Swiss countryside

Brienz, near Interlaken.

Magnificent Bern. With real bears.

Swiss mountain journey.

Train carriages ahead.

It was an exciting moment; one that I had planned and anticipated for months. It was also a heck of a lot of money. I had been scraping together work here and there and figured I had just enough to make it to Amsterdam then a cheap flight to London where I could stay with friends. A Eurail pass wasn’t cheap and if something went wrong, I was calling Mum for a money transfer.

I’m a bit of a worrier, especially when it comes to anything “official”. I trust people but not bureaucracy…what was going to go wrong? It had to be something. By the time I had stood in the line this long I had dropped my bag to the floor and was kicking it in front of me. I really should have packed less crap but I refused to dump anything.

The front of the line. The empty slot. I dragged that tonne weight over to the counter. “Bonjour! Parle vous Anglais?” High school was good for four words; shame I wouldn’t understand a meaningful response. The ticket agent spoke perfect English (to my colonial shame) and the pass was validated almost instantly (to my surprise). A passport as identification, a quick stamp or two and it was done. Now, where was the platform…

Follow Jeff’s journey from Switzerland to Amsterdam thanks to a Eurail Global Pass. Subscribe to the RSS feed to make sure you don’t miss anything.

This short video from Rumsrums shows the speed of the train heading to Amsterdam.

My goal was simply to see as much as possible…visit as many places as I could…and that made for a crazy itinerary. I slept on trains for five nights and hostels for the rest of the time. Sometimes I travelled with friends that I had met, other time by myself…but I was always moving quickly. At typical day would look like this:

• Wake up on the train. Check the timetable to see where I was and were I was headed.
• Get off at the first city on my list. Have breakfast in the old town, walk around the sights, look at the outside of famous buildings.
• Back to the train station. Hop on a train for an hour or so.
• Get off at the day’s second city. Have lunch in the old town, walk around the sights, look at the outside of famous buildings.
• Back to the train station. Hop on a train for an hour or so. Have a nap.
• Get off at the day’s third city. Check into a hostel or book an overnight sleeper at the station.
• Have dinner in the old town, walk around the sights (in the dark!) and find a bar with a cold local beer. See if I can find a party that lasts until the train departs.
• Repeat.

Can I recommend this? If you’re crazy enough to be sleep deprived for two weeks! It was an amazing way to see a lot: six countries and their capitals baby! I ended up in Paris — which isn’t cheap! — where I think I slept for most of the week. There are vague recollections of the Arc de Triomph before flying home and back to College.

I’d suggest staying off the booze if you’re going to attempt it; A beer or two is fine, but things get messed up enough without hangovers getting in the way. One thing I regret is that I didn’t meet so many people, but it whet my appetite and I’m hoping to return and do a slower trip one day.

Dave travelled on a Eurail Global 15 day pass and wrote this one-off story for us. Will you share your Eurail Stories?

We’d been warned in a multitude of different ways that some of the rail lines in Switzerland were privately owned and not covered by the Eurail pass. However, we still managed to end up in the middle of the mountains on a train that felt suspiciously unique. We were heading straight up a mountain, and the trains passing us seemed to be filled with American tourists sipping champagne and eating three-course meals. A quick question at the ticket office at the next station confirmed it – we weren’t covered, none of the trains within thirty kilometres were, and we had to buy a ticket to the next stop. 160 euros later, we arrived in Liechtenstein with much lighter wallets. Needless to say, we were a lot more careful next time we used the Swiss rail system.

Linda was travelling on a Eurail Global Pass. Read more of Linda’s stories.

We were put into a six-bed room on the first floor opposite the toilets, a narrow room with three sets of bunks. An older Swiss couple had taken the two lower beds near the window, so I chose the upper bunk nearest the door. After a nice chat with the Swiss couple, who were walking across the country and trying out hostelling for the first time, we locked the door and went to bed.

The hostel was quiet enough, though I woke up once or twice in the night when people clomped down the corridor and into the toilets. At one point I heard someone taking a leak across the hall, opened my eyes and noticed someone standing over the Swiss guy’s bed. I thought it was the Swiss guy playing a joke on his wife, but realised that it couldn’t be since he was still in bed. You know what it’s like when you are half-asleep. It took me a second to realise that the sound of someone taking a leak wasn’t coming from across the hall, but from the guy standing over the bed!

