Travel by train in Europe

When I say we, I mean me and my lovely wife. We always travel together, which is a brilliant arrangement. If one of us forgets something, the other usually remembers. (To be honest, it’s mostly my wife who remembers. I keep a travel journal. She keeps… a brain. A good one.) So when my memory takes a break, I can always check my notes. She rarely needs to.

So — what’s it like to travel by train in Europe? Often, it’s simple and very comfortable. We each buy an Interrail pass. If you’re not a European resident, you can get the same idea under the name Eurail. I have no idea why they’re named differently — they work exactly the same.

We always travel First Class. Not because we are fancy aristocrats (though I must say I look excellent holding a coffee cup), but because:

There’s usually more space,

The seats are more comfortable,

And sometimes you even get complimentary refreshments. (Denmark and Sweden, we thank you. Italy has surprised us once. The rest of Europe — we’re waiting.)

Some countries require seat reservations (Sweden, France, Italy), others don’t (Germany and Switzerland, bless their efficient hearts). The best place to check everything is bahn.com. Even if you don’t book, you can see how full the trains are. If it shows little red icons of crowded stick figures — book a seat. Trust me. Standing five hours from Hamburg to Mannheim is a spiritual experience you do not want.

Our travel style is simple:

Trains by day.

Hotels by night.

This way we sleep properly and usually get breakfast. Sometimes the breakfast is wonderful. Sometimes it’s… artistic. Let’s call it that.

I won’t overwhelm you with too much at once. I’ll be back soon with stories and tips — and maybe a few confessions of mistakes made along the tracks.

So what are our best tips?

We are travelling from Sweden to the Mediterranean, south of Spain or Italy. We start in the city of Visby, found in Gotland Island in the middle of the Baltic Sea.

The first part of the trip is not by train, we always start with a ferry Trip Visby - Nynäshamn and then go on by commuter train to Stockholm. Our first lunch was at a nearby restaurant, after that we took the train to Malmö. for our first stop. Our Interrail card by just before christmas, de have most of the time some discount if you buy your card at this time. So in Malmö our first night, we arrived around five a clock in the afternoon. We walk to the hotel, it takes about ten minutes. Sometimes we have a fast dinner at the station, which is a Burger King. Other times we go to the LIttle square (LIlla Torg) and find a good restaurant. No nightlife, just go home and go to bed, the day after is often a long train day. The first part are Malmö - Copenhagen, and from Copenhagen we go on to Hamburg and change trains to the next one, to Mannheim, where our next stop is. Same as Malmö, we take a short walk to the hotel. And we are careless with the food, so we usually buy a sandwich from the station. From Mannheim it depends where our goals are? Italy, then we have to go by Austria, or will we go to Spain, we go by Switzerland and France. If we go to Italy we go to Milan from Mannheim, sometimes via Switzerland, other times via Austria. If we go via Austria we have to pay an extra fee of €15.

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Going to Spain, we get there via Geneva. Last time we stopped and stayed one night in Geneva, a very expensive city. And from Geneva the next day, the train are going to Lyon, France, Change and get a local train to Narbonne, change and take the next local train to Perpignan, a place to stay one night. But here there are often problems, to go forward. The train we were locking forward to, at 0630 it was cancelled. So we have to take the bus, Flicbus, from Perpignan to Girona. But the bus was late, and when we came to Spain, the Spanish police stopped us twice. They will look at our passport. As I heard, they stopped every bus to check the passport. We were late and missed our train Girona - Alicante. So we must take the train till Barcelona, and change to the next train, to Valencia. And from there a Bus to Benidorm, our goal for this trip. When we got to Valencia, we noticed that there were no free buses to Benidorm, there was no ticket free, so we got our ticket at 0130 in the night. We have to wait at the Valencia Bus Station for six hours. At 0130, we entered the bus; it was a full bus. We arrived in Benidorm around 3 o'clock in the morning. We fall asleep directly, and then we stay in Lovely Benidorm for 32 days. Good and enjoyable.

Hometrip, yes, I'll tell you later, if you will listen.