First journey abroad

[sw1ller]

hi all. I know this has probably been covered and I have had a very quick search, but I’m making my first journey in Europe by train next month and looking for any helpful advice.

I’m rail staff now, I have my FIP and I’ve just emailed my itinerary to BookMyRST. I’m traveling from Milan to Frankfurt, Berlin and Gdańsk. I’m flying in to Milan and out of Gdańsk.

We were originally going for a wedding but that’s been cancelled now, so we have no aim or have any clue what to do. We had already booked the flights but have no train tickets or hotels booked as yet. We will spend 2 days in each of the cities mentioned above and move to the next by train.

If anyone has a better way of getting from Milan to Gdańsk via other routes then please advise. I’ve picked these cities as it’s the best route there I could find. (11:23 Milan to Frankfurt looked good to me).

I can still go other ways but I only have 1 week to do the whole trip.

Thanks for indulging me, I am staff but i know nothing at all about rail travel in Europe. I’ve looked at seat61 and got a few ideas but it’s a massive website and I’ve got a bit of information overload from it. I’d just like to know other people’s personal experience.

Thanks again.

 

[Bletchleyite]

bahn.de is a good journey planner to get an idea of possible routes.

 

[sw1ller]

bahn.de is a good journey planner to get an idea of possible routes.

Brill, thanks. I’ll take a look at that now.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Brill, thanks. I’ll take a look at that now.

If you're not used to international rail travel in Europe, The Man in Seat 61 is generally an excellent starting point to explore options before getting anywhere near booking tickets. And his site has lots of general tips and info too. Greatly recommended.

It's just a pity that so much research is needed these days before choosing tickets. Decades ago, when virtually all the European railways were public services, and co-operated and sold one another's tickets at the same price, and there were few restrictions on which reasonable routes and which trains you could use (with no worry about using a train from "the wrong company"), it really was almost as easy as getting on a bus...

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's just a pity that so much research is needed these days before choosing tickets. Decades ago, when virtually all the European railways were public services, and co-operated and sold one another's tickets at the same price, and there were few restrictions on which reasonable routes and which trains you could use (with no worry about using a train from "the wrong company"), it really was almost as easy as getting on a bus...

To be fair it is still relatively simple - there is basically no meaningful through ticketing and you need a separate train-specific ticket per vehicle journey[1].

There are many ways in which that is a right nuisance, though.

[1] This is not 100% true - fares inside the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Switzerland work more like ours - but when you're crossing borders it might as well be the case, and it is the case in the Romance countries for high speed stuff.

 

[Alfonso]

hi all. I know this has probably been covered and I have had a very quick search, but I’m making my first journey in Europe by train next month and looking for any helpful advice.

I’m rail staff now, I have my FIP and I’ve just emailed my itinerary to BookMyRST. I’m traveling from Milan to Frankfurt, Berlin and Gdańsk. I’m flying in to Milan and out of Gdańsk.

We were originally going for a wedding but that’s been cancelled now, so we have no aim or have any clue what to do. We had already booked the flights but have no train tickets or hotels booked as yet. We will spend 2 days in each of the cities mentioned above and move to the next by train.

If anyone has a better way of getting from Milan to Gdańsk via other routes then please advise. I’ve picked these cities as it’s the best route there I could find. (11:23 Milan to Frankfurt looked good to me).

I can still go other ways but I only have 1 week to do the whole trip.

Thanks for indulging me, I am staff but i know nothing at all about rail travel in Europe. I’ve looked at seat61 and got a few ideas but it’s a massive website and I’ve got a bit of information overload from it. I’d just like to know other people’s personal experience.

Thanks again.

