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I do know a local who lives in Tyrol. We met when she lived in my city a few years ago. I'm excited to visit her actually. Just getting to her town is what's frustrating to figure out.
So many of the websites online that offer information about European train schedules and fares actually contradict each other. It's hard to know which website's information is accurate.
ÖBB travel portal That's the homepage of the Austrian ÖBB. When you want to get from Venice to Innsbruck you have to change the train once. The journey takes about 5 hours.
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Originally Posted by Midwest Maven
I'm kinda scared to go up to the Netherlands. I've never been to Colorado which is high altitude and can cause altitude sickness. I know it's a lame reason not to go visit my friend who lives in The Hague, but that's how my mind works: I don't want to experience altitude sickness there. Will I?
At first I wasn't sure if you are serious. It usually kicks in at 2400m above sealevel. The Hague is directly AT the sea.
You won't experience that anywhere in Europe you are planning to go.
Figuring out this trip itinerary is giving me a migraine. Seriously. I really don't know which direction to start my trip?
I did four Interrail trips in total now. The first one was a mess, because we picked to many destinations, pretty much like you. It was still fun, though.
Usually, if we are planning a 1-1.5 month trip, we pick a region first (Iberian Peninsula, Scandinavia, ...), then we try to pin down about 5-6 cities we really want to see. 3-4 days in each, the rest for sidetrips. Then we fly into the one city with the best/cheapest flights (usually the biggest one).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Midwest Maven
I have to make a circle regardless of the direction too, because my round trip ticket is for Ireland as an arrival and departure back to the states.
Well, the thing is that you want to see Ireland, England, The Netherlands, Italy, Austria, France and Portugal. You'll have to travel a lot to connect those regions during your trip. Just look at a map.
Maybe you should plan multiple trips to Europe? One trip to Ireland, Great Britain and The Netherlands, another one to Northern Italy, Austria and maybe Slovenia and Croatia and the next one to Spain and Portugal?
Yes, I was serious about my fear of altitude sickness. Like I said earlier, I tend to be a worry wort.
I agree with you that I need to plan multiple trips to Europe. Right now I have too much to see and do, and I don't want to feel that overwhelmed. You experienced such craziness yourself, with your 1st interrail trip of the four that you have done.
I really hope my European friends will be sympathetic and understand that I had to cut their cities out from my itinerary.
I think I'll stay a week in Dublin anyway, since it's my arrival and departure point for my round trip airplane ticket.
I love your trip ideas and will definitely do those in the future.
I may avoid buying Eurail passes and just pay point to point train tickets or cheap airfare from easyjet to Portugal from either Italy or Paris.
If you think I could squeeze in Vienna after Venice, maybe I could convince my friend from Innsbruck just to meetup with me there, if she isn't keen on meeting me in Venice. That would be it for me though. I think going all the way to Amsterdam and Rotterdam is too far for me with all the other travel I intend to do.
So I probably will fly to Paris from Dublin, spend a few days there. Then from Paris, I will go to Italy, where I'll spend a few days in Rome, a few days in Florence, and then a few days in Venice, and if I feel up to it, squeeze in the train trip to Vienna and beg my Innsbruck friend to meetup with me there instead of Innsbruck. And then from Vienna go back down to Lisbon and Porto where I'll be with local Portuguese friends, until I have to fly back to Dublin. It'll be messy for sure, and exhausting but if I cut everything out and just do Dublin and Portugal, I will be disappointed that I skipped Paris and Rome and Vienna.
If you're a worry wort, the less messing about with travel, the better! It will be cheaper to fly from Venice to Lisbon (about $150 depending on when you fly) than from Vienna to Lisbon (about $220).
If you cut out the Netherlands, fine, but please don't cut it out because of your fear of altitude sickness! The Netherlands sits at sea level - in some places it is below sea level (hence the dikes)!
Well there was that fear (sea sickness), and my fear that I packed too many cities in too tight a schedule (3 weeks). I have to agree with the posters on my thread who noted that I really overloaded myself with places to travel to for this trip.
If I keep the Netherlands, I'm really going to screw up my finances. $2800 is not enough money to see 6 countries in 3 weeks, not to mention all the cities I had listed on my first itinerary in this thread.
I think it is enough for me to do this for 3 weeks:
Dublin, Ireland for 7 days
Paris, France for 3 days
Rome, Florence, Venice (with side trips to Padua and Verona) for 10 days; 1 day to get to Rome, 3 days per city
Vienna, Austria, 2 days (if my Innsbruck friend won't meetup with me in Venice and I feel okay to do that bit of travel)
Lisbon and Porto, Portugal, 6 days (3 days in each city)
2 days left to fly back to Dublin and have an extra day to say goodbye to family before I fly back to the states
I am disappointed that the Netherlands got cut (for irrational fears and budgetary reasons) this time. Hopefully my friend in Rotterdam/The Hague will be flexible enough to meetup with me in Paris while I'm there. If not, he'll just have to wait until I do another European trip specifically to see the Netherlands (Amsterdam, Belgium, Brussels, Rotterdam/The Hague).
I just checked the Euro to Dollar exchange rate online. My $2800 will only be $2092.99 in Euros so that's a loss of $800! That proves that I can't even afford to do the Netherland and Austria legs of my trip. All that going back and forth would cost me dearly, and I'd have no money left by my departure date.
It's a good thing I'm staying with friends in Portugal and a friend in Paris.
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