“To use the trains that don't need to book a seat” . . . no, you don’t need to make a reservation by definition.There are 2 main types of trips to consider -where you don’t need to make a reservation - these can’t sell out, you will be able to get on board, you may have to stand and be stuck between 2 smelly people for 5 hours . . . but you can get on the train and you will get to your destination. where you must make a reservation - these can sell out, you may be able to get on board without a reservation but you will be hit with a fine when the inspector finds you don’t have a reservation.Think of #1 as like getting a local bus . . . you will get on unless there is literally no standing room and #2 as an intercity bus where the driver won’t let you on if there is no seat for you.
Hi Sarah,For the interrail itself - you won’t need one since it is already paid for.Some hotels and car hire may require a credit card and not accept a debit card, but this is a forum about rail travel, so that’s outside the scope. If you are just traveling from city to city enjoying the sights and staying in normal accommodation you shouldn’t need a credit card.
It looks like Agoda are discounting the fare alright, but I’ve never heard of that happening before. If it’s true then it’s good value.Note that the date shown on the screengrab above is 18th April - 2 days time. Are you planning on starting your trip in 2 days or is that an error?
Note that there are many mobile service providers in Europe which will provide loads of data and phone connectivity for €15 or less a month. Thanks to the EU you can use this service across most of Europe (I think Switzerland may be an exception) without paying any roaming fees.In other words, you could buy a SIM in a shop in the first country you land in and have internet access for a month for the price of a couple of coffees.They keep changing the product names, but effectively most of the providers will sell you a SIM (or give it to you for free) and then all you need to do is buy credit online, or in a convenience store.In the UK - https://www.tescomobile.com/no-contract-sim. In most of Europe - https://www.lycamobile.ie/en/bundle/go-unlimited/Just make sure that you don’t sign up for a contract or commit to a recurring payment and your connectivity problems are over.
In general, city transport isn’t covered. There are some exceptions where the service is run by a national rail operator or where local and mainline trains share the same central corridor.It’s probably included in the list above, but as far as I know in London the Elizabeth line *is* covered, but most other things like the tube aren’t covered.
You can rely on bahn.de to be accurate for almost everything (including many bus connections) in much of Europe, but in practice on the day you really should check the departure board in the station to be close to 100% sure your train is running. If you aren’t in the station (because you are connecting from somewhere else) then there are a number of reasonably reliable sources of mostly-real-time information on train movements.You also need to take context into account - if you are looking at Zurich to Basel for example then whether the scheduled 1530 train runs or not is not too much of an issue since you can take the 1545 or the 1515, or the 1500 or the 1600. If you are looking at a trip that is only served by 1 or 2 trains a day then you may have more of an issue.But regarding your question about what to do if you turn up and your train doesn’t . . . speak to station staff and they will help sort you out. At the end of the day, if there is no train there (just like no plane at th
I meant to add . . . getting from Rome down the coast to Naples and on to Sicily by train is very much achievable. You can do it in one trip (like one journey) as there are trains from Rome (and other parts of Italy) which are carried by ferry across to Sicily. We did a sleeper from Milan to Taormina two years ago and then back to Salerno for a couple of days, flying home from Naples.
Italy has a very good and reliable high speed network, so you can expect the main city to city travel to be good standard. Local trains (if you are visiting some of the smaller towns) are also generally good in my experience, but be prepared for a lot of stopping, some old trains and graffiti.Search for “Italian high speed train network map” and you will get an idea of which cities are served by high speed services and which are served by local ones.
Thanks for all the feedback.As pointed out, I’m not from the U.K. so the concept of inbound/outbound days doesn’t apply here at all.On a related point, I have looked at long sail/rail combinations such as Thurso-Fishguard-Rosslare, but while there is a route I think it’s not possible to do it within a single day, even when leaving Thurso on the first train of the day. I think I can get as far as somewhere in south Wales before everything shuts down for the night and then have to wait for the train to Fishguard in order to get the boat.While it would probably not cause any problem in practice as I would have a valid point to point ticket, I think the terms officially say that you have to take the boat the same day as the train and this wouldn’t be the case for this trip.z
You could always consider changing your flight to one that lands where you want to be . . . and then start your train travels from there.Realistically, if I was landing somewhere as large/busy as CDG at 1030 and had to pick up bags and go through immigration I wouldn’t plan on being land-side with my luggage until after 1200. Anything earlier would be a bonus, but I wouldn’t plan my travels around it. I wouldn’t plan on being in Paris (Gare de l’Est or Gare du Nord) before 1245. And getting to Gare de Lyon - 1330. You may be lucky. You may be unlucky.As per rvdborgt above - book what you think is achievable, allow time for unexpected delays getting through an airport the size of CDG and getting across a city the size of Paris, include time for something to eat, value your stress-free time more than the €20 for the reservation, arrive in Zurich fresh and ready to face paying €7 for a coffee.
