While the quest for sparkly was a good source of destinations and things to do along this trip, it was actually a use of an Interrail pass by necessity.
While I was looking at trains to travel to the UK, it made little sense to spend more money on point-to-point tickets while I had a spare pass calling to be used. This was perhaps a slightly frivolous use of a seven-day pass — I could have done it with fewer days — but I replaced it with a 25% off four-day pass in the Black Friday sale for 270€ which I now need a reason to use.
See the map of this trip on trainlog.me
I think the best train-to-tat experience has to be the one where you don’t even leave the railway station to walk from the train to the sparkly-tat, so on the basis of that I think Zürich deserves to be crowned Best Sparkly-tat Experience at a Railway Station.
The journey itself was uneventful, but I did get to enjoy free cheese and chocolate and proper peace and quiet on the Swiss trains. I didn’t see a way of buying a reservation from the SNCF online and didn’t bother ringing, and ended paying 20€ for the TGV seat reservation on the Rail Europe site. The cost of a first-class ticket from Angoulême to Strasbourg when I did this was 223€.
The other trains didn’t need reservations, but point-to-point Strasbourg-Zug in first showed at 80,90€ when I looked.
I can’t help thinking that once you’ve seen one Alp, you’ve seen them all, but if you like an Alp, this is the journey for you. If you want to spend nine long hours among excitable and chatty tourists in a moving giant goldfish bowl-cum-greenhouse, book in the panoramic coach, otherwise stick to first.
Graz was nice and wins Best Hilltop Christmas Market but also Most Inexcusably Expensive Cash Machines.
I booked via the ÖBB website because the SBB site didn’t like me. The ÖBB reservation cost 3€. When I booked, ten days in advance, the full ticket price was showing at 219,30€.
One of these days I will be brave enough to do a long Railjet journey in first, not in Business, as there is a dedicated quiet coach in first and the reservation is cheaper. Prague gets the award for Most Disappointing Lack of Christmas Market Near a Railway Station as I’d really hoped to fit in an emergency Glühwein round the back of the station, but there was nothing.
Plzeň wins Best Market for a Finger Puppet.
I paid the ÖBB 15€ to reserve my big leathery paradise in Business class which was nonetheless an utter bargain as the full fare from Graz to Prague was 221,80€. The reservation for the onward trip from to Plzeň set me back the equivalent of 1,38€ on the Česky Drahy web site, about a tenth of the full fare of 12,38€.
Don’t bother with the ČD first class lounge in Prague Hlavní Nádraží. It’s rubbish.
I loved Plzeň, probably because of the hotel and the puppet museum.
The main railway station is quite grandiose and worth wandering around before departure. I broke this journey in Regensburg, which wins the award for Best Unexpected Mini Christmas Experience at a Railway Station, not only because of the Coca-Cola lorry on the back of a train, but also the three-stall Christmas market at the front of the station. belting out Christmas classics.
I saved a whopping 1€ by using my pass to make the journey between stations in Plzeň. I walked up to the Alex service to Regensburg intending to get off in Schwandorf so didn’t pay for a reservation, but a ticket would have cost 83,30€. I paid 6,50€ from my phone on the platform for a seat reservation for the onward ICE to Nürnberg which proved unnecessary as there were seats. I avoided the 61,50€ full fare, though.
This is the journey where I learned that the Deutsche Bahn delivers Glühwein to first class.
Nürnberg wins Best Sprawling Market.
I changed my train at the last minute for free, but when I looked in the station the cost of a walk-up ticket in first was 270€. The train was heaving and I had to move a couple of times but I did get a Vegane Currywurst and Glühwein in the dining car. While the pointy-end exclusive compartment is nice, I think it might actually be worth booking a seat in the quiet coach for any future ICE journeys.
Essen does actually have some officially-recognised superlatives; Best Christmas Market in Germany and Best Sustainable Christmas Market in Europe. Essen-Steele wins Best Christmas Market with a train theme.
I didn’t have reservations for this leg as I hadn’t decided where I was going until the night before I got it. Looking while writing this for a journey tomorrow at the same time, the ticket for the regional service from Essen to Aachen is showing at 62,30€ and the connecting ICE to Liège at 37,99€. I didn’t make any reservations.
Aachen wins Best Impromptu Christmas Market (bonus points for a dead royal nearby), and the winner of Best Compact Christmas Market goes to Liège.
This is the journey that started it all, really.
Had I not accidentally booked a seat reservation on the train from Euston I might never have had a mini adventure. I arranged this final leg so that I had an opportunity to get fat by sitting and grazing on (mostly) free-stuff for the whole journey. My original ICE booking to Brussels was cancelled by DB a few days in advance (I had the 6,50€ refund but I needed to ask for it, bit naughty) which meant I didn’t get a final dining car experience; I’d been hoping for a final breakfast Glühwein.
I walked onto an SNCB service instead which should have cost 27,50€. I paid 38€ for a seat on the Eurostar instead of the 149€ fare showing at the time. The Avanti West Coast service is super-expensive if you actually have to pay for a ticket, and I’m glad I got it for free with the pass rather than shelling out 271€ for a journey that lasts an hour and forty minutes. which was a
Transport for Wales doesn’t do seat reservations, but when I looked to see the fare was the equivalent of 40€. The service in first on the Transport for Wales Premium Service is top notch.
Those sums in full.
Like last time, I made a note of the cost of the equivalent point-to-point ticket and the reservation fee as I travelled.
Rather than use a travel day of my pass (55€ per day) for the journey between Zug and Zürich, I paid 18CHF, so have added 20€ to the final figures which I have rounded. In total, individual first class tickets for all the trains along the route would have come to 1778€, some of those in advance, others walk-up prices depending on whether I required a reservation or not.
I paid a total of 110€ in reservation fees (including the extra 20€) and when added to the pass, which cost 388€ in the spring sale, that brings me to a total of 498€ for a total of 18 trains on a journey that covered nearly 4000km.
