Best thing I ever did tbh. Went for 6 weeksin 2010 between July/August and spent about 2/3 days in each place. Flew from East Midlands to Paris and then went
Paris, France
Bruge, Belgium
Brussels, Belgium
Koln, Germany
Munich, Germany
Vienna, Austria
Praha, Czech
Ljubiana, Slovenia
Opatija, Croatia
Zagreb, Croatia
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Belgrade, Serbia
Budapest, Hungary
Krakow, Poland
Warszawa, Poland
Berlin, Germany
Gotenburg, Sweden
Stockholm, Sweden
Olso, Norway
If you are starting in France I was say delay the start of your interail ticket until you are out of France, This is because there is not much of a discount using your interail ticket. We delayed it for 2 days, paid out of our own pocket for the TGV train to Belgium and used the interail ticket for an extra day in Norway.
I have to say Berlin is the best western City I went to, good transport, clean lots to do. Cheap.
The further East you go the cheaper your try gets, (apart from Poland).
Sarajevo is a hidden secret, I would go and also visit Lake Bled, very very nice. You can go swimming in the lake and if you like the countryside this is very good.
If you like European beer, weissen, pilsner, then Munich is the place to go, and so is Brussels.
We wanted to go to split/Zadar but we didn’t have much time. (only one train in and out and it is from Zagreb the capital so it is a two day trip just to get there and back. Zagreb is abit boring we were there for 2 & ½ days and that was more than enough.
Hungary has all the spars and rome baths which we visited, very nice experience cost about £15 but you can stay in there all day.
Sarajevo, this was decided to go when we was in Praha on a drunk night so we went after Croatia. Still showing the scars of the 1990 war and when you get on the train you think omg why did I come here. But when you go to the old part of the city, it is very very nice modern highstreet, mixed with the old restaurants. Extremely cheap, you can have a beer for 50p and a three course meal for £5.00.
If you’re in Germany, Praha, and Austria use A&O Hotels, they are pretty large in these countries, and reasonably price. You also met some really nice people. You also get 10% discount if you book in the hotels for another city.
Don’t always think hotels are cheaper because they are not. We mainly used hotelworld.com & hostels.com. The latter also has hotels on which we got some pretty cheap 4* hotels on our journey which were cheaper than the hostels. (E.g. Hungary the hotel has recently been renovated and there was still small amounts of work going on so we got cheap rooms)
Notes.
• Took a 35 litre bag and that was plenty for 6 weeks, washed clothes in hotels, and I have to say that was probably two much. 5 t shirts, 3 shorts, socks, underwear, coat, money, spare trainers, phone, touch. It does get heavier with time trust me.
• Take some games, cards, uno, to play on the train as these can get abit boring sometimes
• Always carry a drink/snacks such a life saver.
• MP3 player is a must
• I got all my cash before I went and ‘stashed’ it in various places. Took one card for emergency. (Nationwide was the best for this, free withdrawals and good exchange rates)
• DO NOT PLAN THE WHOLE TRIP. We planned 2 weeks, and we knew we need to be in Olso for flights home at a certain date. This made it easy to go with the flow and more exciting
• Try and get night trains, they can be very fun, drink, party with other travellers. You then don’t waste your days travelling.
• Deutsche Bahn website is your holy grail. If the train is not on their it doesn’t exist 99% of the time.
• TAKE A CAMERA. Capture the memorys
• 99% of the hostels have internet so you can book your next hostel before you leave the latter. I fnot there are always internet cafes. Wi-Fi hotspots.
I really want to do it again but I now have a job in the real world. I would like to do Finland/Russia and then down the Baltic countries to Turkey.
Hope this helps