As I fumbled for my glasses to make sure, the Swiss guy jerked upright with a yell when realised he what was going on. The young pisser was unconcerned and continued what he was doing until the Swiss guy took his arm and led him out of the room. We took the mattress into the corridor and the Swiss guy moved to the upper bunk to the sound of his wife chuckling from her bed. She was still laughing when we woke up in the morning.

Linda was travelling on a Eurail Global Pass. Read more of Linda’s stories.

Thanks to Quixstart for this excellent montage from last October. Quixstart was using a Eurail pass for his train connections.

We wanted to use our Global Eurail pass to its best advantage, so we weren’t spending long in each place. We tended to arrive somewhere in the evening, explore it in the morning and head on in late morning or early afternoon. That’s exactly what we did in Liechtenstein, except with a bit more drama than we had expected.

Liechtenstein is a tiny country, with only one railway station which has a rather sparse schedule. The station is about an hour’s walk from the capital, Vaduz, though there’s a good network of buses to take you there. We were staying at the youth hostel, which was about halfway between Vaduz and the Schaan Post bus stop, which is also where you catch the train.

We’d spent the morning in Vaduz and walked back to the youth hostel to pick up our bags before heading to the train station to catch the 12.30pm train – the last one for about three hours. But we completely mistimed our walk and got back to the hostel at 12.20 – there wasn’t a chance of walking to the station in time. A bus was due near the hostel at 12.25 – supposed to arrive at Schaan Post bus stop at 12.30. Cutting it fine, certainly, but the people of Liechtenstein take after the Swiss in terms of efficiency – or at least we hoped so.

It was an anxious wait for the bus, but it finally arrived and we bustled on with all our bags. The driver took off, and we named the stop we wanted – Schaan Post. We were a bit surprised when the bus driver said no. What? we asked. “Finished” he said. We were completely befuddled, but still tried to pay while he tried to explain how the bus stop had disappeared or something – we had no idea.

Since our German was verging on non-existent, we didn’t work out what was going on until we reached the stop we wanted, just outside the post office. He looked concerned and pointed to the post office and said “finished” – the post office was closed for the day and he didn’t want us to make a journey there in vain. We finally understood, and pointed to the train station and said “nein, zug!” (no, train). Indeed, the train was just approaching the station. His face cleared and he gestured to us to run for it. We tried to pay for our rather entertaining bus ride but he wouldn’t hear of it, so we ran and caught the train with seconds to spare. Mint.

I had a Eurail Global Pass planned and ready but I didn’t want to start it for a couple of weeks. I bought tickets on the overnight train to Rome. What an experience! I spoke no Italian, the sales agent no English. He kept saying “reservation” over and over but I had no idea what he was talking about. I didn’t have a reservation!

In Italy you have to validate tickets before you travel using yellow punches on the platform. Luckily I saw some people doing it or I wouldn’t have known. The whole situation was bewildering.

Locusts

Then the people started to gather. Like swarming locusts, every University student on the whole island jammed onto the platform. Everyone wanted to get back to Rome after the Summer holidays. Person after person arrived until the platform was seething with teens and twenty-somethings. I suddenly understood why “reservation” was so important.

As the train pulled into the station everyone swarmed to the edge and a scrum ensued around each door. People fought to get out; people fought to get in. I jumped in where I could — my massive backpack concussing a couple of unfortunates behind me — and found a seat. A seat!

Relief followed by panic

As people started sitting in the corridors I realised how full this train was. And then I realised I was sitting in first class. There was no way I could afford a first class supplement but damned if I was sitting on the coridor’s steel floor for the next 12 hours.

One person in my cabin spoke a little English and, even better, he was in the same situation. With assurances his seat would be there when he returned he left to speak with the conductor. How many euros would my underhand “supplement” be? I had no idea but it was going to be more than the couple it would have cost me to make a reservation before hand!

We were in luck. The train was so packed with people the conductors had decided to abolish the divide between first and second class and I settled in to enjoy my so-called luxury. My introduction to European rail journeys was certainly hectic but that mad energy has made me come back time and time again.

Craig was using an individual train ticket from Trenitalia, the Italian rail company. Find out about Italy Rail Passes.