'Eurailing' in Eastern Europe

Earlier last year, my family decided to let me to put into motion a trip I had proposed two years earlier. It was trip I had dreamed of doing, and I had spent many hours researching and planning. But when I finally told my family about it, the idea was turned down by my brother on the grounds that he wanted a beach holiday. Instead we travelled to Portugal and basked in the glorious Algarve sun. Last summer, with my brother preparing to start university, my parents thought it would be a good time to do my trip, since my brother had no obligation to come with us. So, I began to plan and research all over again. Once the trip started to take shape, my brother decided he would join us.

The exciting thing about this holiday - as well as the fact that a lot of the organising was down to me - was that we would be travelling between a few different countries. We have driven from Germany to Denmark before, but this felt different. We wouldn't be returning to where we left. We would just hop on a train and move on to our next destination. The plan was to go Eurailing, but once I started looking into Eurail passes, I soon realised that it would be much cheaper to just buy the local train tickets. I suppose it might be worth purchasing a pass if you are a student travelling around the whole of Europe, but we would only be visiting four countries, which meant we would only be taking three trains, and that definitely wasn't worth it.

Depending on where you are travelling to, it is sometimes better to buy the train tickets at the station. You can buy them online beforehand to be safe, and not have to risk the train being full, but this can sometimes result in you paying extra. I would recommend you read about how busy different lines/times are, to see whether it is worth the risk. We ended up buying all of our tickets the evening or morning before boarding our trains, and everything worked out smoothly.

Our first destination was Prague. I had heard very little about Prague, I knew a few people who had visited but I didn't know much about the city itself. If you want to read about our stay in this magical city, there will be a blog post up very soon (I will link it here). We were flying into Václav Havel, Prague's only (civil) airport. We were arriving in at around 9.30am, and the airport was already bustling. We took the Airport Express bus, which runs between the airport and Hlavni Nadrazi (Prague's main train station). The bus stop was fairly easy to find, when you walk out of the airport doors the bus terminals are just across the road and to the right. The trouble was finding which bus stop was ours. We tried to read the signs but there were no English options - I respect them keeping their own language, but we were at an airport (with lots of tourists arriving in), and Czech isn't too similar to many other languages.

We ended up finding our stop but having to ask a local about tickets and prices. They were very kind and told us we could pay on the bus. The bus was busy and very hot, since the windows were efficiently locked when the air conditioning was on - but the air conditioning didn't work. Despite this, it was a very good way into the city centre (as well as being the easiest and the cheapest). We were caught in city traffic which delayed our swift entry, but it gave us the chance to get some good first impressions of Prague. Once at the station, we left our rucksacks in some very handy lockers (our AirBnB check-in was later in the day) and began to explore. (You can read my Prague post for more on our stay in the city).

Our next stop was Vienna. We were planning on getting the 9am train, but it was actually booked up, so we had to catch the 6am one. This is an example of a busy train where you might want to consider booking in advance, and I am not surprised it was sold out considering it was a 9am weekday train between two capital cities. The platform was very easy to find and we got on our train without any problems. Since we were leaving at 6am, we were able to wave goodbye to Prague under a beautiful sunrise. The journey was roughly four hours, and it took us through the Czech countryside, passing little rural villages. We arrived in Vienna at around 10am, and the heat was already sweltering. We walked to our AirBnB and enjoyed this sophisticated city for the next four days. You can read my blog post on Vienna very soon.

Next, was Bratislava. We had originally considered travelling between the two cities on the Twin City Liner (Vienna and Bratislava are the closest capital cities in Europe, connected by the Danube River), and despite the extra cost we were ready to pay for the boating experience until we read some bad reviews not recommending it. So the train it was. We didn't rush our last morning in Vienna, but instead had a nice relaxing one before taking the tram to the train station at around 11am. We went to the ticket office and there was an enormous queue, so we bought our tickets from a machine. The times weren't very clear, because there was a different time on the board to our ticket, but everything ended up being alright. The train was only an hour, so we arrived in Bratislava at around midday. The train station we arrived at was quite far out of Bratislava's city centre, so we had to catch a bus into the city. Again, the bus stop was very easy to find as it was just outside the train station and the bus was very quick and efficient. I would definitely recommend this as a means of getting into the city.

Our trip in Bratislava was short but sweet, with the city exceeding all of our expectations. I am hoping to post a blog about this city too. However, from Bratislava our next - and sadly final - destination was Budapest. Despite it being the second longest journey, it flew by just like the beautiful lake-covered landscape. We didn't get a chance to visit any of Hungary's countryside lakes, but from the train journey, I would highly recommend doing so if you get the chance. The train passes through - or near enough to - the village of Tata, and it was tempting to just jump off there! Our train's final destination was the Budapest-Keleti station, a magnificent building - and the first of many we would see during our time in Budapest. It is fairly central and was handily near our Airbnb so no other transport was required, but there is plenty available nearby if needed.

Overall it was a great holiday and well worth taking the time to plan. It may seem tempting to just book a plane and not have to deal with any other complications, but in a time when the planet needs a breath of carbon-free air, the train is a highly underrated form of travel that needs to be popularised. Travelling by train ensures an extra insight into the part of the world you are travelling in, enabling you to see the land between point A and point B. Not to mention the effortlessness of hopping onto a train and avoiding the hassle of airport security, waiting around in departure terminals and passport control queues at the other end. Get your head out of the clouds and travel by land!!

Thank you for reading!

Lucia