A journey through Europe

Von: Bernhard Kraft

I was on an Inter-Rail trip for 21 days which took me through large parts of Western Europe.

From end of may till beginning of June I went on an Inter-Rail trip through western Europe. My journey started in Vienna and first took me to Munich. When you travel via Inter-Rail you have one ticket for whole Europe and can take almost any train you like. One of the few restrictions is that with the Inter-Rail ticket you can not travel in your own country. So I had to purchase a ticket which took me out of Austria first.

In Munich I visited some quite nice places like the "Frauenkirche", the new "Rathaus" and some other well known places. I stayed in Munich only for some hours as I had to wait for my train to Paris and first decided I would make a walk trough the city center on my own. I came along a monument which is for remembering the bad things which happened against the Jews in the second world war during the Holocaust. Then I went on to the city center to the new Rathaus where I bumped into a guided "free" city tour. I joined the guided tour and they told us a lot of information about famous Munich places. In the evening my train to Paris left and I went back to the train station.

When I left the night train on the next day I was already in Gare de l'Est in Paris. One of the first things to do there was the same as in Munich: I brought my luggage to the luggage storage facility at the train station, so I did not have to walk around in the town with my very heavy bag containing all my cloths and my tent. In Paris I looked for a hostel as I wanted to stay there for some days and I still had to reserve my train tickets for the further journey. One of the other restrictions when traveling via Inter-Rail is that you have to make reservations for most of the trains you will use. You can not just get onto the train - you need a reservation for most of them. And neither the Austrian nor the German railway companies could manage it to reserve a place in one of the fast French TGV trains from Paris to Irun.

Altough I could find a youth hostel in Paris and brought all my luggage there some really bad things happened to me there. I lost my very expensive Canon EOS 500D digital camera which is worth about 700 Euros and also my sleeping bag and was close to also loosing my Inter-Rail ticket. In fact I had already lost them but could get them back at the train station counter where I left them while trying to reserve the remaining train journeys.

In Paris I also took a guided "free" city tour which took us to many famous places like the Louvre, the Place de la Concorde with the Obelisk and other sights. On another day I visited the church Notre Dame and the Eiffel tower on my own. When I was already on the top of the Eiffel tower and was hading back down using the lift, I noticed that there are also stairs. And I would suggest anyone ever visiting the Eiffel tower to use the stairs not only to go down but also to go up: You save quite some money and it takes you longer and you have more insight in the construction of the tower.

On the fourth day I left Paris heading to Lisbon in Portugal. For this I first had to go to Irun which is a city on the border between France and Spain, but already on the Spanish side. The train from Paris goes till Hendaye which is still on the French side and then on to Irun which is just a few kilometers across the border on the Spanish side. The train which comes from Lisbon on the other hand does not end in Irun but goes on till Hendaye, so they share the little bit of track between Hendaye and Irun.

Since February I learn Portuguese - which was one of the reasons I wanted to make my Inter-Rail journey go to Portugal. Altough I learn Brazilian Portuguese I think making a journey to a country where they speak the language would improve my skills. But one of the first things I said in Portuguese to some native speaker was not to a Portugese person, but to a Spanish guy in Irun. When I was at the train station in Irun I also had to wait for quite a few hours (I guess it were 8 hours or so) for my train to Lisbon. So I went into the town to buy some food. I could not find a supermarket so I asked someone on the streets: "Onde esta o supermercado?" And was astonished he understood me and could point me to some supermarket altough I did not completly understand what he told me.

Some hours later I left Irun heading for Lisbon on a Portuguese night train. When reaching Lisbon I directly went to the youth hostel there which I booked in advance from home over the Internt. I was "Lisboa Central Hostel" and is a quite nice place to stay and you get free pancakes every morning. At this time I stayed in Lisbon only for one night, as my plan was to go to the south coast of Portugal for scuba diving. After having a shower I went out for buying some food (which is something you do all the time when traveling via Inter-Rail) and to purchase a cheap digital camera as replacement for my expensive Canon. So I could at least make some photos while being on my holiday. On the next day my train to Tunes left. Tunes is a city already in the southern region of Portugal - the Algarve. From Tunes I took another train to Lagos which once was the capital of the Algarve in historical times. From Lagos a bus took me to Sagres which is the most south-western point of Portugal, yet even of whole Europe.

I stayed in Sagres for about a week or so. First I had a room in a guesthouse, but this was too expensive for me, and a German guy who I met at the diving school suggested I could move over to the camping place - which I did. In Sagres I took scuba diving lessons. I am already the owner of a PADI Open Water Diver certificate for about 10 years. I made this training when I was on the "Maturareise". The Maturareise is a holiday which you make with your whole class or your best friends of your class when you finish school. In Sagres I wanted to improve my diving skills and made a course to reach the Advanced Open Water Diver level, which I of course finished successfully. On the camping place I also met two friendly German girls from Munich which whom I went to the beach one time and had some quite interesting conversations. They also pointed me to a nice beach near the camping place "Beliche" which I visited on one of the remaining days. When I left Sagres I went back to Lisbon so I do not only hang around in Portuguese countryside but also in the capital of Portugal.

Back in Lisbon I also took a guided tour, but this time not a "free" tour. Those "free" tours which are available in many large cities with lot of tourism are not really free. They work on a free tip basis. So when the tour is finished you pay the city guide some amount you think they were worth. What I noticed was that 5 to 20 Euros were some common amounts - I mean they take you around in the city for more than 3 hours and have a quite good knowledge of the cities they are taking you through. Also all of them were really friendly. Lisbon was the last planned stop of my journey and from there on I went back to Austria. I first went back to Paris from where I took a train to Zürich and from Zürich to Bregenz. I stayed one more day in Bregenz for visiting a cousin of me who lives in Bregenz. But on the next day I went back to Vienna over Munich.

Altogether it was a very nice journey and I can suggest such an Inter-Rail trip to everyone else. I have to admit that there were quite some complicated issues, like when I lost my camera, sleeping back or when trying to find a youth hostel with some free places. But if you are are interested in experiencing some kind of adventure and not just stay for 14 days at an all-inclusive hotel then Inter-Rail is a really nice idea.

And to stay international and as this article is quite long I will not translate it to German. I guess one of the reasons for taking this journey was because a lot in my life changed in the recent months and I had to become more clear over all this changes and a holiday and journey is always something to find more into yourself. One of the most important changes in the recent months was that I went back to my original home in Rust. I lived in Mödling near Vienna for almost 10 years now and somehow I am quite sad I have left it. But it seems my old hometown Rust and the neighbor city Mörbisch will become my new home.

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