Slow down

Speed is not compulsory. Eurail is great for travelers keen to cover a lot of ground, but it may not always be the cheapest option. For example, if you book well in advance, stick to main routes and commit to a fixed itinerary, then the aggregate cost of a sequence of point-to-point tickets bought direct from the various European rail operators may, for many itineraries, undercut the cost of a rail pass.

Stopping off on a whim. Photo © hidden europe magazine

Dynamic pricing (often dubbed “market pricing”) means that for long hops between major cities in Europe there are nowadays some super deals available on point-to-point tickets. Shift to lesser routes, frequented by slower trains, and you may find little or nothing by way of discounts on international journeys.

Our view is that these slower trains are often a far better way of seeing Europe than the high-speed services. You’ll meet locals along the way, rather than just other tourists following similar itineraries to yourself.

Fast can be cheap

But expect to pay more for a journey with local trains than you might on the parallel high-speed services. Book in advance to ride a fast TGV from Paris to Marseille, and you can pick up a one-way ticket for less than €50 — if you are lucky and can travel off-peak perhaps even for just €20.

But if you take the slower TER trains from Paris to the Mediterranean, there is just the Tarif Normal. And that is more than €100 one-way. No discounts for pre-booking. No discounts…. full stop.

Best use of Eurail

Has slow travel thus become a privilege of the rich? Well, not quite, because a day on slower trains can be a very wise use of a Eurail or InterRail pass. And that applies equally to the global and flexi variants of both passes.

Budget-conscious holders of flexi-passes now appreciate that pass days are better reserved for journeys on slower trains where you want to preserve total flexibility. If you know you need to make a fast hop on a high-speed train (where you might in any case need to make a seat reservation and pay a supplement with a rail pass), then perhaps that’s the day to plan ahead and book a discounted point-to-point ticket on the Web site of the relevant rail operator.

So how slow is slow? Well, it’ll still be a lot faster than even the fast trains of yesteryear. European train services have so improved over the last 30 years that devotees of slower trains will still be making faster progress than those of our parents’ generation who clanked across Europe on what were, back in the 1970s and 1980s, acclaimed premium high-speed services.

Stop off and explore

The beauty of slow trains is that you don’t need to book. If a spot takes your fancy, just hop off and explore — then continue with the next train. On many routes, slow trains run hourly.

We have made long international journeys like this. True, it took us 12 hours to get from Switzerland to Spain. With premium fast trains we might have trimmed three or four hours off that. But we had that ineffable pleasure of trundling through vineyards, watching birds on lonely marshlands and stopping at little rural railway stations. The journey became an event in itself.

Eurail is a marvelous product, and that goes equally for its sister InterRail which is geared to European residents. Both families of rail passes can offer great value for money. But, contrary to what you might assume, it is the devotees of slower trains and more rural itineraries who get the most handsome return on their investment in a rail pass. If speed is more your style, and if all you aim to do is hit the big cities, then think carefully before buying a pass.

Taking slower trains which don’t require supplements or advance reservation is much more fun and preserves what is, after all, the prime benefit of a rail pass: its total flexibility.

You can read more about rail passes in two other articles published this week by the team from hidden europe. The full text of an article on InterRail, published on 16 July in hidden europe magazine, is available online. And another article on the hidden europe website, published on 17 July, questions some of the mythology that has developed around rail passes.

The post Slow Down to Make the Most of a Eurail Pass appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

1972 saw the launch of InterRail, an initiative of a consortium of national rail operators across Europe to fill up empty train seats during the slack summer period.

Chance meetings

Greg and Émilie live just outside Geneva. They enjoy gorgeous views of Lake Geneva and the trains that pass their front door. Their children have fled the nest, and both Émilie and Greg are looking forward to the day a few years hence when they will retire. “It’ll be a chance to explore Europe by train, just as we did in the late seventies,” says Greg as a train to Lausanne rattles past their balcony.

The couple, he Scottish and she French, met on a train traveling up the Rhine gorge in the summer of 1977. “The train had a romantic name,” recalls Émilie. “It was called the Loreley Express,” she explains. “I was on my way from Cologne to Rome and Greg was bound for Florence.” The Loreley Express was the springboard for a lifelong partnership.

Rites of passage

What was first seen as a one-off promotion quickly evolved into a long-term program that marked a generation of young travelers.

“I had little concept of Europe, before setting off from Lille with my first InterRail ticket,” recalls Émilie. “Those summer explorations, several of them, allowed me to explore Europe. And they were a chance to discover myself.”

For young Europeans from 1972 onwards, InterRail became a rite of passage. It marked a milestone in their personal development. For many, it was a first chance to travel without their parents. They set out with their rail passes and too little money. They slept on trains to save funds and they relished the freedom and uncertainty that came as part of the InterRail package. Some set out to go to Copenhagen and ended up in Cádiz.

