Interrail itineries

[interferringma]

We did this as students in the 80's and were seduced by the recent Interrail Sale. So we're off in October!
I really fancy Istanbul and then meandering back via Vienna and berlin. But it won't be like the actual Orient Express on normal trains so I'm getting cold feet! Anyone done this?
Alternatively, please tell me you itineraries and what worked. We're deep in planning mode! xx

I did this 30 years ago, still talk about it now and desperate to do it again! We visited a lot of places, soaked up lots of culture, made lots of friends whilst waiting for trains, chatted to lots of locals and loved sleeping on trains and decks of boats on the Italy to Greece journey.
I would love my teenagers to experience it too. If I did it again I'd stay 3-4 nights in places. If I was going again, I'd go to Budapest, Dubrovnik, Scandinavia or maybe just travel all over Italy.

Exactly this @awonderfuladventure - we plan to stay a while in places instead of dashing about as we did first time round!

@HappyHoppy that's sounds very close to what my ideal trip would be. I took fright at the travelling time to Istanbul but you seem to have done a manageable trip.

Oh dear @RampantIvy
But your DD and boyfriend are v lucky to have such a supportive team back at base!
When my DD did it she made a few boo boos with bookings but I only heard about it after the event. They seemed to extract themselves.

I bought the sale tickets too, but am now in slight denial/regret mode as I have realised that there will be extra costs for Eurostar and TGVs etc.
But anyway, am excited, and started planning at the weekend. We are keeping things fairly limited, heading to Italy via Switzerland. Seat61 is definitely the best website, but can get overwhelming. I also found another useful site that tells you where the direct trains are from each city. https://direkt.bahn.guru/
I’m more of a flying visit type person, rather than spending lots of time in each place. The main thing is that train travel in mainland Europe is actually a pleasant experience compared to the UK. That, coupled with stunning scenery, means that the journey is the experience itself. If there’s a place that appeals then you can always stay a bit longer, or vow to return for a longer trip in future.
I’m also interested to hear peoples’ plans!

We’ve bought family tickets with a plan to go to Girona next Easter via wherever takes our fancy in France. Does anyone know how early the Eurostar tickets come out? Figured we’d book those first to bookend the trip and the rest we can be more flexible with.

Gosh did this 30 years ago for a month and we did
Lille - Bruges (v.expensive even then, they charged us for a special bin bag at the campsite!)
Bruges - Amsterdam - Erfurt (based there and took train to Weimar so we could visit the Buchenwald concentration camp)
Erfurt - Prague - overnight to Vienna spent the day then overnight to Venice (couldn't afford to sleep in Vienna)
Venice - Genoa - Grenoble - Paris - Home.
Might have to go and dig out my photo album! Have a fab time.

My original itinerary 40 years ago was very eastern bloc. Paris-Vienna (slept on the station bc couldn't afford to stay there!)- budapest-zagreb-Split and the island of Brac (for some beaches)-Thessolonika then home somehow. In fact we spent a long time in Budapest, maybe a week, having met an English/Hungarian girl who allowed us to stay in her family's summer cabin. This time though I want the assurance of pre booking rather than winging it!

DH and I bought a Swissrail pass about 5 years ago when we had a trip to Geneva.
Their rail network is fab (there is a Bradt guide to "Switzerland without a car").

From a quick glance at the Interrail pages, I don't think there were any restrictions to using the Swiss panoramic trains. They have some beautiful routes around the lakes and into the mountains.

@Madcats that sounds like a great idea for another time for us. Thanks for that!

Funnily enough I was thinking about this at the weekend with fond memories - I was going through a box of stuff and my interrail ticket happened to fall out from among some books.

Our itinery in 1999 was Eurostar to Paris then interrail Paris - Amsterdam - Berlin - Prague - Budapest - Venice - Nice - Barcelona - Bilbao - Paris - spending 3-4 days in each.

Apart from Berlin to Prague these were all overnight trains and I have happy memories of getting on the trains at 7 or 8 at night with bottles of wine and snacks and then trying to sleep on regular seats before waking up in a new city at 6am the next morning with the sun streaming through the carriage windows ready to find accommodation adn explore.

What I overlook now are the interuptions at various points by border guards/ other passengers and the general uncomfortableness of the slow night trains and lack of sleep - but hey we were young! I really loved the spontanious nature of it. All we had to plan the trip was our Thomas Cook European rail timetable book which gave all the routes; if I remember correctly we only had to book seats when we were in Spain, otherwise it was just jump on the train, show your ticket and go.

Would love to do something like that now but fear that the night train network is much reduced and in many cases replaced by high speed trains.

We did it with 3 kids in 2019. Started with the idea of starting in Eastern Europe (Istanbul) and working back but trains in East seemed much slower and less frequent so we abandoned that idea rapidly. Ended up with:

flight to Budapest (2 nights)
train to Vienna (2 nights)
sleeper train to Venice (2 nights)
train to mountains in N Italy to lie by a pool for 4 days
train to Lugano (1 night - prices in Switzerland eye watering but we got an amazing youth hostel for £170 for 5 of us, there was even a pool!)
train to Lake Constance (hands down the most incredibly beautiful train journey ever)
3 nights Lake Constance
train to Paris (1 night)
eurostar back to London

it was fantastic. Choice of location on Lake Constance was poor but wouldn’t change anything else.

We did Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, Vienna, Tyrol, Munich a couple of years ago. We flew to Prague though and only did daytime trains. It was great fun. I booked the tickets individually though - still worked out cheaper than the interrail pass. Last week we took the train to Antibes from Brussels. Via Marseille on way out and Aix-En-Provence on the way back. The Ouigo.com fares are extremely cheap.