Latest news with #Interrailing
Euronews
27-04-2025
- Euronews
‘I'm glad we didn't fly': How I Interrailed across Europe with my two kids
ADVERTISEMENT 'Why can't we just fly there?' my youngest questions as we stand on the platform waiting for our train to Paris. I'm about to go Interrailing with my husband and two children, aged eight and 11. I have never done this before. My youth was misspent hopping between beach huts in Southeast Asia, not trains in Europe. But long-haul flights for four are expensive, and I'm now more conscious of the environmental impact of flying. Plus, Interrail passes are very cost-effective for families. Kids under 12 travel free, and ticket prices are fixed year-round. 'Train travel will be more fun!' I say. 'No hanging about in the airport, more room to move around, and flexibility to change plans if we want to.' Airports conjure up visions of queues, restrictions and long, uncomfortable journeys, while travelling by train feels far more civilised. It seems others agree. Train travel is experiencing a renaissance, with more people opting to take to the rails . There are more routes than ever to enjoy, too, with the EU's high-speed network nearly doubling in a decade , along with the revival of night trains.** How to plan a cross-European rail journey with kids Our route takes in France, Germany, Croatia and Austria, with most of our holiday centred in Slovenia, a country I've longed to visit for a while. Slovenia is one of the greenest countries in the world, so it's a fitting tribute to venture here by one of the most environmentally friendly forms of transport. Related Coolcations: Why more people are flocking to destinations in Norway, Finland and Iceland this summer New Madrid-Lisbon high-speed train to cut journey time from 10 hours to three Travelling by train instead of flying cuts individual carbon emissions by up to 90 per cent. However, booking cross-border train travel can be more challenging than opting for a flight. Along with a myriad of different country and route options, juggling different operators, navigating which routes need seat reservations and still have availability, plus ensuring the itinerary isn't too intense for kids, becomes rather mind-boggling. The Interrail and Seat61 websites are invaluable in helping smooth out our trip planning woes. For those less inclined to DIY, there's Byway, a company specialising in organising flight-free trips. Spying mountains out of the window. Kate Lewis Plans are also underway to improve European rail travel, and the EU is working towards a unified cross-European booking system to simplify the whole process. Seat reservations open up to three months in advance, so make sure you book early if you want to sit together. When you're planning your itinerary, it's a good idea to space out longer journeys too, to prevent kids from getting overwhelmed. When it comes to accommodation, apartments are also often cheaper and easier for families. And while you are on the train, a bit of preparation can save you a lot of headaches down the line. Download movies or TV shows to watch in advance as WiFi can be patchy and expensive. Many trains lack decent food options as well, so make sure you pack some snacks. Trains are a luxury compared to overnight economy flights Planning now well behind us, we ease into train travel with a short first journey. Eurostar whisks us from London to Paris, where we bed down in a cosy Parisian apartment. In the morning, fuelled by warm flaky croissants, we hop on the metro to Parc de La Villette, a fantastic family-friendly urban park in the northeast of the capital and wander back slowly along Canal St. Martin to Gare de l'Est for our onward journey—first to Stuttgart and then overnight to Zagreb. ADVERTISEMENT Waiting for a train at Zagred Station. Kate Lewis The novelty factor is still high, and my two children love sitting on the upper deck of the German train. 'It travels at 199 miles an hour!' exclaims my eldest, tackling a giant pretzel. Jaws drop when they find out that some Swiss trains have playgrounds on board . Travelling overnight by train is also unique. Our private couchette had six small bunks, a lockable door and a bottle of water and a croissant each. Some of the newer sleeper trains have showers and room service on board, though I'm selective in who I divulge this information to in case the kids feel like they're missing out. Either way, it's luxury compared to flying economy class overnight, and still a fraction of the price. And boarding just 15 minutes before departure? A dream. Cable cars and wacky museums in Zagreb We wake to softly falling snow in Austria before rattling alongside ice-cold rivers towards Zagreb, Croatia's overlooked capital. The city greets us with a blast — quite literally — as the Gric cannon fires its daily noon salute from the Lotrščak Tower, a tradition