Just for clarification, in case you were asking what the letters meant - it’s generally an abbreviation of “not applicable”, as in “there is no applicable ticket or fare that you can buy”In this case and based on the comment from thibcabe, it is probably intended to mean “not available”. Subtle difference, but same outcome - they can’t or won’t sell it to you.
First - thanks for reminding me about the strike. We will be passing through Germany later this week and back the following week, so this reminded me to check all the options. I think we will be OK though.Second - you need set your priorities very clearly in order to decide the best option. If it was me bringing my family on a holiday then I would change plans, refund the hotels and head from France to Switzerland/Austria as suggested above. You don’t need (or want) to be reliant on a network that is on strike if you have a pass that lets you change country at will.Given the season that’s in it, the ride from Zurich to Innsbruck should give you some great views of the alps. Plus, you get to add another country to your list as the train passes through Liechtenstein. And finally . . . once you are in Austria, the connection up to Munich should be much more achievable so you you can still get your flight to Dublin.However, if Germany is an absolute must (like because your family cam
Hi I am travelling to Europe tomorrow with my daughter using an interail pass. I have activated my pass but I have no journeys to add as this has all been done by my daughter. Will this be a problem, how does this work when I have no journeys on my pass? It doesn’t work. You need the trips on your pass as well as your daughter needing them on her pass. A pass with nothing on it is not valid for travel.The fix is easy though - just add the journeys Or give the phone to your daughter, buy her a treat and ask her to enter them.
Will Rhätische Bahn (Bernina Express) honor the Eurail-booked seat reservation? If you want a definitive answer then ask them. They run the train.Why would you have any expectation that they wouldn’t honour the reservation, any more than DB would honour one, or NS, or SNCF or any of the other European carriers?If you want helpful context and explanations from other travelers then ask here but remember that people can’t read your mind. This forum is not a travel agency or a paid information system, it’s a community.
Did this guy give you any sort of receipt or anything, or just pocket the cash?As everyone has said above, there’s no such rule so he can only have been trying a wheeze to extract money.
That’s a very broad request. You might want to narrow it down a bit.You can start with the easy bit - most large city centres aren’t going to have campsites simply by virtue of being cities where land is expensive. There will be some, for sure. But I think you possibly need to focus more on where you want to go in terms of regions and *then* see where there are campsites within easy reach of train stations.z
@ralderton I think we agree on a couple of the points - including that the app is too tied to the old paper process and needs an overhaul and a redesign to be more like an app and less like a paper ticket. I didn’t intend to criticise people (like you and me) who provide advice or saying the advice was wrong, I was just saying that there are a number of avoidable problems like this that come up over and over on these forums and which cause genuine problems and concern for travelers. People can continue to provide good advice here, but that’s not going to help the future travelers who don’t know the forum exists and just expect an electronic ticket to behave the way an electronic ticket should behave.
