@Angelo completely correct, worth mentioning. Business class was the only thing left on my train to Munich.
My experience last month travelling interrail first class.trains:Thalys: cold meal and royal amount of additional wine due to delays AVE (Spain): light meal and drinks RailJet (AT): free drink of choice Regiojet (CZ) free water and juiceEIP (PL) cold meal and drink SJH (Sweden) breakfast before 9, coffee, fruit and cookies during day Denmark: coffee, fruit and cookiesItaly: soft drink of choice LoungesAT: snacks and drinks Sweden: light meal buffer and drinksFrance: coffee (only if you’ve loyalty card in addition to interrail)DB: good food and drinks in premier lounge (only if you’ve loyalty card in addition to interrail)MAV (Hungary): decent meal a la carte and drinks In a lot of other trains just a free cookie and or water
If you really want direct TGV DE-FR, there’s a once a day connection Freiburg/Offenburg to Paris. this can typically be reserved late notice (still available for today) and at lower cost (10 euro)
Similar experience on the tgv Paris-Barcelona which is also quota controlled. There were 10+ people showing up on the platform for a fully sold out train. They were allowed to board and pay the reservation on board while sitting in the restaurant. I suggest not to count on it but if you’re there at the moment it won’t hurt trying. Just make sure to ask the train manager before boarding! To avoid fines. Don’t just board without reservation on a train with mandatory reservations. I was also allowed to board but my situation was a bit different as my Thalys was delayed and I missed a different train to Spain thé day before.
Strange to here about that train from Trieste to Ljubljana. I took it a few weeks ago and didn’t have a reservation, neither did other traveler's I spoke. On that they almost every passenger was a backpacker and using interrail. Very few locals. It’s jointly operated by Italians and Slovenian’s we switched at the border to a Slovenian train. It’s marked as one journey in planners however.
Used the Rodalies multiple times in Barcelone and outside in the suburbs (a lot of stations do have Gates there) this week. Never had an issue finding renfee staff. They’re also aware of the pass.
Agree with Martin’s idea, if you’ve the time, go over the mountains. The Train Jaune goes up to Latour de carol from where you can take a direct local train to the center of Barcelona. This last one is not in the Interrail Planner but you can find it in Google Maps and it’s included in your Interrail pass.
When buying in Spain at the ticket office, you will have to show the pass. I did this earlier this week. In theory you can also call Renfe to reserve seats, but I couldn’t find an English option so far, so unless you speak Spanish, this might be difficult. DB might be willing to do it without showing a pass, you will have to provide them all the details such as train number as not all Spanish timetables are in the DB system. What would be the reason to buy in advance? I purchased mine on arrival and had no issues with sold out trains. There are no quota’s in Spain, like there are in France. This will of course depend on the route and the class.
Both between France and Belgium, as well as between Netherlands and Belgium, there are both slow and fast connections.Within Belgium a pass is unlikely to be worth it as ticket prices are relative low and you can buy a Railpass giving you 10 trips (or 5 trips with two persons) at 8,4 euro a trip to anywhere in Belgium (switching trains is allowed in one trip). I suggest to compare the cost of Pass+Reservation with tickets. Outcome is more likely to be in favour of tickets in this case. France to Belgium: two optionsTGV directly from Paris CDG Airport to Brussels. High Speed, fastest and most expensive option. Even with the Interrail pass you will need to pay a relative expensive reservation fee. Local Trains from Paris to Belgium: Multiple options that take a significantly longer, run less frequent and with multiple switches, but are less costly. Paris-Lille-Brussels Paris-Maubeuge-Charleroi-Brussels Paris-Luxembourg-Brussels Netherlands to Belgium: three optionsThalys: High Speed, f
I’m doing two months first class Interrail. For me first class is worth it looking at the amount of travel and the distances I will do in two months. Best perks for meSignificantly better seats with more personal room (typical 2+1 instead of 2+2 on each row). Valuable on long distances. Easier to get seat reservations on quota trains, night trains and normal reserved trains as first class seats/reservations tend to sell out less quickly. Important benefit when travelling flexible without a predefined plan. Easer to get seats on trains without reservations as first class is typically less busy, especially during the summer when we’re typically travelling. Additional nice to havescomplimentary food and drinks on some trains lounge access with complimentary food and drinks in some locations
There are planned works starting september first, these impact the night trains from Munich and Zurich towards Budapest. Night trains don’t seem to be cancelled, but indeed not (yet) open foor booking. You could reach to OBB and ask when the booking opens or consider the daytime alternative.
Alternative without bus replacements that we took last week is Budapest-Zagreb-Ljubljana, there’s direct trains Ljubljana-Zagreb (nice journey) and Zagreb-Budapest. We stayed one night in Zagreb. It’s a less touristy and more authentic feeling than Budapest and Ljubljana for us. We took day trains, not night trains.
I was in Poland last week and made my reservations for the EIP Krakow-Warsaw and EC Warsaw-Berlin at the ticket office in Krakow Station, worked well. Reservation Krakow-Warsaw was only made on day of travel and there were plenty of seats left, our coach was only about 20% occupied. For countries were reservations cannot be made online, I typically make them at the ticket office of the respective country. To ensure we don’t end up with full trains, I regularly check the occupancy for the train I want online through their regular sales channel. Most European operators have online sales but only a few have online reservations (for Interrail). This does not work for France as they’ve quota. EIP Krakow<->Warsaw was a nice experience, modern train and complimentary light dish+drinks in first class. Part of our route last week was Ljubljana->Zagreb->Budapest->Vienna->Krakow-Warsaw->Berlin. We had no issues and all trains were in pretty low demand.
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