It's a massive question and much depends on what you want to see, whether the places are important or the trains that get you there. Milan North to Frankfurt then East to Gdansk has comfy trains but lots of relatively dull scenery. If you like mountains I'd go Milan to tirano (trenord... sometimes doesn't show on bahn.de) tirano to chur, stopping off for a couple of days on the way in the mountains, then head east to Vienna or Budapest for a couple of days then on to Gdansk., Or Munich, prague Poland. Good news is there are hundreds of good options, bad news is you won't get much sympathy about the complicatedness from us trip planning fetishists!

 

[AlbertBeale]

To be fair it is still relatively simple - there is basically no meaningful through ticketing and you need a separate train-specific ticket per vehicle journey[1].

There are many ways in which that is a right nuisance, though.

[1] This is not 100% true - fares inside the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Switzerland work more like ours - but when you're crossing borders it might as well be the case, and it is the case in the Romance countries for high speed stuff.

I think it's the lack of through ticketing which bugs me. And even if there were sometimes separate tickets for separate legs in the old days (rare, except for ferry coupons), you could walk up to a ticket office and just buy the through journey in one go. Yes, I accept that it was harder in Britain than in most countries, since only a small number of big stations here routinely sold international tickets; but I once went to the ticket office at a little one-horse hill town in rural Italy, with a ticket for onward travel to somewhere or other in Europe, wanting to add a reservation on a leg of my journey in some other country a few days later - barely a two-minute job with my best broken Italian. The flexibility of a non-train-specific (and sometimes not even precise-route-specific) through ticket from anywhere to anywhere, which you could add a particular train/seat/sleeper reservation on to if desired (either when buying the ticket, or at pretty much any station anywhere as you went along), meant that travel in Europe by rail was a painless and flexible (public service) option. Literally just walk up, buy a ticket, and go, all for the same price as for advance booking, if you weren't worried about guaranteeing specific reservations.

Now it takes days of research before you can even start buying a ticket. Yes, I can be a trip planning fetishist too, and it can be fun. But I'd rather the "fun" didn't include having to fight with half a dozen different online ticket sellers, but just relate to sorting out maps and timetables where your possible choices and complexities in that regard weren't reflected in the ticketing process.

 

[Bletchleyite]

you could walk up to a ticket office and just buy the through journey in one go

DB's ticketing system can still do this, though I believe at one point (may still be true) they weren't able to sell Thalys due to a falling-out of some kind. In the 1990s I used to buy returns from Hamburg back to the UK at Hamburg Hbf, and it'd all be issued in about 30 seconds - hammering on the keyboard and tickets being merrily spat out at quite a rate. (No London-Spezial back then - it was split into 3 - Hamburg-Koeln plus 2 separate IC supplements and reservations, then Thalys, then E*)

I never managed to look over their shoulder at how it looked, but I had the impression that it was basically a bit like Trainsplit but with some manual work.

Now it takes days of research before you can even start buying a ticket

Is that really true? You can just whack it into loco2.com or similar, you may not get perfection (in particular I had issues with direct Caen-Paris ICs being missing from it, which I did then go on to book via the SNCF site directly) but it can price up most things.

But on the general issue - the main problem I have with it is the issue with passenger rights. Really, the EU need to legislate for this to bring UK-style passenger rights to all journeys across the EU regardless of whether tickets are split or not.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

There are several/many ways from Milan to Gdansk, and bahn.de is the best overall planner.
I don't know how FIP works but you can book itineraries on DB with up to 2 overnight stopovers en route, which can save cash.
Bear in mind that cross-border services are usually on EC-category trains, and it isn't always obvious what sort of train is involved.
Luckily there is a remarkable web site vagonweb.cz which shows a great many train compositions, particularly in Germany and further east.
For example, your suggested 1123 Milan-Bern-Frankfurt (EC52) is a (Swiss/Italian) Pendolino.
https://www.vagonweb.cz/razeni/vlak.php?zeme=DB&kategorie=EC&cislo=52&nazev=&rok=2019
It would then be an ICE on to Berlin (2 HS routes after Fulda, via Braunschweig or Erfurt), and then loco+coaches on to Poland.

