Western Europe via train
Jul 4th, 2002, 10:43 PM
#1
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Western Europe via train
Is W. Europe by train "absolutely beautiful" (A MUST) or is seeing W.Europe by train over-rated. I can either take train trips to new towns each day for three months (large and small towns) or just hit large cities for five days in a row. I have this book, "Europe by Eurail 2002" which gives "day excursions" from large cities. The book says "viewing W. Europe by train is a must". Please help? Hype or is viewing W. Europe unbelievably gorgeous and worth it. Thank you very much.<BR><BR>Tim
Jul 5th, 2002, 04:42 AM
#3
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Large cities are usually not the best bases for day trips, because it may take you half an hour or more just to go to the station.<BR>Sometimes it is better to do opposite, sleep near the railway station in a smaller town outside the large city.<BR>But don´t forget that Europe is much more than the large and famous cities. Use local train, and walk.
Jul 5th, 2002, 07:53 AM
#5
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<BR>Our first trip to Europe was a twelve-day all-rail trip through four western European countries. Initially, our impulse was to relocate each night to a new town or city (with a few extra nights in London and Paris).<BR><BR>Our travel agent (a European native) would hear nothing of this. She was adamant that we would waste a lot of valuable time getting to our hotels and into our rooms.<BR><BR>Although we followed her advice, and only stayed in London, Brussels and Paris on that first trip, we did experience first-hand how getting to your hotel and into your room can be considerably more time consuming than you might imagine.<BR><BR>In London, it took us 3 1/2 hours to get to our hotel and checked in. This was largely due to the poor directions that we received from the hotel and the long lines of people checking out as we were checking in. In Paris, we encountered an entirely different problem. We arrived at 10 am, and they wouldn't check us in until Noon. This would not have been a serious issue, except that they offered no secure place to store our luggage (they suggested that we put it by the front door). We decided to wait with our luggage until the room was ready, which was not until 1pm.<BR><BR>The moral of this story is that everytime you change hotels, you run the risk of hassles that can seriously interfere with your sightseeing time. Changing hotels every day, or even every other day, might prove to be very frustrating.<BR><BR>If you do decide to move every day, one thing that would help tremendously would be to take a taxi to your hotel. Even with a taxi, you can still encounter delays (e.g., Paris experience above), but at least your not wandering around for 90 minutes with all your luggage trying to locate your hotel (exhausting as well as frustrating). Of course, you may be traveling by Eurail because your on a budget and taking a taxi to a new hotel every day might not be affordable.<BR><BR>Good luck.