A partner for Eurail

Americans had enjoyed the benefits of Eurail passes since 1959. For American visitors to Europe, Eurail was all about minimizing risk and uncertainty. They followed well-trodden trails, they reserved seats in advance and traveled in first-class comfort. In those early days, Eurail covered a very limited number of countries in western Europe. (It has since expanded its coverage eastward across the continent).

The InterRail experience created by young Europeans for the first time in 1972 was the complete antithesis of the classic Eurail tour. It covered a much larger area than Eurail. It dramatically changed personal mobility. Nothing was pre-booked or pre-planned. “I can remember standing at Cologne station and seeing Americans joining one of the sleek TEE trains. They all had very smart suitcases, preferred the first-class-only TEE trains, and knew exactly where they would be sleeping that night,” says Émilie.

InterRail created a very different breed of traveler — a veritable flood of young people who cared little where they went and never planned in advance. Backpacks and guitars were the norm.

The journey matters

The journey mattered more than the destination. British travel writer Tim Locke, a veteran of many InterRail adventures, reflects on the heyday of InterRail: “There really was a charming spontaneity about the whole affair. Things went wrong, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter. It was all part of the InterRail experience.”

Some devotees of InterRail took this philosophy to extremes. Manfred Weis left his Karlsruhe home in 1987 with a one-month pass valid for the whole of Europe. Over the following 31 days he traveled over 30,000 kilometers. He slept on trains for 26 nights of his journey. We met Manfred just last week, when he was en route from Spain to Poland. And yes, you guessed it. He was traveling on an InterRail Pass — some habits, it seems, are just too hard to kick.

Irishman Mick MacO set out to break records in 1995. He had never before left his native country and was keen to discover this place called Europe. The journey took such a toll on Mick that he then needed a dozen years to publish an account of his journey to 28 cities in 30 days.

InterRail: First class and senior passes

Recent years have seen an evolution in both the Eurail and the InterRail schemes. There are fewer night trains, and those that remain are not quite so tolerant of casual travelers looking for a free place to sleep. Most levy supplements for pass holders. And even daytime travel is not always free. Many premium services (eg. TGVs in France and AVEs in Spain) require compulsory advance reservation. The hop-on-and-ride mentality has been tamed.

Both the Eurail and InterRail schemes are managed nowadays by the Utrecht-based company Eurail Group. The age limits on InterRail have been completely dropped and there are even discounts for seniors. There are now second-class options on many Eurail passes, and a first-class InterRail product is now available.

The latter is a canny move. The first InterRail generation are now well settled into careers and the pioneers will soon be collecting their pensions. Eurail Group’s Marketing Director Ana Dias e Seixas is quick to point out that the freedom to roam is not limited by age. “While InterRail has long been associated with the youth market,” she says, “it has clearly evolved into a product for all ages. Travel by rail offers a sense of freedom and independence not associated with any other form of transport.”

So a big happy 40th birthday to InterRail, the rail pass that helped shape a generation and one that looks set to continue making its mark on Europe over the next 40 years.

The post Happy Birthday InterRail: 40 years of travel adventure appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

The Bernina option

But let’s say you are in St. Moritz. As one Cheapo, commenting on our post last week, nicely put it “the Bernina route is more amazing and a lot cheaper.”

Tirano (via the Bernina Pass) makes a superb day out from St. Moritz. Trains run hourly and a return ticket from St. Moritz to Tirano costs 58 Swiss Francs ($68). If you have a Eurail or InterRail Pass valid in Switzerland, you’ll ride for free. By contrast, a return run to Zermatt on the Glacier Express is 338 Swiss Francs ($398) and neither InterRail nor Eurail will get you a free ride.

If you do ride the Bernina route and it’s a fine day, opt for the 10:45 a.m. departure from St. Moritz which until August 31 carries open-top carriages. Allow a couple of hours for lunch in Tirano, where the Ristorante Sale e Pepe (right by the station) is a great choice, and take the 3:40 p.m. train back to St. Moritz.

Zürich to Lake Geneva

But let’s assume you are a real rail-hound, keen on long journeys and want to see a lot of Switzerland through the train window. If you are in any of the main cities, and are pressed for time, you could do better than the Glacier Express.

Our favorite Swiss rail route is the seven-hour journey from Zürich via Lucerne, Interlaken and Gstaad to Lausanne on Lake Geneva. The journey is often dubbed the GoldenPass route. It requires changes of train along the way (as the track gauge switches from standard to narrow and back again).

For a map and a table showing the main stages of the journey from Zürich to Lausanne, just follow this link. Distance-wise, this route is much the same length as the Glacier Express, though the overall journey time is about an hour shorter.

The one-way fare from Zürich to Lausanne by this route is 89 Swiss Francs ($104). The Swiss Pass, InterRail and Eurail Pass are all valid for the entire route. And there are no nasty supplements. Major agents such as Rail Europe UK or their US representative can give helpful advice on ticket deals and packages or simply buy your ticket on the Swiss Railways Web site and hop on the next train.

