One breakfast in Rome, the next in Ljubljana, another in Budapest, the week after in Copenhagen. Get on board of the ESNtrain and enjoy during one, two or up to 25 days, traveling throughout Europe in a unique way and visit up to 40 cities.

Nora Kleisli from ESN train told us,

The journey is the reward: the encounters of people from all over Europe, the friendships that are made and the borders that are overcome by personal relations.

Traveling mainly during the night, participants will have the pleasure of waking up in a different city every morning, where they can take part in activities especially organized for the ESNtrain.

It’s going to be a blast — book now on www.esntrain.org and then come back to Eurail Stories and share your tales.

We were excited to hear TripFilms have put together a great competition for all their travel vloggers. The grand prize, going to the TripVlogger of the Year, will be —drum-roll, please— an all-inclusive 11-day travel assignment to China featuring a Yangtze River cruise as well as excursions into Beijing and Shanghai, sponsored by Pacific Delight Tours. How cool is that?

Voting ends March 1, so there is just over a week left. Get in there, vote and make sure the most worthy videographer gets that trip! It’s not too late to submit your own work either…

Sonja and Ivan are travelling around Europe exploring the bookshops. The bookshops! It’s a geek’s dream and their early posts are a great sign of things to come. With a relaxed and personal tone it’s full of information.

A recent report on Paris touches on some of my favourite haunts: Shakespeare & Co and the San Francisco book company amongst them. I also found out about a few new places to check out on my next visit — the Abbey looks especially inviting.

If you happen to find yourself in, let’s say Amsterdam or Berlin or any other city, we hope that this Bookstore Guide will help you find the books you are looking for so make sure you stop and browse…

With a hat-tip to hostelbloggers, The Independent and SABMiller Breweries are giving away a European tour worth five thousand quid! With an extra thousand pounds to spend along the way. The trip takes you to seven countries – The Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Italy, Hungary and Holland.

Entry is as easy as 200 words on the city you’d most like to visit. I’d recommend

a) Choosing a city from the prize-tour countries.
b) Polishing your writing — competition will be fierce.
c) Not over-doing the beer angle; too cliched.
d) If you can point to your travel blog in the application it might score in your favour.

If you win, you have to visit SABMiller breweries in each country. You might even get to drink some beer too.

Enter now. Good luck! And make sure you let us know when you win.

Eurail passes these days aren’t what we baby boomers remember from back in the ’60s and ’70s and even the ’80s. I fondly remember when travelers could get on and off trains at will and the biggest decision was whether to buy a 1st-class or 2nd-class pass. Not any more. The world of rail travel in Europe has become much more complicated. Spontaneity has been squashed.

Tripso

Spontaneity has been squashed? I don’t know ’bout those hippy 60′s or even the great 80′s but I do know I didn’t have any spontaneity problems with my Eurail pass. Each night I choose where I’d spend the next day; each day I pitched up to the train station and got on a train. I went through Italy, France, Austria, Liechtenstein, Germany and Holland. Not bad.

I do agree that it can be more cost-effective to combine point-to-point tickets with air travel: it all depends on where you want to go and what time frame you’re travelling on.

I have a confession to make: I had a tawdry affair in Europe. It started out innocently, but before long it escalated into a full-blown relationship. I spent the better portion of a year getting to know her. I returned to Europe several summers in a row and continued the relationship, often exploiting it to my advantage. After a while, we lost touch when I stopped traveling. But last year, I returned and was reunited with my true love: the European rail system.

Hot stuff? I think so. Read all of Love on the Rails here.

How would you describe your relationship with Eurail?