Four Weeks on a Train
 

Yes you read right, im going to spend four weeks on a train.

Basically I bought on the spur of things today an interail pass, which begins on Saturday. It cost me £285 and allows me to travel anywhere in Europe by train for one month. So the plan is to meet up with my housemate who lives in Madrid, I bought the plane ticket today for £120 to Madrid from Birmingham, which means I have to return to Birmingham from Madrid on 2 July (leaving one day until I start work).

So heres the Plan

Madrid

Barcelona

Nice

Milan

Venice

Vienna

Prague

Berlin

Amsterdam

Brussels

Paris

Bordeaux

Madrid

Stopping obviously at other places to catch trains etc. This is the aim for one month. It will be a long stretch. You may be thinking why not Warsaw? Why not Rome? Why not Athens etc? Well looking at the train maps these are the most logical routes, we go full circle and leave Madrid on 5th June for Barcelona, hopefully returning on the 2nd July for my flight back home.

This trip was inspired by several things. Firstly the fact I havent done any real travelling for a good couple of years. Secondly we watched motorcycle diaries where che guvera and a friend try to do the similar thing in South America. Finally I was drunk when I bought this train ticket and plane ticket, but I dont regret it at all.

Budget wise, it will be tight, but Im a Brummie, so nothing really phases me, Im also a great blagger and so sleeping on the train, and hopefully pulling the locals (hence a free bed) might work.

Anyway wish me luck GD oh yeah one more thing, anyone else had similar experiences and any advice?

:edit: Before anyone says im packing lightly, a few shorts, jeans, tshirts, couple of shirts and a couple of pants and socks (I can wash my own clothes :p)

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

oh great

you realize this will prolly one of the best vacations ever?

you made the decision irrationally, you haven't planned anything and in week 2 you will get broke, it will be ****ing awesome!


edit: when travelling from Berlin to Amsterdam, you'll be entering the Netherlands at Hengelo station, I live 300 meters from it, get a beer while you are at it....

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Yes.
A young Che with beard and cigar on a bloody motorcycle, and the raggamuffin that your are on a train????
I quite completely fail to see the similairites...

Good luck, btw. I thought about travellin gwith interrail two years back, but ended up a week in Amsterdam with some mates instead,
.
I rather envy you.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Urgh. Everyone seems to have so much more motivation than me to do such things ;( I envy you people, I really do.

Maybe after uni....

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Good luck on your travels. Sounds like your gonna have a great time.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

I've always wanted do to interrailing. Lots of my friends have done it, and they all have positive experiences.
And don't worry so much about economics. Money is always a good thing to have while traveling, but it's not the most important. Besides, you got the ticket home if you ever feel like leaving, and that security is nice to have.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

no fair :(
how do you people manage to afford to do fun stuff like this?

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

i believe it was ste who did the whole travelling thing last summer so he may have some words of wisdom for you :)

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

I did interrail a few years back. One thing you need to be careful of is that the interrail ticket doesn't mean your travel will be free. Things like the TGV in France might cost you more, also night-trains (espcially if you want a cushette) will cost you a bit more and finally, sometimes you have to pay a 'reservation fee' as well. It doesn't cost a lot, but you need to watch out for it and make sure you have some money on you just in case you get stuck in some god-forsaken cesspit and have to pay something extra.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

You believe right :)

My advice - Book accomodation ahead in Prague. The Clown and Bard is meant to be the best one there.
If you know what dates you're going to all these places then book ahead as much as possible - saves a lot of stress!

On the list of 'best hostels in europe' the following are recommended:
Barcelona: Kabul Hostel
Vienna: Wombat's City Hostel
Berlin: Circus Hostel
Amsterdam: The Flying Pig
Paris: The Three Ducks

I've stayed in a couple on the list and they are pretty damn good - probably the best for meeting people and getting drunk.

Best advice though: BUY THE THOMAS COOK EUROPEAN RAIL SUMMER TIMETABLE. You can get it from all good bookshops and it really really helps plan when and where you go next, including whether you need to book a ticket in advance, pay a supplement (yes you may have to on quite a few) and where the train heads. I missed a train only once and that's because they moved it to another platform and we couldn't understand polish...

Also - £130 to get to Madrid? ripped off ;) You can get a ticket for under £30!

I'm travelling round from the end of June for 3 weeks, renting a car rather than interrailing and will be camping on the beach :) Barcelona, Valencia, Granada, Seville, Cordoba, Toledo, Madrid is the rough plan at the moment. There are lots of other places I want to see like Murcia, Ronda, Cadiz, Alicante, Tarragonna etc Which we might see on the way :)

Sounds like a great trip you've got planned anyway! Shame i'd be just missing you in Madrid but I'll be Pamplona til the 30th June then in Barcelona til 2nd July if you wanna drop by and say hi!

If you have time incidentally, there are a few places near Vienna you could see - Salzberg being one, Bratislava (very cheap beer!) being another and a little bit further south is Slovenia which is a really beautiful country especially Ljubljiana and Bled.
(my photos are all online if I haven't showed you them already...)

Finally, for anyone else thinking of travelling anywhere in Europe this year (this is for non-uk people too) I have found a great website for finding cheap flights from anywhere in europe.
http://www.flylc.com/directall-en.asp
Very useful I've found.