that's held strong since 1877. ADVERTISEMENT Zagreb's quirks are further unveiled as we admire grand Austro-Hungarian façades rubbing shoulders with Brutalist buildings, a pretty botanical garden adjacent to graffitied walls, and damaged steps patched up with colourful mosaic tiles. There are nearly 50 weird and wonderful museums here too, covering everything from broken relationships to hangovers. We plump for the more kid-appropriate museum of laughter, the Ha Ha House, with its upside-down rooms and distorted mirrors. Our friend Ivo tells us Mount Medvicnica, to the north of the city, is a beloved part of Zagreb, so we board a cable car and ride dizzyingly high up to explore its trails. Related These tracking holidays offer 'total immersion' into the world of Europe's wolves From rising rents to rewilding: How tourists are rethinking their impact on the places they visit 'On Mondays, people will ask if you made it into the hills. If you did, it means you had a good weekend. Good moods are found up there,' he says. ADVERTISEMENT Moods are good back on board the train, too. The rhythmic clickety-clack of old carriages and the ever-changing European landscapes unfolding are soporific and soothing. We settle into the enforced downtime easily with Uno battles, books and a little bit of screen time. A young interrailer remarks that our trip is ''so cool,' and my boys grin, chuffed they have impressed her. The urban sprawl of Zagreb soon gives way to forested hills, wide turquoise rivers, and clusters of houses on the hills. 'Look! A mountain! With snow!' shouts my youngest, as we forge into Slovenia. Fairytale castles and crowd-free skiing in Slovenia Slovenia's enchanting capital, Ljubljana, is instantly likeable. A compact, car-free centre of cobbled streets and café-lined riverbanks, it's made for wandering. Trees are in blossom everywhere when we arrive. We stretch our legs further in Ljubljana's prettiest public space, Tivoli Park, before stomping up to the medieval castle's viewing tower for sweeping views of the winding River Ljubljanica and the red-roofed city. ADVERTISEMENT At Bled, we bike ride around Slovenia's most famous lake, admiring the fairytale cliff-top castle and 15th-century Gothic church marooned on a tiny central island. Lake Bohinj in Slovenia. Kate Lewis But it is Bohinj we truly fall for. It's quieter and wilder. There's no station here, so more effort is needed to reach it. Better for us, I think, as we canoe through water as clear as glass on Lake Bohinj, with only the surrounding mountains for company. Late afternoons bring the fresh mountain air and the kitesurfers, so we head home for thick hot chocolate and Bled cake, a cream and calorie-filled local pastry, which tastes as good as it looks. Central to Bohinj are the mountains, and we are lucky enough to catch the tail end of the ski season at Vogel, 1535m above the lake. My husband takes off to enjoy the crowd-free slopes alone, and a one-to-three ski lesson enables my boys and me to wobble down a blissfully quiet blue run by mid-afternoon. ADVERTISEMENT The boys are hooked. As the cable car carries us silently back up into the peaceful snowy peaks for another slow descent, we plot our return. Alas, it is finally time to leave. Valleys become steeper and mountains loom larger as Slovenia moves aside for Austria. Fluffy clouds scud across the blue sky as we whizz through the dramatic alpine landscape. 'We'd miss seeing all this going by plane,' my husband says. Vogel in Slovenia. Kate Lewis After a fleeting stop in Salzburg, where we eyeball Mozart's birthplace and play at the rather excellent Spielzeug Museum (toy museum), our journey takes us via Stuttgart back home to the UK. Breaking off another bit of Austrian chocolate, just to check it still tastes good, my youngest muses, 'In the end, I'm glad we didn't fly.' High praise indeed. ADVERTISEMENT Train travel was provided by
The Guardian
22-04-2025
- The Guardian
It turns out you're never too old to go Interrailing around Europe
Youth might not be wasted on the young, but for the longest time I thought Interrailing was. When I was a student, as the 1980s became the 1990s, many of my friends took the opportunity to discover Europe by train and they all returned with amazing stories of discovery. But for long-forgotten reasons, it was something I was always going to do but never actually got round to. And then suddenly I was in my late 20s and reluctantly resigned myself to never doing it, having been reliably informed by so many people that it was an opportunity only open to those under the age of 26. Fast forward a few decades to spring 2023 and I'm trying to decide where to take my teenage children for our first holiday in five years – a gap caused largely, but not wholly, by the pandemic. My most memorable childhood holiday had come in 1981 when, over the course of a few days, my dad drove my family and our caravan from Nottingham to Pisa. I still remember the incredible feeling of my horizons broadening overnight. I'd love to give my children a similar experience, except I don't drive. And then I start to see excitable posts from a Facebook friend about his family Interrail trip from Edinburgh to Slovenia and back. 'But … but … he's too old for that,' I thought to myself, before the penny belatedly dropped and I hastily checked out the Interrail (Eurail for non-European residents) website. And there, 30 years late, I finally discovered the truth: the age restriction is long gone. And nobody had thought to tell me! People older than 26 can still go Interrailing! Yes, it's marginally more expensive, but hardly prohibitively so. So I cobbled together an itinerary and a few weeks later my two sons and I set out on a voyage of discovery. It was such a success that we did it again (to different places) in summer 2024. In short, Interrailing was a revelation – for me and for my children. Any doubts I may have had about travel broadening the mind were quickly dispelled when, on the first day of our first trip, I saw my elder son's sheer amazement at the way the departure boards on the metro in Brussels differed from those on London's tube, or – a few days later – my younger son's delight at seeing Berlin zoo's giant pandas. There were mishaps along the way: some homesickness in Vienna; a spectacular inability to read a weather forecast and then dress accordingly in Prague; a poorly child in Bergen necessitating a tour of the city's chemists rather than a nearby national park. But more often, what initially seemed to be a major problem turned out to be an opportunity to discover fresh wonders. When I was too spontaneous with our travel plans for Deutsche Bahn's liking and realised that I'd left it too late to book us on to the Hamburg-Kolding train, I was terrified that we might not get to Legoland Denmark, very much the jewel in the crown of my younger son's trip. This would have been a dereliction of duty I feared might be unforgivable. But there was a slower, more sedate alternative to the Hamburg-Copenhagen express – which proved to be an absolute delight, wending its way across the hypnotically flat Schleswig-Holstein countryside and necessitating briefly changing on to seemingly the world's tiniest train in Tønder, Denmark's answer to Gretna Green. It took us several hours longer, but seeing parts of northern Germany and western Denmark that were far off the beaten (railway) track felt like an adventure in itself. That ability to glimpse Europe's more obscure spots is one of the massive advantages Interrailing has over air travel, where you're whisked from one interchangeable airport to another, going from your home city to the tourist destination of your choice and skipping all that lies in between – the beautiful, the bleak, the places that understandably don't appear in guidebooks, the messy thrill of actual real life – and seeing only the sanitised endpoints. And so, unlike air travel, where the transit element of a holiday is at best a soul-sapping chore in consumerism hell, the actual journeys were as much a part of the holiday as any of our destinations, whether we were on the Oslo-Bergen line, which is habitually – and rightly – described as one of the most scenic in Europe, or the Zutphen-Hengelo line in the eastern Netherlands, which is not, but did have the bonus of a garrulous passenger keen to know my children's views on Brexit (they had many) and the state of Belgium's roads (they had none). (For the record, he was a fan of neither.) That slower pace of travel brings other benefits, too: it's hard to get a grip on how vast and varied Europe is when you can fly over it in the time it takes to digest an airport sandwich. By train it can take almost a full day just to cross Germany. That pace affords a greater connection with your surroundings. As a series of trains gradually took us north from Calais to Oslo last summer, we could watch as the architecture of churches and houses changed; as oak slowly gave way to beech to spruce to white birch; as cedillas on signs were replaced by umlauts and then overrings. Sign up to This is Europe The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans – from identity to economics to the environment after newsletter promotion It offers a wholly different view of Europe in all its vibrant diversity, and my children are hooked, even planning their own future itineraries for when they're old enough to travel without this particular chaperone. Until then, no prizes for guessing what we're doing this summer. I may have been too old for Club 18-30 long before it was pensioned off, but, as I have belatedly realised, you're never too old to go Interrailing. Phil Mongredien is a production editor on Guardian Opinion and Long Reads
