September 30th
I packed for the final time, thank God, and went through the moving out routine. I checked the sockets for our phone chargers, looked under the bed for odd socks and made sure I had my passport (several times). All my travelling worldly goods were squeezed into the little suitcase and my rucksack, and off we went, again.
At the Bahnhof we stocked up with food for the journey, and German bakeries are really good. Then we spent the rest of the day on trains:
- Nuremberg to Frankfurt
- Frankfurt to Brussels
- Brussels to St Pancras
- St Pancras to Waterloo
- Waterloo to Whitton
We got home at about 8.30, dragging our little wheelie suitcases back on a very familiar route from Whitton Station back to our home of 39 years.
Postscript
People always ask “what was your favourite bit of the holiday”. The most beautiful day was the journey from Chur to Tirano through the middle of the Alps on the route of the Bernina Express. We travelled over 196 bridges and through 55 tunnels, its is an incredible engineering experience with the best views I have ever seen.
An unexpectedly wonderful experience was Bamberg, a town I hadn’t heard of until a couple of months ago. It has so many preserved old buildings, there is almost too much to take it. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and so are the Upper Middle Rhine, Venice, and the Bernina Express route. So we ticked off four UWHTs in a single holiday. Beat that Palin!
The best meal I had was a fantastic fish risotto in Venice, and the best wine was an Austrian Gruner Veltliner. The beer I enjoyed the most was the Union lager, which is the standard beer in Ljubljana. The best breakfast I had was a toss-up between the Eggs Benedict at the Petite Cafe in Ljubliana, or the Burek at the Trubar cafe. So Ljubljana wins on points for the best food and drink altogether.
The best flat for sheer convenience was in Ljubljana once again, because it was right in the middle of the Old Town. So like school kids, we could go home for lunch. A close second was the flat in Trieste where the hosts left little helpful notes all over the flat and actually gave us two bus tickets.
Useful Tips for Interrail Travellers
- Research your destinations thoroughly before you go, so you have an idea of where to go before you leave.
- Stay as close to the city centre or old town as you can afford. You don’t want to walk for miles or get a bus into town if you can avoid it.
- Always visit the Tourist Information to pick up paper maps and find out if there are any festivals or other events going on.
- Take a water bottle with you, if you are walking around on a sunny day it is thirsty work. Dehydration can happen without you feeling particularly thirsty, as I have found out to me cost.
- Get to the station half an hour before the train leaves so you can find the right platform, buy snack and have a pee.
- Have small change available so you can pay for a toilet.
- Have a phone SIM that includes European roaming, and take a battery pack for long days out when you are using Google Maps a lot.
Altogether we travelled 2,916 miles (4,693 Km) by train over the course of a month and spent 59 hours on trains. we also travelled for about 7 hours by Flixbus in Croatia and Slovenia, because there were no trains.
Brucie Bonus
A few days before the end of our trip we both got alerts from Interrail that they had a sale on for next year. Tickets for a month were half price, just £353 for a month of rail travel in Europe, First Class! So we are off to the Baltics and Scandinavia next year, you only live once.