You could also go via Zürich, or Verona, Innsbruck and Munich, or even via Venice, Villach, Vienna and Warsaw.
I haven't done the Simplon/Lötschberg route but it's worth thinking about tunnels versus scenery.
As an example the Zurich route now uses the new 50km base tunnel, saving an hour but missing the superb scenery over the old switchback Gotthard route.
Tirano/Bernina/Chur on RhB is easily the best scenery, but it will take time compared to the main routes.
All approaches to Berlin are tediously flat, continuing into Poland.
Frankfurt to me is not much of an attraction, compared to (say) Munich or Vienna.
Although they might not be directly on your route, Prague or Krakow are well worth a visit.
Berlin is fascinating, but it's worth researching in advance to make the most of it, as it is really...complicated!
Hotels in any of these places will be quite pricey. You don't get much for less than €100 these days, especially in summer - better in Eastern Europe.
Intercity Hotels in Germany (usually close to stations) throw in a local transport ticket for the length of your stay, which can be handy.
There's some remarkable rail infrastructure to see en route, eg Berlin/Vienna new Hbfs, several HSLs, plenty of new trains, luxurious seats...
Punctuality might not be too good though, so I'd be cautious about connections.

 

[Bletchleyite]

EuroCityExpress - hadn't heard of that one before! Seems it's for fare reasons, they sell it as ICE for domestic journeys. Must admit I would be quite disappointed if I saw that piece of garbage (the interiors in second class are awful - narrow seats, poor window alignment, poor legroom, small windows) show up instead of a proper ICE

 

[Alfonso]

EuroCityExpress - hadn't heard of that one before! Seems it's for fare reasons, they sell it as ICE for domestic journeys. Must admit I would be quite disappointed if I saw that piece of garbage (the interiors in second class are awful - narrow seats, poor window alignment, poor legroom, small windows) show up instead of a proper ICE

This particular train is probably the least pleasing way to travel by rail from Milan to Frankfurt, whether train nerd or not, although probably the fastest

 

[cactustwirly]

Personally if you have time, I'd travel across to Verona, then take a direct EuroCity train (ÖBB stock) to Munich.
There's plenty of ICE trains from there to Berlin, plus Munich is a really nice city to visit

 

[AlbertBeale]

DB's ticketing system can still do this, though I believe at one point (may still be true) they weren't able to sell Thalys due to a falling-out of some kind. In the 1990s I used to buy returns from Hamburg back to the UK at Hamburg Hbf, and it'd all be issued in about 30 seconds - hammering on the keyboard and tickets being merrily spat out at quite a rate. (No London-Spezial back then - it was split into 3 - Hamburg-Koeln plus 2 separate IC supplements and reservations, then Thalys, then E*)

I never managed to look over their shoulder at how it looked, but I had the impression that it was basically a bit like Trainsplit but with some manual work.

Is that really true? You can just whack it into loco2.com or similar, you may not get perfection (in particular I had issues with direct Caen-Paris ICs being missing from it, which I did then go on to book via the SNCF site directly) but it can price up most things.

But on the general issue - the main problem I have with it is the issue with passenger rights. Really, the EU need to legislate for this to bring UK-style passenger rights to all journeys across the EU regardless of whether tickets are split or not.

Thanks for these thoughts - personally I didn't find even DB an easy way of getting tickets for anywhere to anywhere in any European country last time I tried them [though maybe it'd be different at a DB ticket office ... if I could speak German...]: some things worked well and some things didn't. And of course you're never sure that there isn't a better price via another seller.

And of course you still have to pin down each leg of the journey in advance to do this, rather than being able to have an open through ticket and picking the actual train as you go along. (Unless you're stinking rich and can pay the walk-up price at every turn.) Maybe what underlies my unhappiness is the massive price difference between advance-purchase and walk-up, which didn't used to be the case years back. Once upon a time you could get the cheapest/standard prices and flexibility and one-stop ticket buying, without having to sacrifice one for another.

