Discussion
So my partner and I are currently interailing for 3 weeks, thought I might do some updates with trials and tribulations, and also get some tips for places to visit.
1. Initially we had a nightmare booking trains/seat reservations through the interail app. We therefore changed our route minimise this (not ideal). We also struggled to book a reservation on the eurostar out of the country! Having already paid for a train to London, we ended up having to spend a night in London. Again not ideal, but it turned out to be nice.
The planned itinerary is as follows, London, Brussels, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Venice, Florence, Rome, fly home from Milan.
Stop 1. London, whistle stop tour, went to the British library and National museum, had some nice takeaway food and processo in a park. Nicer than I anticipated.
Stop 2. Brussels, two nights here. Its okay, very liberal lots of litter and there are clear wealth divides. Went to Bruges for a day, far nicer would reccomend.
Currently enroute to Berlin, the train from Brussels to Cologne was rammed, we hadn't reserved seats so we're lucky to get seated, let alone together. Cue frantically trying to reserve seats from Cologne to Berlin last minute. Managed to succeed reserving seats for a slightly later train, but lesson learnt with German routes! Had an hour ans a half in Cologne between trains, looks pretty nice from first impressions...one to come back to another time maybe.
1. Initially we had a nightmare booking trains/seat reservations through the interail app. We therefore changed our route minimise this (not ideal). We also struggled to book a reservation on the eurostar out of the country! Having already paid for a train to London, we ended up having to spend a night in London. Again not ideal, but it turned out to be nice.
The planned itinerary is as follows, London, Brussels, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Venice, Florence, Rome, fly home from Milan.
Stop 1. London, whistle stop tour, went to the British library and National museum, had some nice takeaway food and processo in a park. Nicer than I anticipated.
Stop 2. Brussels, two nights here. Its okay, very liberal lots of litter and there are clear wealth divides. Went to Bruges for a day, far nicer would reccomend.
Currently enroute to Berlin, the train from Brussels to Cologne was rammed, we hadn't reserved seats so we're lucky to get seated, let alone together. Cue frantically trying to reserve seats from Cologne to Berlin last minute. Managed to succeed reserving seats for a slightly later train, but lesson learnt with German routes! Had an hour ans a half in Cologne between trains, looks pretty nice from first impressions...one to come back to another time maybe.
I'm big fan of European rail travel, and have been to a lot of the areas you're visiting.
This is a good resource https://www.seat61.com/
You may well be aware of /have planned some of these things, but looking at your plans, and thinking about things I've enjoyed in those places...
Dresden - cruise on the Elbe on a restored paddle steamer https://www.saechsische-dampfschifffahrt.de/en/ Also did the Radebeul–Radeburg Railway https://www.vvo-online.de/en/leisure/historic-vehi... to visit Moritzburg Castle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moritzburg_Castle.
Innsbruck - Lovely compact city. From here if you take a short train ride to Jenbach, you can pick up trains to Mayrhofen, including some steam trains.https://www.zillertalbahn.at/page.cfm?vpath=nostalgie/dampfzug There's lots of good summer hiking if you get one of the cable cars in the Mayrhofen area, and if you get the bus to Hintertux, you can go summer skiing there https://www.hintertuxergletscher.at/en/
Innsbruck to Venice - You'll likely travel through Verona, which is definitely worth spending a few hours looking around the main sights. If you have time, Lake Garda is only 20 minutes away from Verona, the train goes to Desenzano del Garda, from here you can get a boat (10 minutes) to Sirmione with it's lovely castle https://www.in-lombardia.it/en/tourism-in-lombardy... and extensive Roman ruins.
Milan - Not a huge fan of Milan, but Lake Como is straightforward to get to from here, Varenna is an hour on a direct train, from here you can get boats onward to Bellagio etc.
This is a good resource https://www.seat61.com/
You may well be aware of /have planned some of these things, but looking at your plans, and thinking about things I've enjoyed in those places...
Dresden - cruise on the Elbe on a restored paddle steamer https://www.saechsische-dampfschifffahrt.de/en/ Also did the Radebeul–Radeburg Railway https://www.vvo-online.de/en/leisure/historic-vehi... to visit Moritzburg Castle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moritzburg_Castle.
Innsbruck - Lovely compact city. From here if you take a short train ride to Jenbach, you can pick up trains to Mayrhofen, including some steam trains.https://www.zillertalbahn.at/page.cfm?vpath=nostalgie/dampfzug There's lots of good summer hiking if you get one of the cable cars in the Mayrhofen area, and if you get the bus to Hintertux, you can go summer skiing there https://www.hintertuxergletscher.at/en/
Innsbruck to Venice - You'll likely travel through Verona, which is definitely worth spending a few hours looking around the main sights. If you have time, Lake Garda is only 20 minutes away from Verona, the train goes to Desenzano del Garda, from here you can get a boat (10 minutes) to Sirmione with it's lovely castle https://www.in-lombardia.it/en/tourism-in-lombardy... and extensive Roman ruins.
Milan - Not a huge fan of Milan, but Lake Como is straightforward to get to from here, Varenna is an hour on a direct train, from here you can get boats onward to Bellagio etc.
Gassing Station | Holidays & Travel | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff