Regarding the Eurail pass, from what I was reading on their website, if you buy a pass, it's 1st class unless you get the 'young people' pass, which I don't qualify for.
Unfortunately I need to put off the whole Eurail planning for several months due to a lack of schedules and the fact the passes are only good for 6 months. Still, we'll be back to that. And will probably be talking to you about it.Statistics: Posted by Satis — Wed Sep 22, 2010 5:47 am
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Statistics: Posted by derf — Mon Sep 20, 2010 6:48 pm
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Eurail is a good idea and should cut down quite a bit on gast and car rental costs. Try to take 1st class passes if they aren't THAT much more expensive than the regular ones. You should generally speaking be fine in 2nd class as long as you don't travel the peak commuting hours as it tends to be really ok in terms of comfort in North and Western Europe. If you'd go to Italy, Spain, Greece or other Southern countries like that I wouldn't advise you to travel second class though.
There are plenty of regular-service international intercity trains that you should be able to board without any real sort of supplement on your eurail pass. I myself travel almost daily on the Brussels-Antwerp-Rotterdam-Amsterdam intercity train (although I only do the Brussels-Antwerp part).
But you may want to consider the Thalys trains to save time. They travel on the line Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam which includes Antwerp too. They cost a little extra on the Eurail pass apparently (http://www.eurail.com/eurail-high-speed-thalys) but you can take 2nd class with them no worries since they are pretty sweet trains comfort-wise.
This is more or less what second class looks likeBut what's better is the travel time:
Paris - Amsterdam: 3.20 hours
Paris - Antwerp 2 hours
Apparently you even have internet on them:
All Thalys trains offer Wi-fi internet. The service is free for first class passengers. Passengers in second class pay €6.50 (US$10) for an hour of Wi-fi connection or €13 (US$20) for the entire trip.
Might be a good way to pass the journey.
As for Hungary-Austria-Croatia-Italy(-Prague?) etc plan...that should be a lot cheaper than traveling Western Europe. So you may not have to be a millionaire before getting there!
Statistics: Posted by Rinox — Mon Sep 20, 2010 2:01 am
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Statistics: Posted by Satis — Sun Sep 19, 2010 12:24 pm
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Amsterdam is nice of course, lots of different things to see/to do.
Don't expect too much from the weather at the end of march either (but i guess you knew that).
Statistics: Posted by J — Sun Sep 19, 2010 1:39 am
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FYI, we're planning on doing future trips to Europe to cover 'the rest'. We're thinking a trip to Ireland/England, and a trip to Austria/Italy/Croatia/Hungary areas. Now I just need to find that job so I can actually afford it.
Statistics: Posted by Satis — Sat Sep 18, 2010 6:17 pm
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We are going to...
Frankfurt
Antwerp
Paris
We want to go one more place, but are somewhat torn as to where. Any suggestions? We were thinking Luxembourg, Zurich, or
Amsterdam. Luxembourg and Zurich would be after Paris and bring us in most of a circle back to Frankfurt for our flight out. Amsterdam just sounds nice.
We eliminated Italy because of the distance, and we definitely wanted to see Ox, so Belgium was a no-brainer. Since we were heading west from Frankfurt anyway, it made sense to go to Paris after... I've been already, but wouldn't mind seeing the Louvre and checking out the night life. Shiny's never been and at least wants to see the Eiffel tower and the Louvre. Anyway, right now we're trying to figure out our 4th destination city, then we're going to plan out exactly what we're doing and where we're staying.
Statistics: Posted by Satis — Sat Sep 18, 2010 6:05 pm
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