I guess for some trips, Interrail still provides something of what I want, but....

Anyway - yes, passenger rights - if you do have tickets for a succession of specific services it should be treated as an integrated journey, with no problem over changing bookings if a train is late. That ought to be internationally mandatory, not left to the goodwill of a particular operator or staff member.

 

[sw1ller]

Thank you very much for all your replies. I’m glad it isn’t just me that finds it all a little daunting. I did long distance lorry driving all over Europe, so I’m not clueless about where places are, but planning travel on trains has been a bit of an eye opener!

The alternative routes are interesting, I’m thinking Vienna and Berlin now, great suggestions. I do want to take in the scenery, that’s the whole point of taking the train for me. My partner suffers from fibromyalgia and finds walking too far painful, so I wanted to show her as much of Europe as possible from the comfort of a nice train.

Thank all.

 

[Alfonso]

Thank you very much for all your replies. I’m glad it isn’t just me that finds it all a little daunting. I did long distance lorry driving all over Europe, so I’m not clueless about where places are, but planning travel on trains has been a bit of an eye opener!

The alternative routes are interesting, I’m thinking Vienna and Berlin now, great suggestions. I do want to take in the scenery, that’s the whole point of taking the train for me. My partner suffers from fibromyalgia and finds walking too far painful, so I wanted to show her as much of Europe as possible from the comfort of a nice train.

Thank all.

https://www.engadin.stmoritz.ch/sommer/en/bergbahnen-inclusive/. Might be of interest if you don't want to walk but do want to enjoy a coffee with a stunning view.

 

[Mag_seven]

I’m rail staff now, I have my FIP and I’ve just emailed my itinerary to BookMyRST.

I would definitely read this for all matters FIP:

Rail Staff Travel. Travel in Europe using FIP facilities

https://www.raildeliverygroup.com/files/Publications/services/rst/RST_Travel_Tips_For_Europe_v40.pdf

 

[30907]

Berlin is worth the 2-night stop, Frankfurt isn't, frankly (sorry!).
Milan-Tirano-Bernina Pass-Chur-Lindau-Munich would be a long but fantastic day (I havent checked times!), then Munich-Berlin by ICE for a complete contrast.
Actually Lindau is a nice place to stay for a couple of relaxing lakeside nights (expensive, but cheaper than Switzerland though - Bregenz is an alternative) ; it's also small and flat.
Milan-Vienna-Prague-Berlin-Gdansk is a pretty good idea though, but find time to see Prague.

 

[sw1ller]

Brilliant. Thank you.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Berlin is worth the 2-night stop, Frankfurt isn't, frankly (sorry!).
Milan-Tirano-Bernina Pass-Chur-Lindau-Munich would be a long but fantastic day (I havent checked times!), then Munich-Berlin by ICE for a complete contrast.
Actually Lindau is a nice place to stay for a couple of relaxing lakeside nights (expensive, but cheaper than Switzerland though - Bregenz is an alternative) ; it's also small and flat.
Milan-Vienna-Prague-Berlin-Gdansk is a pretty good idea though, but find time to see Prague.

Yes - Milan-Tirano-Bernina Pass-Chur-Lindau-Munich sounds good ... though a very long day indeed. It looks like it would be 14 hours or more, with half a dozen or so changes, and not all the changes would be leisurely! Stopping at Lindau would save a few hours and be more do-able.

Yes - Prague is fascinating. I went there for the first time fairly recently. Once I'd wandered around and found the most interesting historic bits [not all of it is attractive - except perhaps when it's snowing!] I really enjoyed it. I especially recommend the Kafka Museum (but maybe that's just me). Many of the interesting parts can be reached by going round on the trams. It benefited from not being massively bombed in WW2, unlike some European cities, and seems to have avoided the worst of late-20th century "development" - at least in the historic areas.