Anyway, hope that was some use!
Some nice philosophy too - "You can always make more money, you can't make more opportunities"

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

I wish I had £400 spare to make irrational decisions :(

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Don't worry, pig will be back here in a couple of months telling us how his bank is going to reposess his penis and put a stop on his butthole and how it's all a misunderstanding and that his parents have gone on a trip home to Outer Mongoloid and should have left him the money to cover everything and he just doesn't understand how he could have got himself into such a position and it's not that he's bad at planning financially, but that other people should really give him money when they say they will so he can afford to buy double Bacardi and Red Bulls during the afternoon as a 'casual' drink and go to expensive bars and impress women with his good taste, trendy cothes and large overdraft.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Things have changed since your day.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

If he stays in Eastern Europe for the most part he can probably get by with a modest amount of money.
In parts of Prague you can get 4 pints for £1, in the Czech countryside you can get 7+...
And liquour is bloody cheap there aswell.
40 people from my class got hammered one night out in Prague, and I think very few of us had to use more £20. And we are Norwegians, so when I say hammered, I mean slobbering, slurry, Alzheimer-ridden and Parkison-like.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Sounds to me like a half-pint of shandy costs about £20.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

lol

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Hehehe. You haven'y drunk with Norwegians yet, have you?
We are breastfed homebrew...
Some of us did share a bottle of absinth, so perhaps our nervous system went straight to hell. Not seeing any green fairies yet, though....MM only wear pinstripes.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

I've drunk with Swedes and they drank like wusses.

Since Swedes and Norwegians are all the same anyway, I can only assume your capabilities will be the same.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Bollocks. There are vast differences between our two nations.
OK, not vast, but there are some clear differences.
Most all of the bartenders here in Norway are Swedes (they earn more moeny here), and from what they've told me and my own experience I think it's safe to say we start drinking earlier, drink a whole lot more, and keep it up for a longer time.
There are girls from my hometown (in the centre of the homebrew distric)t that I've personally seen drink 3 sixpacks, 5 pints, a quarter botlle of wine, 6 vodka shots and still be in top shape.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

When you say 'girls', you mean this, don't you?

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

One place begins with an 'N', the other with an 'S', apart from that, you both claim to be completely different, but like the US and Canada, you're both exactly the same, really, aren't you?

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Lol.
I mean my girlfriend at the time. A beautifull, slim (50 kg-ish) girl from the farmlands who's been drinking since she could walk.
On the other hand I've dated a girl who got hammered after two pints...no, cross that out, she doesn't like beer. she's hammered after two ciders.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Ah, nothing like a quiet Monday morning.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

The money is kinda all sorted out now that I have a job etc.

And for your information its Bacardi and COKE :p

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

One thing I like about the British is that we don't have to reassure the other nations of our greatness by talking about trivial points like our women or the amount we drink. Seeing as those are the only points anyone seems to come up on here with as to why their country is better than ours :(

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Well we could start talking about how Britain lost the largest land empire in the history of mankind but I don't think that'd go down so well.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

goodness


they simply scream "classy"

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Oh really?

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

"Daffyd prides himself on being the only gay in the village and his favourite drink is Baccardi and Coke"

**cough** they also look alike

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

I meant as in Bacardi and coke, with of course sambuca shots following, and a stella never hurts you :D

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

It does :(
I went out once, had lots of Stella (and tequila and sambuca) and got so drunk I decided to walk home, but because it was cold, to also put my hands inside my t-shirt. I stumbled and fell over, but my hands were in my t-shirt so I fell onto my face. Lots :( I woke up with a grazed face and shoulder and sick on the floor :( [sorry if I've told that before]


So yes, Stella does hurt.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

I wondered where those horrible scars came from, that you had on your face.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

That'll be AIDS, not the Stella scars

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Funny how AIDS in no way gives you scars.
Leprosy maybe?

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

My heart ****ing bleeds for you, it really does. While I'm living with my mother back in Stockton, walking down to the town centre ever day - because there's nothing better to do, and in any case, I haven't got any money - in order to look at the plastic shit they have in the window of Oxfam, and being looked at like I was a deviant by every shit-faced chav on the grounds that I'm not wearing trainers or a tracksuit, and pondering my ever darker, lonelier future, I'll be thinking "Goodness me, pig is zipping around Europe in comfort and style, visiting ancient capitals of infinite charm and wonder in the July bliss, whilst I am stuck in Shithole-On-Tees. What a harsh life it must be for him."

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Have you never heard of Face AIDs?

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

cutting yourself eases the pain inside

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

he can't even get medicine right

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

The point is that it's not AIDS itself that gives you scars, it just leaves your body vulnerable to any number of diseases that might lead to scaring, such as forms of herpes virus (as mentioned on that page),etc.
But I guess you were more or less right in that fact that scaring can often be assosciated with AIDS. I thought to little before posting.
Nevermind my blithering.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

but you always blither when you are wrong



you blither wheedle procrastinate vacillate squirm distract and offend.




its easy to determine this.



because you are wrong so often.




the evidence speaks for itself. ;)

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Is it me or have people* been really shit at getting the jokes/sarcasm on these boards recently?

Was my post before any help pig?




*foreigners

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Nantoz needs to think before he posts :(

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Welcome to the Pleasuredome.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

i did this two summers ago. except i stuck to the poor countries, more value for money :cool:

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Heh. Im not sure the UK is part of the 1st world. Certainly nowwhere near scandinavia. And thats before the quality on girls comes into the picture.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

london is anything but poor or cheap.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

It's pretty filthy though, and its filled with brits. And ugly looking girls :(

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

oh my my criticism of one of the handful of truly global cities by....

no....


wait for it.....



people who live in log cabins in a frozen wasteland.



aces.

Re: Four Weeks on a Train
 

Firstly: Have you ever actually been to London? If you had then you wouldn't have said that.
Secondly: London is nothing like the rest of the UK.