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Son of the Sun

Two months on Interrail

Two months on Interrail

2023, Mar 24     pietkuip

In May 2022, after covid, there was a flash sale of Interrail passes for really very low prices. There was a deadline, computers got overloaded, but I managed to get mine via the UK web site. Only £277 for two months of train travel, without any limit on the number of travel days. One had to start using it within a year.

I started using mine on March 24 after the dog sit in Weil am Rhein, to travel from Basel SBB back to Växjö.

My next dog sit after that was in Bologna, then St. Cyprien in Dordogne, then Estepona on the Costa del Sol, then back home again on May 23. I just made it in time. I think I used about 16 train days.

March 24/25: Basel - Hamburg - Copenhagen - Växjö

April 4-6: Växjö - Copenhagen - Hamburg - Munich - Verona - Bologna

April 16/17: Bologna - Milano - Marseille - Agen - Siorac-en-Périgord

May 9-12: Saint Cyprien - Bordeaux - Hendaye - San Sebastián - Madrid - Granada - Málaga

May 20-23: Málaga - Barcelona - Portbou - Narbonne - Avignon - Valence - Grenoble - Geneva - Olten - Mannheim - Hamburg - Copenhagen - Växjö

It would probably have cost me less money to take the plane home from southern Spain. The journey would certainly have been less cumbersome and arduous. The only stretch without problems was in Switzerland.

First problem was to get a ticket. In Spain, one cannot do that online it seems. One needs to go to a railway station. Well, in Estepona the nearest Renfe station was in Algeciras (across the bay from Gibraltar). It was also difficult to buy tickets for the bus. It could not be done the day before. One needed to be there early. When I came there, the express bus was sold out, so I had taken the slow bus that made lots and lots of detours to buy a train ticket.

On May 20, I was in time to get a ticket for the express bus to Málaga. And in Málaga I had time to walk around a bit before the departure of the train to Barcelona. Although I was in a quiet carriage, there were two elderly women giggling like school girls. The conductor came, but they just could not stop. Probably they had known eachother since childhood.

In Barcelona, I took a room in the hotel at the railway station. I walked to the Ramblas and had dinner there.

Next morning to the French border. There is a change of railway gauge, and it seems there is a short distance with parallel tracks. It was very unclear whether one should get out at Portbou or continue to Cerbère. Everybody got out at Portbou, so I did too. Everybody was waiting on the platform for the French train, but it did not come. The Spanish employees said that they did not have information. It was clearly not their job to tell us about the French trains. Then people found out that there was yet another railway strike in France. It affected half the trains! So that made it impossible for me to reach my connections in time.

I got off the train at Narbonne, continued by TER to Avignon, from there to Valence. Then the last train to Grenoble. So that was a change of plan: I would try to get through Switzerland to Hamburg instead. With the first train in the morning to Geneva. It was not worth it to take a hotel for a few hours. I got some take-out food, ate it around 1 am, then walked around the city or sat by the river until the station opened in the morning.

I got a treain to Geneva, then a Swiss thrain to Olten. From there a direct train to Hamburg. Well, also that was a problem.
Immediately after we had left Basel there was an announcement that Freiburg (Breisgau) would be the final stop. A body had been found on the tracks. Total disruption at the station. The departures board had not even been updated yet. So I decided to eat lunch there at an Italian restaurant. When I got back, we could continue in a train to Mannheim. And from there to Hamburg. We arrived with a huge delay. I took a hotel.

Next day, even more problems. The departure board showed lots of Zug fällt aus (train cancelled). My train to Copenhagen was there, but my seat had been taken. By someone who had a reservation for the same seat! It was a couple with a young child, so I let them, and I moved the the first class. I had a seat, but also that carriage was overcrowded. It had been combined with another train!

A long stop in Padborg because the Dannes wanted to check passports (as if they had not signed the Schengen treaty). Then the Danes were doing work on the tracks, and our international train did not get priority. We got more and more delayed, always by “ten minutes” so that one could not go into the station. Toilets were locked until none remained. It took more then six hours to get to Copenhagen.

My train to Sweden was overcrowded too, because one or more previous trains had been cancelled. At CPH airport, not everybody could get on board.

I may get another Interrail pass in the future. But to southern Spain, I would fly. So many problems.