You'll be bound to get to the main station - Praha hl[avni] n[adrazi]- and though the platforms are stark, and the "business" part of the station is below, with a vaguely glitzy shopping mall which is - well - a shopping mall, you should check out the old art-nouveau station booking office preserved upstairs from all the new build, where you can relax and get a coffee away from the frantic scene below. It's beautiful, and seems ignored by the locals who're just rushing for their trains, but it's the nicest place to wait if you have time before your train, and you can access platforms from it without going back through the main area.

Not very far away is the original main Prague station - now just used for some of the local and regional trains - Prague Masarykovo n[adrazí]. It looks a lovely old building from the outside, and is definitely worth checking out; I didn't realise what it was at first, wandering past looking for the right tram stop.

And if you're stopping for just a day or two in Italy, I'd recommend somewhere smaller than Milan (eg Verona, which is well rail-connected), so as to more easily soak up a bit more of the Italian atmosphere. (If that's what you want!)

 

[goatie]

let us know how you get on using your FIB, i'm thinking of going to Warsaw to Olsztyn Mrs wants to see the lakes, so flight into warsaw then use the train

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

You'll be bound to get to the main station - Praha hl[avni] n[adrazi]- and though the platforms are stark, and the "business" part of the station is below, with a vaguely glitzy shopping mall which is - well - a shopping mall, you should check out the old art-nouveau station booking office preserved upstairs from all the new build, where you can relax and get a coffee away from the frantic scene below. It's beautiful, and seems ignored by the locals who're just rushing for their trains, but it's the nicest place to wait if you have time before your train, and you can access platforms from it without going back through the main area.

Not very far away is the original main Prague station - now just used for some of the local and regional trains - Prague Masarykovo n[adrazí]. It looks a lovely old building from the outside, and is definitely worth checking out; I didn't realise what it was at first, wandering past looking for the right tram stop.

I was impressed by the large portrait of Emperor Franz Joseph (Cisař František Josef) in the "attic" at Hlavni.
Hlavni was of course originally the Prague terminus (1871) of the Kaiser Franz Josephs Bahn (FJB), which still has that name at the Vienna end.
It went through several name changes after 1918.
Mazarykovo was the original (1845) Statni station (Staatsbahn - kkStEB), and was the more important until recently when hlavni became a through station.
It has also had several name changes since 1918.
Mazarykovo is due to be the terminus of the airport link when it is built.

 

[sw1ller]

Thanks so much for all your help everyone. I’ve been doing loads of research with all the info and spent a good few hours going over everything and pricing up hotels......

So trust me when I say this, I’m very disappointed that we’ve had to call the trip off entirely now due to personal circumstances. I hope I’ve not wasted your time and that someone finds this thread useful.

I’m so sorry, feel terrible now as the information you’ve all given is amazing. I will be taking a trip in the next year and I’ll be going over this route just because I’ve been looking forward to it so much, so the info here will be put into use eventually.

Again, really sorry.

Please feel free to go off topic and add things in you feel could be useful to a newbie traveller like me.

 

[Alfonso]

Thanks so much for all your help everyone. I’ve been doing loads of research with all the info and spent a good few hours going over everything and pricing up hotels......

So trust me when I say this, I’m very disappointed that we’ve had to call the trip off entirely now due to personal circumstances. I hope I’ve not wasted your time and that someone finds this thread useful.

I’m so sorry, feel terrible now as the information you’ve all given is amazing. I will be taking a trip in the next year and I’ll be going over this route just because I’ve been looking forward to it so much, so the info here will be put into use eventually.

Again, really sorry.

Please feel free to go off topic and add things in you feel could be useful to a newbie traveller like me.

Sorry to hear you can't make the trip. I hope you get to do something similar. Between Northern Italy and Poland there's such a choice of amazing scenery, brilliant cities, and interesting trains stuff, whether you're interested in unusual traction or reasonably priced dining cars and beer in glass glasses