Interrail tour 22 days europe- advice/hints/no-gos/general bubble bursts

one more thing:

we said we'd like to do a couple of days cycling around the lakes (lugano, Locarno etc).

anyone been there? places to stay, eat, drink, cycle?

is it worth it,apparently it's really nice

cheers

Well, James,
It is very ambitious, but doable in a general sense. You will see over the course of the trip how it goes and adjust accordingly.

One big question I have is about the bikes. I assume you will be bringing them from home. Are you taking the Eurostar to Paris from London? You should look at restrictions on carrying bikes not just on Eurostar but on trains in general. I think you might find that you won't be able to bring bikes on some trains and I believe you will almost always pay a baggage fee for the bikes on trains. I haven't done it, though; maybe others here have direct experience with this.

Also, having a bike in a city like Paris will not necessarily be an advantage. While you could use it and it would give you some unique mobility options, I think it might be kind of a pain to have to find a place to store it all the time. Also, it is so easy to get around Paris by bus or metro even if you are not familiar with the city; the maps are easy to use. But if you use a bike to get around, you will have to follow the street maps very carefully.

I'm not saying having bikes is a bad idea, just that you will have to plan ahead carefully and make sure what to expect. Another option might be to go without the bikes and just rent them for the day in certain locations. I'm sure you can find info on bike rentals in certain places.

Remember to figure train time into your itinerary. A trip like Paris to Bern will take all day by the time you get ready to leave Paris until you are in your hotel in Bern. Not much time left in that day for seeing Bern. Figure one whole travel day when changing locations.

Badger,

on the subject of bikes, we figured that they'd be really useful to save on metro/bus costs in cities, and we're going to be taking such cheap bikes that if there is a problem with taking it on a train, we can just ditch it somewhere. we've done some research on bahn and it looks like, on most of the routes anyway, bikes are ok. its not really a biggie though, we were literally just gonna pick a 20 quid bike up that works.

as for train times, we're planning to do as many night journeys as poss, mostly to maximise time but also to keep hotel costs down a bit. for example, we can get an overnight train to bern in the evening of our second eve in paris, then have the whole next day in bern..

Thanks!

and we like to be ambitious..

OK. James. Well, it seems you have thought it through and that's all I was advising.

Have you taken night trains before? After doing it a couple of times, you might feel like rethinking it. You don't get much sleep on a night train and you have to be wary of thieves. Just some things to think about. As I said, you can adjust over the course of the trip when you see what works for you.

Have a great trip.

No never, so thanks for the advice there. obviously we weren't planning on doing it all the way anyway. as you say, we'll see what happens and adjust a bit i'm sure

thanks for the thoughts
x

on the CONTInent citybuses tipically cost about 1-1,50 eur/ride. Its NOt London here!
its is FAR more difficult to take bikes as youthink; f.e. in FR in main season can ONLY take them with you on LOCAL trains, on long-dist expresses (=incl nite-trains) they MUST be sent separately, and this may add days to get them over, and always complaints about damage. In Paris there are now FREE bikes, but you need a card to retrieve them.
Nitetrains are not as bad as #4 states, but in summer the main hazard is too many young people all out at doing a goodtime=drink to much, some guitar, etc. this was the InterRail spirit years ago.....
in my language there is a very good website explaining the whole lot for bikers, by the bikers association, but I guess you breeteesh are too monoglot to understand it

Some more thoughts on lugging around bikes:

• as bmta has already pointed out, note that the Paris city council offers bikes for nearly free, take a look at this page: Velib .

• if I remember correctly, your bike needs to be stored in a bag when travelling with either Eurostar or TGV-trains, so add this to your costs.

• do you have inquired where these shops are located where you can buy a used bike for 20 quid (especially in Switzerland)?

• you'll hardly need a bike in places like Bern, Bologna or Cesky Krumlov, but maybe that's just me.

• as far as I know, there are some rather hefty fees for taking bikes on a nighttrain, e.g. the Prague - Brussels train will charge 15 Euros.

All in all, why don't you just do what most people do and rent bikes when you actually need them? This will a) very likely be cheaper, b) easier (pick-up/drop-off) and c) provide you with neat bikes whereever you are...

P.S. A daypass for the Prague public transport system costs less than 3 GBP, and not much more in most of the other places you mentioned, so I doubt you'll save money buying a bike.

The one night plan will not give you time to see but maybe one museum, castle, err wuttever. And what if you get ther near closing time?

I wind up staying three most often. Partially because I make a friend or two. And want to hear more of what they have to teach me. You'll hear more on the road than you knew exzisted.