My Inter Railing Experience

When I first heard a group of friends talking about their Inter Railing trip around the main cities of Europe I was a bit skeptical of the idea; 22 days travelling through Europe by train sounded a bit nightmarish to me. The thought of spending up to eight hours on one train made my palms a bit sweaty. But whilst avoiding revision in the Summer term, my housemate and I decided to do a bit of research into it and what we found out through the internet, and lots of our friends who had already done it, made us eager to get on board with it too.

For those of you who don't know, there are two types of global InterRail passes which can be used in 30 different countries.

1. 5 travel days within 10 days.
> You can travel for 10 days but you can only use up to 5 of those days travelling.

2. 10 travel days within 22 days.
>You can travel for 22 days but you can only use up to 10 of those days travelling.

We set about planning our route, booking hostels and deciding what we wanted to do in each city.

The route  was by far the hardest part as we had to make sure that we did not exceed our 10 days of travelling. Using websites such as De Bahn helped us to work out how long each leg of the journey would take and whether another option would be better. - I have to be honest, the timings and confusion of this part of the planning was left to my friend, Ness. She didn't fail me and we didn't have a single hitch on any of our journeys. This seems to be very rare as nearly all of our friends who have done similar trips encountered a few minor disasters, such as losing passports and the cherished inter rail pass itself (sellotape this to yourself if you are known for misplacing things), missing trains and paying huge fines for not booking their trains.

The route was changed a number of times before we settled on; Amsterdam, Berlin, Warsaw, Krakow, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Venice. Nope we had never heard of Ljubljana before either but we had been tipped off by our friends to go there and we are so glad we listened to them as Lake Bled is by far the most beautiful place I have ever seen.

I thought I would include a few holiday snaps to show how much fun (& how tiring!) this excursion around Europe was.

 Kirst, Ness & I before we embarked on our little adventure.

 A classic scene from Amsterdam. A beautiful city with so much history.

 We couldn't resist sitting in this giant clog! 

 Next stop, Berlin. My favourite city with so much to see and explore especially with the WWII history throughout

 The Berlin Wall. 

 A sleepy Ness after a long journey from Warsaw to Krakow.

Tuk-Tuk back to the hostel in Krakow

The first leg of the journey after Kirst had left us for Paris. Probably one of the worst but funniest nights of my life - A night train from Krakow to Prague. We shared a room big enough for 3 people with five others and we were three bunks up. Never been so claustrophobic in my life!  

A beautiful market in Prague, we kept revisiting to have another browse around.

An amazing view of Budapest. This man ruined every picture, photo-bombing every single shot we took!

In a cool ruin bar with some fellow Brits we met in our hostel in Budapest

Lake Bled in Slovenia surrounded by the most amazing scenery I have ever seen. 

It was quite overwhelming to go from bustling cities to this idyllic setting - especially as were most certainly under-dressed in our travelling gear of jeans and hoodies

Final stop, Venice. Our hostel was right on the water's edge and this was what we saw when we opened our door. A pretty good way to end the three week trip

A visit to Venice isn't complete without a ride in a gondola. By this time we had spent all of our money and had to seriously bargain to get a reasonable price. Definitely worth it!

If you're thinking of doing the InterRail experience or are just going round Europe, here are a few tips which people had given us before we went and things we learnt along the way.

* Book your hostels before you go! You do not want to be in a city with nowhere to stay after a seven hour journey. If you use websites such as Hostel Bookers or Hostel World you can get handy discounts and can book your ideal hostel in terms of location, price and star ratings.

* Once you have got to one station, make sure you book your next train to the next city. This means you will avoid potential fines and also for a very cheap cost you are guaranteed a seat on what could be a packed train otherwise. Trust me you will appreciate this when you're tired, hungry and irritable after carrying a heavy rucksack.

*Take the correct currency out before you go. This will save you a steep exchange rate and you'll end up with more money.

*Find things to do and see off the beaten track. As much as it's amazing to see the famous sights, it's even better when you stumble across something you never expected to see. Get a map from your hostel reception and ask their advice on something different to do.

For more information visit the InterRail website here

Happy travelling!