Thursday, April 1, 2010

Trains - the Best Way to Travel Across Europe






One of the things that I looked forward to the most during our Euro trip was getting to ride on trains, specifically the high speed trains coz we don't have them in Malaysia. I, for one, have never been on a high speed train before. If I were to describe how excited I was, I would equate it to the feeling of opening my present on Christmas morning.


The landscape that greeted us on our way from Frankfurt to Paris... which was a whole lotta nothing in winter ;)


For me, the Eurail tickets and traveling by train to each country was the best money spent on our mode of transportation (ok, second after scoring really cheap flight tickets). 

Sure, some of you will think that flying would be the cheaper and faster way of traveling between European countries. But we wanted to be able to kick back, relax and enjoy the scenery across Europe (even though there wasn't much to see except snow... but if you come from a country that enjoys only 1 climate all year round, i.e. HOT, snow is awesome! Just ask Hanie ;) )





As we were hitting Germany, France, Austria and Czech Republic, we got "Eurail Select Pass 4 Countries - Flexi" valid for 8 travel days. And the cool thing about getting this Flexi pass was that we were automatically given 1st class seats (it cost us 393 EU per person, so Eurail better bloody hell give us 1st class. hahaha).


Nora hard at work on her laptop ;)



Although we could just hop on and off the train as we like with this Eurail pass, however some trains do require us to reserve seats beforehand, especially for the high speed trains (ICE and TGV trains) and sleeper trains. 


Our sleeper train from Paris to Vienna




Oh, and here's a cool thing about 'em reserved seats - you get a free meal!!


This was our free meal on our ICE train from Frankfurt to Paris. We ate like kings! Ok that's an exaggeration, but compare that with just a bun, this free meal was a feast.


You never have to worry about being hungry on the train. There's always the cafeteria/bar!


When you have Eurail passes, all you ever need is the Eurail schedule book. From the schedule book, you can pretty much plan your journey, such as when you want to check out of your hotel to get to your next destination. It even tells you what time you'll be arriving and at which station... so if you ask me, traveling with Eurail passes is damn convenient and easy.

I would definitely travel across Europe again using Eurail pass again. But maybe next time I'd go on the Scenic Trains routes, like the Centovalli train route in Switzerland.




Here's something to look forward to for our next post. Why did Nora and I ended up folding bed sheets on the  sleeper train?  Did we run out of money and was forced to work on the train in order to not get kicked out in the freezing winter??? Or could it be...? 




Well, looks like you guys will have to come back to find out what happened to us here! ;)