Route highlights

The first part of the ride south from Zürich is tame, but south from Lucerne the hills close in and the train climbs steeply to a summit station at Brünig-Hasliberg, which happens to have in the station building what must surely rate as one of Europe finest bric-a-brac shops. With trains running every hour, it is easy to break your journey.

From Brünig, it’s downhill all the way to Meiringen, a town that claims to be the birthplace of meringue (the confection rather than the Caribbean musical genre of the same name). Then west to Interlaken and Spiez — with fine views over the Thunersee — before climbing the Simmen Valley.

Hills roll into more hills and the train traverses several ridges, passing the resort town of Gstaad, before a spectacular descent down to Montreux on the shores of Lake Geneva. The final part of the journey to Lausanne traverses the Lavaux Vineyard Terraces, a wonderful sweep of ancient villages and vineyards that is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Options

From Lausanne, you can continue to Geneva, with five fast trains each hour taking about 40 minutes. Or you can return north on the main line with trains that run every 30 minutes to Berne (1 hr 10 mins travel time) and Zürich (2 hrs 10 mins travel time).

If you want to spread the journey over several days, obvious places for overnight stops are Lucerne, Interlaken, Gstaad and Montreux.

The post Switzerland by Train: Alternatives to the Glacier Express appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Riding the Glacier Express in Switzerland

Yes, the 180-mile journey from St. Moritz to Zermatt is a very fine trip, though hardly the express run implied by the name. The Glacier Express journey takes a shade under eight hours, and the route’s summer season is now in full swing. Departures from St Moritz are twice daily through September 25, with the schedule dropping back to one departure daily until late October, when the glitzy trains with their panorama coaches are shunted off into the sidings for a fall break.

A panoramic view aboard the Glacier Express. Photo: Mark & Gideon

The route: Tunnels, bridges and gorges galore

Travelers have a tendency to flock to well-known sights, and the Glacier Express, which has been particularly heavily promoted in the North American and Japanese markets, now features on the “must do” list of many non-Europeans visiting Switzerland.

Don’t misunderstand us. It is a super journey, but we are far from sure that it is the best on offer in Switzerland. The views while the train is in 191 tunnels are not great. And it would be difficult to contrive a route of similar length elsewhere in Switzerland that is so utterly devoid of lakes. The Glacier Express is very much a route in the mountains, much of it through deep gorges or barren high terrain.

Some who know the route well comment that the two stretches of industrial valley scenery (around Reichenau and later at Visp) come as a rather welcome relief from dark, forbidding crags and brooding snowfields.

Go local

Our issue with the Glacier Express is that it is promoted outside Europe as an up-market “exclusive” tourist experience with a price tag to match. That drives away the locals. And there are plentiful local trains that serve exactly the same route which have sensible prices (no hefty tourist supplements, no need to reserve seats in advance) and are often very much less busy than the Glacier Express.

Seven daily departures from St. Moritz on those regular local trains provide connections through to Zermatt in just over eight hours — so just 20 minutes slower than on the so-called “express.” The only downside with the local services is that you do need to change trains along the way, but the connections work perfectly in a way that only the Swiss can manage.

And the big advantage of the local trains is that on some of them you can open the windows (great for photography, and also a chance to enjoy the fresh mountain air).

The fares

It is not that locals despise the idea of traveling with tourists. But the prices drive them away. The one-hour stretch of the Glacier Express from Disentis to Andermatt is in our view one of the finest parts of the entire route. The trains chugs up over the wild Oberalp Pass. On the local trains that ply this route, generally once each hour, the one-way fare is 19 Swiss Francs (about $23). But use the Glacier Express — which isn’t any faster on this stretch—for the same journey, and the fare hikes up to 52 Swiss Francs ($62).

The regular second-class fare to ride the full Glacier Express route from St. Moritz to Zermatt this summer is 169 Swiss Francs ($202). This includes the compulsory seat reservation fee.

Travellers with a Swiss Pass may ride the Glacier Express by just paying a 33 Swiss Franc reservation fee. Holders of InterRail and Eurail Passes receive a discount, with fares for travel this summer as follows (always including the seat reservations): Eurail passes 94.50 Swiss Francs ($113), Adult InterRail passes 115 Swiss Francs ($137.50), Youth InterRail passes 74 Swiss Francs ($88.50).

Is it worth the ride?

In our view, it’s a fun day out and certainly a journey through magnificent scenery. If you are tempted, ride the local trains on the same route which have far more character. But eight hours is a long time, and the unremitting diet of gorges and glaciers can pall. There are, we think, other rail journeys in Switzerland which are cheaper, shorter, and—by virtue of being more varied—much more appealing.

Next week we shall review one of our personal favourites.

Have you boarded the Glacier Express?

Share your Glacier Express experience with us in the comments section. How much did you pay for your ticket? Was it worth it?

The post Switzerland by Train: Is the Glacier Express worth the ticket price? appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.