to check out for prices and book?
Cheers, Duane.
Anyone?
MrsMM did the inter-rail thing around Poland etc, though it was 15 years ago so she is not sure proffering 'things to see and do' advice is that relevant?
One thing she has said is to travel via overnight / sleeper trains so as to make the most of your time during the day.
I don't have any experience of the rail travel around Europe myself, but recently looked for travel within Poland. The best website for European rail travel is the German Bahn site: [url= http://www.bahn.com ]www.bahn.com[/url]. It should find all of the stations in mainland Europe and give you the timetable and connections (so you can see travel times etc). However, it will only give you prices for travel to and from Germany. The official site for train travel within Poland can be found at: [url= http://polrail.com/sections/travel/timetable.html ]PolRail[/url]. Travel on the regional trains, although slower, can be very cheap within Poland.
Buying tickets right before journeys would give me a lot more freedom, but I imagine prices will be way cheaper if I book asap?
For travel on the EuroCity or express trains, this is almost certainly true. If you book your travel now to and from Germany, the fares look like E35-50 (Prague or Krakow) whereas the standard fares look to be more like E100-130. Travel to Krakow looks like a killer, so perhaps a sleeper train would be the way to go.
As for things to see, many of the cities/regions you travel through to Krakow and Prague are beautiful in their own right. I have heard good things about Wroclaw; pretty centre but (slightly) less touristy than Krakow.
S'easy...
Plan travelling times using this and you can soon work out how long you will have where... http://www.interrailnet.com/planning/timetables
The only place I ever had problems was in Belgrade in the (former) Yugoslavia (this shows how long ago I travelled 😥 ). Basically none of the rail staff spoke any English and I couldn't get by with my poor French. In the end I wandered off to the Tourist Office and asked them to write down what ticket I needed and just passed the slip over the counter.
I did it a few years ago, we got one way flights to Poland for about £25 each and used the trains as far as possible, once we got to Bratislava/Vienna they got expensive, think the last train we got was a yopung persons weekend group ticket in Bavaria which worked well as 4 or 5 could travel on it and at every station there was a que of people a similar age looking to jump on other groups tickets, after about 6 hours and several changes later it had paid for itself.
In Eastern Europe the cheepest way we found to travel was to buy a ticket to about halfway (trains are cheep anyway), then sit in the dinner car where they didn't seem to check tickets and the food was good (and cheep). I think we managed the whole way to Vienna for about £20! We did once end up getting thrown off at the side of the tracks though!
I am travelling from a base in Bialystok, eastern Poland via public transport next month - if I remember I'll check back in on the thread and let you know how it goes. My wife is Polish though so I don't have to haggle in a foreign language and there is an expectation of doing it on the cheap:) Here is our list of places to visit:
Krakow
Wialiczka Salt Mine (near Krakow)
Auschwitz (near Krakow)
Zakopane (south of Krakow, lovely mountains and "mountain people", old school Poland, I am intrigued)
Bialowieza National Park, to see wild Bison and ancient forest (2 hrs from Bialystok)
Elk, area of lakes in east Poland north of Bialystok
You could also check out:
Gory Stolowe, odd labyrinthine paths in the Mountains near the Czech border, some German bunkers
Wroclaw is also supposed to be beautiful and worth a visit
We are travelling long distance by train then paying for rooms in private houses - this is what the Polish do to save cash versus staying in hotels apparently.
Not sure now but you use to be able to buy a DB pass that gave you discounted prices, which made 1st class cheap.
And while you are in Poland just watch your belongings, esp. on stations etc.
Gottingen is a nice place too, spent many weeks there with work.
Check this website, it is for Czech transports: http://jizdnirady.idnes.cz/vlakyautobusymhdvse/spojeni/