I do not know who rated this topic as ‘solved’ because it is not. And who rated an answer as ‘best answer ‘ because it is not. Many community members keep saying “ there is no need” : No there is not. But the way it works it is an obligation, not a choice. And always the same phrase: ‘ if you accidentally….’. The point is: it seems that a travel day is taken out off your account before you start travelling if you activate your pass in advance. That should not happen. Must say that the service team was very fast and helpful in addressing this problem. Hi Laika,I agree with you that a lot of the answers to this sort of question start off by telling people that they absolutely, definitely, 100% should not press the button until the day they intend to travel, when the button/function should have no bearing at all on anything until a traveler has a specific train on a specific day entered.We can see from the sheer number of people with this sort of question that this causes confusion to
There is no one specific day. Different operators release the tickets at different times, so it’s just a matter of checking and checking.One important thing - from what I have heard, the data for the rail planner app is not updated very frequently. I think I saw that it was once a month or so. On these timescales that’s too long for you to wait.You should check with the national operators website as they will be the most authoritative and normally the most up to date. Alternatively, check out bahn.de for timings as they are normally very reliable. You can see the specific days of running of most trains on the bahn.de interface and that’s very useful. For example it might say “runs every day 07 October to 09 December, not 10-15 November.” This will give you an idea of the running pattern of the train, although you can’t be sure of anything (or book it) until the operator has actually released their timetable.Just to set expectations, most operators should have their timetables up
Further to my message above about the NJ trains from Paris & Brussels to Vienna - pricing is now up for Brussels to Vienna on the same days (Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday) as the Paris trains, whereas a few days back it was showing trains departing (but not yet bookable) 6 days a week. This is consistent with the original update from Brendan, which I wish I had studied in more detail when planning out my January trip.This is just by way of saying that while many timetable changes for existing routes are relatively minor, some like these sleepers involve changing the days they run on and so are relatively major.
Here’s something to be aware of. It’s sort of hinted in Brendans initial post, but to make it explicit - the days that the Paris-Salzburg-Vienna train runs is changing in early December. The train no longer departs Paris on a Friday evening. It has moved to Saturday.The result for me is a bit of rescheduling (since I was expecting to get the train in Paris on Friday to be in Austria for skiing on Saturday).At the moment nightjet.com shows that NJ40425 departs Brussels on Friday 5th January (and also Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday, but not Sunday), whereas NJ469 is shown as only departing Paris on Saturday 6th, Tuesday & Thursdays.
The answer can depend on which type of ticket you have.If you have a 3 month pass then you can activate it on the 4th, not use it for the next 20 days and then use it for the 2 months and 10 days after that.If you have a 15 day pass, then you aren't going to be able to use it at any time after you arrive on the 24th which is 5 days after your pass validity expires. Arrive earlier or get a refund and buy a new one which will start later.If you have an X days in 1 month pass then you need to do the maths and see how your itinerary fits in with the remaining count of valid days and the ultimate expiry of the pass.
Yes, as indicated above it is normally very clearly marked on the outside. The last thing the train companies want is people getting on the wring carriage and having to drag all their luggage through the train to the correct carriage.In practice there are normally 2 ways to tell which is 1st and which is 2nd.On the door, close to the open/close button there will be a big “1” or “2”. Possibly a “1/2” if the carriage contains both, although this is less common on long distance trains. The roof-line of the carriage will have a yellow stripe for 1st class, so you can see from a distance as the train pulls into the platform which ones are 1st and which are 2nd. You can see the yellow stripe on the front 2 carriages in this image below.And finally, often there will be train layout posters on the platform billboards showing the normal formation of trains showing car numbers, platform location (look for big “A”, “B”, “C”, etc . . . signs on the platform), and car class.In reality, there’s n
I would be interested to hear the outcome of this. I almost had a similar situation last year, but in the end I made my connection. Leaving Cologne at something like 0900, I eventually arrived in Milan around 2300, having spent all but about 15-20 minutes on trains, with tight connections at Basel and Zurich, instead of an hour in Basel and 4 or 5 in Zurich as planned.Right until I got the train in Zurich (after arriving 3 or 4 minutes earlier) I didn’t know whether I was going to need to book a hotel for the night in Zurich, and whether or not I should cancel my hotel in Milan. It was hairy, to say the least.I assumed that CIV rules would cover this in some way (they were CIV tickets from Germany to Switzerland and Switzerland to Italy) but had no idea how I was going to actually enforce it/get reimbursed.The situation was a little unreal - after going down the west bank of the Rhine for a couple of hours, the train reversed direction because of line issues, went all the way back u
The global pass is effectively valid on “national” train routes, but not urban ones. As a result of this, some intra-city routes are covered in many cities.Your best bet is to put the route you want to travel into the app and select the ‘Interrail/Eurorail Pass network only’ option. If it gives you a route then you are covered.For example, in London you can travel from London Bridge to Kings Cross/St. Pancras in a number of ways. Some of them are covered by the pass, some are not. You can go on the Northen line of the tube, but this won’t be covered. Or you can go on Thameslink and it will be covered.
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