We’re fairly novice interrail users, having experienced it just once before this trip, four days for our return from Vienna to Bangor on our 2023 cycling holiday. I bought passes for my wife, adult son and self last summer in a sale, ten days in two months though we planned to be away only three weeks. We intended to call in on our daughter who was teaching English in Poland but in the meantime she’d moved back to England. We also wanted to visit relatives of Christine in Paris and Vienna so I devised a route to include these cities among the sights we wanted to see. I booked refundable accommodation for the full three weeks, loaded my pass and entered the train journeys as far as Vienna. At that point we would decide either to continue north into Poland or if we were weary of train travel to change the booked accommodation and spend the last week in Austria and Germany. The day before setting off, our son came to stay and I showed him and Christine how to use the app and load the journeys.
A few weeks before departure, I booked the Eurostar reservations, the TGV reservation for our exit from Paris and the Railjet from Venice to Vienna. The first day’s trains, on Wednesday March 19th, were
| Bangor | 09:20 |
| London Euston | 12:35 |
| St Pancras | 15:31 |
| Paris Gare du Nord | 18:50 |
The long gap was to provide a buffer in case Avanti let us down, otherwise to enjoy a main meal of the day so we didn’t have to bother too much for food in Paris. The trains were both punctual and Carlucci’s at St Pancras provided a good lunch.
We normally stay centrally but I’d wanted to visit the business district of La Défense for a long time, only a short metro ride away and the better value accommodation was a bonus. I’d booked three nights at Staycity Aparthotels with a 20% early bird offer.
Distance walked: 5.41 miles, Train miles: 543
After a good night’s sleep we went down to breakfast, which I’d booked only for our first morning. It was good value so we opted to have it for the other two days. We bought food to cook dinner for the two remaining nights and spent the days visiting Christine’s elderly aunt, Notre Dame in process of repair, and the modern architecture of La Défense.
Distance walked: Thursday 9.58 miles, Friday 7.3 miles