Interrailing 2016 Advice

Hi,

Next year I'm planning on going interrailing for a month, using the continuous month pass. Ive asked some friends who have been before as well as done quite a lot of research on the topic. I just wanted to get peoples opinions on how many places they think would be okay to visit within a month. Here's the plan with the amount of days in brackets:

July 1st - July 31st
Munich (3) - Leipzig (3) - Berlin (5) - Prague (4) - Krakow (4) (Auschwitz day trip) - Budapest (4) - Salzburg (4) (Hallsatt day trip) - Innsbruck (4) (Garmisch day trip) - Turin (-).

We would be staying with family in Turin so from what I've read I believe we only need the train to get us to Turin on the 31st day.

So I was curious to know if anybody else had been to these places, could recommend how much time you need in them (for example we aren't sure if we need 4 days in Krakow, even with the day trip), if theres anywhere on my route that I should be going to and haven't included and if I should be doing less/more places and any other general advice on interrailing would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Tom

I'd say that route is fine to be honest. There's a few changes I'd personally make, but obviously you don't have to listen to anything I say - this is just what I'd do!

Personally, I'd get rid of Leipzig unless there is something that you absolutely must do/see there, such as a festival or whatever. Not that Leipzig is bad, but there's nothing there imo that you wont get in either Munich or Berlin. This would give you an extra 3 days.

Then I'd say knock a day off Prague. It's a decent city (I went this year and it was actually my least favourite place.... I'll get to that later) but I don't think there's enough to keep you entertained for 4 whole days, I guess it just depends what you do, but I think 3 days is enough. Now you have 4 free days.

I think 4 days in Krakow is good. I haven't been, but I believe there will be a decent enough nightlife to keep you going.

When you come round to Austria, knock a day each off both Salzburg and Innsbruck. When I did my first Interrail draft I was going to visit Innsbruck for 2 days, and I just couldn't find enough things online to keep me entertained. However, if you are adamant you want to get then knocking a day off each would be recommended, especially since you've already got day trips from both, and they both seem like good places to 'rest'. Now you have 6 free days.

So with these 6 free days, I'd split them in half so you can fit in two more cities. With the first 3 days, I'd strongly recommend choosing either Amsterdam or Copenhagen as a starting destination, and then go to Munich from there. Both cities are absolutely incredible and similar enough so that it doesn't matter which one you choose, but still both completely different experiences at the same time. I'd go for Copenhagen personally.

With the last 3 days, I'd go to Ljubljana (Slovenia) after Budapest. You can spend 2 days in Ljubljana which is more than enough, it's tiny! But from there you can do a day trip to Lake Bled, which I planned to do but unfortunately my girlfriend fell ill.

That was long.......... These are the places I went that you are also going:

Munich | 9/10 | Awesome city with lots of stuff to do and cool beerhouses to visit. Best city in Germany by miles and full of wonderful people. The setting in the Alps is also really nice to see on a clear day. I'd 100% suggest walking around the Olympic Park and checking out BMW Welt. I have no interest in cars whatsoever but it's one of the highlights in Munich for me!

Berlin | 8/10 | Cool city, although not as good as Munich imo. To be honest they are totally different places so you can't compare them, but I just got a better feel from Munich. There is high immigrant populations with results in so many good places to eat. Getting some Doner is an absolute must. Going up the Fernsehrturm (TV Tower) was a highlight, you can still see the clear divide between East and West Berlin even though the split no longer exists, it's pretty incredible.

Prague | 6/10 | Alright... However I constantly got harrassed by beggars and other poor people and it pissed me off so much. Completely ruined the city for me. I was waiting in the train station for a night train and was harrassed by a begger for about 10 minutes who tried showing me ID (which was Slovakian) and kept talking to me and I have no idea what he said. I just could not shake him off. Other than that Prague was actually a really nice city and the views from the castle were incredible. Nice and cheap too! I'm sure Prague is better than I'm giving it credit for, but that was just my experience and it was a shame it was like that. Lots of other people absolutely love it and I'm sure they're not wrong!

Budapest | 9/10 | Second favourite city on my whole trip. The people there are lovely (despite what the current thread about Hungarians says...) and walking along the Danube is great, as well as going up to the castle in Buda and walking around Margitsziget and various markets in the city. When I was there, there were loads of people giving out free cokes on the street, it was super friendly and I just got an awesome feeling being in the city.

My fingers hurt... Any questions and just ask me, I'll be more than happy to help!


Budapest |

Wow! That was long hahaha thank you very much for all of the information you have provided.

With Leipzig, we may cut out a day on that, but the girl I'm going with really wants to go and it made sense to go on our route, as well as we're both psychologists so there's some pretty cool stuff there to see related to our subject, but I appreciate what you are saying

Yeah this is what I was thinking, Krakow and Prague in particular wasn't sure if we needed a full 4 days in these cities.

Again, this is useful advice, having never been myself I wasn't sure how much there would be to do in these two places.

Ah, I forgot to mentioned we already went to Amsterdam last year and we will be going again (its part of our University's society plan) at about Easter. Copenhagen is somewhere we would love to go, but we were thinking that Scandinavia needs a separate trip itself, maybe a road trip in the future (again with Eastern Europe, there is too much to see) so although I agree its lovely place and would be good to start from, I think we will stick with Germany.

Yeah we were thinking of adding one anyway and we were thinking of Slovenia. Do you have any knowledge on Bratislava? We considered there too. That sucks that she fell ill as well

Thank you very much for all of this information it is very helpful

P.S. It is the girl I'm going withs birthday when we are in Budapest (21!!!) so I was wondering if you know any romantic/very interesting things to see/ places to eat etc there, if not no worries I already have a few plans!

Again, thank you!