Interail Trip Mid September

[cambsy]

Mods, not sure where goes so feel free to put in trip planning.

Im planning a trip in approx Mid September for 15 or 22 days continuous, with rough plan of London-Amsterdam-Vienna-Bucharest-Budapest-Berlin-Stockholm, then either Narvik or Oslo and Bergen, depending on time left on pass then home.

Im looking to visit several Eastern Countries, as last time only managed Poland due to Flooding on Warsaw to Budapest line, and Romania seems an interesting country to visit and one can do different routes trough Romania on their sleepers. And then id like try seen the Northern lLights as not plan properly to see them last time in Sweden.

I would like recommendations for where would be best for seeing Northern lights by train in Scandinavia, within reasonable time limits, and is Romania a worthwhile country to visit And if not where else Eastern Europe good to go to? I like certain things about travelling to Romania, good long sleeper Journeys;Sleeper journeys and visit Budapest on way back as missed it last time did European rail trip, but open to recommendations too.

 

[otter11]

For seeing the Aurora it's always a bit of a gamble - you need clear skies, darkness, and some luck! The further north you go the better chance of seeing something even when the activity is low.
Note you also need somewhere with no light pollution - you could hike out of a town to achieve this but otherwise probably would need to hire a car or book with one of the specialist companies who would drive you somewhere.

Your best bets for far north by rail are:
Rovamiemi in Finland - Very nice and affordable sleeper train from Helsinki
This might work well if you were working your way up the Baltic countries and got the ferry across from Estonia.

Far north of Sweden and Narvik, Norway - by sleeper train from Stockholm - would work well if you were already in Stockholm but the night train is quite long so not a quick detour!

I visited Rovamiemi a couple of years ago in early October - unfortunately there wasn't much activity and I didn't see the lights. So I would plan around other things to do too in case you get unlucky!

You can see them from near Helsinki/Stockholm and even further south if the activity is high.


In terms of eastern Europe I haven't been to Romania but would like to. I really enjoyed Poland and the Baltic states, but no sleeper trains up there so you have to do day trains and busses.
Slovakia is also beautiful with the Tatra mountains and there are a couple of sleeper trains there too.

If you like sleeper trains the website https://www.night-trains.com/europe/ has a helpful map

 

[dutchflyer]

Your question is rather broad and a little vague: also check comuunity.eurail.com, the forum for passusers, including, as it works the same, InterRail. All the common questions have been posted there and answered-one can also search for possibel travelmates etc. And of course for general all positive info there ramins seat61.com
If you do not tell what you like, it is hard to say if something is nice/worthwhile or not. May also depend very much to what you are used to. Like ROmania: it progresses, even more since it got IN the EU- but remains one of the poorer and badly organised countries. I also just read that due to economy measures a big lot for more local trains will be scrapped from 1/9.
Also note that there is a difference in sleeper and couchette/Liegewagen (like ´rolling hostel)-the more common means of at least lie down in overnite trains. These are non-existent now in the Baltic countries, but yes, DO still exist on a limited scale in Poland and the countries going south.