Interrail, summer 2025 - daily diary thread of our travels

[whole diary]

[grahame]

We arrived in Amsterdam yesterday - overnight on the boat from Newcastle to IJmuiden and then on a coach for boat passengers into the centre of Amsterdam.  27 hours from Melksham, 2 trains, 2 buses and 1 ship.  Extra costs for the crossing on top of the pass and by the time you pay for a cabin and meals, saving an overnight hotel, it made sense for us.  And it avoided the need to transit London as Eurostar, or Harwich, would have required.  Our passes are first class, and past experience of Cross Country trains to Newcastle suggests that it's a LONG journey in standard class. 

The transfer bus from Newcastle Central to Royal Quay was a standard bus designed for regular passengers, without extra allowance for all the stuff (cases, big backpacks, carpets!) people had with them and the travellers were excited to get on the bus, leaving little space for Lisa's mobility aid "Henry" and we struggled to get even seated - the last two seats grudignly given to us, with the comment from the woman opposite (we had back facing seats) that her pack was big - so didn't allow me to even get me feet in properly.

That bus aside, all AOK and we found our hotel in Amsterdam close to Central Station.  Like the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), streets are numbered odd on one side and even on the other. Which is fine until you go down the wrong side and can't cross because it's a canal and not a road between the sides. 

I'm on a continuous pass ... Lisa on limited day ... and in the afternoon I took a trip out to Enkhuizen - about an hour by train.   The station there is waterside, the service to Amsterdam electric and every 30 minutes, and it was a pleasant town and quayside to walk around. The online promotion site for the town tells me ""Within the old ramparts you will find no fewer than 361 national monuments and the most unusual street names. Also discover the Zuiderzee Museum and Sprookjeswonderland, be surprised by the special stores and enjoy the cozy restaurants.""  I suspect I saw, but did not have time to comprehend, a handful of the monuments and have 350 more for next time.

This is a dual purpose trip - for us to relax and have a good trip now that I have retired from my local Town Council, and also to look and learn more about travel and transport and how they fit in with city planning; I have been working / campaigning / informing / partnering for 2 decades now for changes for the better in my home area and there's nothing like seeing other practise and its effects first hand elsewhere.  More about than elsewhere and in separate posts elsewhere; my trip out to Enkhuizen was educational to say the least. It helps inform my technical strength as I talk and persuade/inform/suggest transport professionals.


















Edit - adding pictures

[grahame]

We are now on the ferry from Kiel to Klaipeda ...

Greetings from The Baltic. Yesterday by train from Warnamunde to Kiel Hbf, courtesy DB^» (Deutsche Bahn - German State Railway - about), on regional trains, with changes in Rostock and Hamburg Hbf.  The Interrail Planner gave us alternatives via Lubeck and I would have been tempted if alone, but we had plenty of time, and Henry with us, and a leisurely lunch in Hamburg was order of the day - the food court and shops there make stations in our home are like Bristol and Cardiff look sad, limited and untilitarian.  In Kiel, a taxi to the DFDS terminal (yes, an x60 bus would have got us a few hundred metres from that target) and a checkin, bus-to-ship and we were away late evening on the 20 hour crossing to Klaipeda.

I am very used to being a foot passenger on ferries; the "Victoria Seaway" is an older ship that has been refitted and is hopping up the 750kms to Lithuania.  These ferry crossings often carry school / college groups and this one is no exception - well enough behave teenagers but learning the ways of the world like how a buffet counter works and how to think for themselves and other.  I get the feeling that for many of them it's their first release from helicopter parents.  A delight rather than anything else to have them along, even if their enthusiasm leaves us as the back of the queue for the one lift on the vessel.

Our pass doesn't cover DFDS - but then for Lisa's 15 days in 2 months it's not a day marked off either. And she's already talking about taking a second trip within the three months if we save enough days up - minor issues like inbound and outbound days (but we may come back in via Portsmouth and local tickets from there) and major ones like dog-sitting. 

Our German experience of train staff with "Henry" - utterly helpful. In places the lifts are limited, and the regional trains with flatter access really helpful.  Lisa can manage a few stairs and a short walk - great for getting up to the upper deck and first class area on the double decker trains; standard class tends to be pretty busy (good for DB) with more local traffic - first a bit less dense, but yet largely lacking the characters who stop and chat.

Pictures - people-watching (largely) from the last couple of days

[grahame]

Greetings from Lithuania. We arrived here on the Victoria Seaway from Kiel on Thursday evening, stayed two nights in the Old Mill Comfort Downtown Klaipeda, and we are now headed (Saturday, 11 a.m. local time) on the 4 hour train journey to Vilnius, the capital of the country.

The online "app" / journey planner offered two trains a day from Klaipeda to Vilnius and the are [too/two] early and too late ... but look at the European Rail Timetable and there are five, and we are on the 10:33 (or 10:29 as it now is). I reserved seats via ltglink.lt - and bought us each €35 (first class) ticket, 100% discounted with a €3 reservation fee, which was what the train manager wanted to see.  Water, coffee, brownie served - think it's complementary and the coffee cup has an illustrated map of Lithuania on it.  All very pleasant and writing on the train WiFi as we travel though flattish countryside in a modern 3 carriage diesel train.  I'll tell you about Vilnius in a day or two when we get there.

Would I recommend Klaipeda and our travel route?  Yes - absolutely.  The ferry from Kiel took 21 hours and we had a cabin and had pre-booked breakfast.  Beware that it departs from a place around 6 kms from the main station; we took a taxi but I understand that the x60 bus works as well. Similarly in Klaipeda, coming in behind the offshore island that protects the city we were a few kms from the city and hotel and took a taxi - docking at 19:00 we were still checked in by 19:45.

This is primarily a post for our travel group - so I have majored on travel arrangements to help others who follow us. However, pictures of trains and ferries and tickets are not everyone's cup of tea so I'm going to post five pictures showing aspects of Klaipeda.  The return foot ferry to the island cost me €1.70 return and I thought it was going to be overcrowded by school groups, but somehow they melted into the boat and once on the island (which stretched many miles down the coast) they all headed up to the museum of sea life and aquarium, and I found myself in the UNESCO forest and on the beach that stretches south - all alone and stunningly beautiful.  I took in the museum as part of a circular walk though, and that was exceptionally well done.  I skipped the dolphinarium - two "shows" a day and I'm not sure I'm happy with performing animals.

In the afternoon a train trip on the local line - single carriage train every 3 hours - to Silute.  I had a choice of 16 minutes or 3 hours and 16 minutes there, and wanting to get back for an evening meal with Lisa on the waterfront in the Old Town, I went for the 16 minutes.  So any opinion I offer verges on the uninformed. But online nothing shouted "come and see our town" and apart from old churches I'm not sure what I would have found to do. 

I digress.  I had better enjoy today's adventure rather that blogging yet another day of adventures that are of more interest to us than to others.

[eightonedee]

Thanks Grahame

That "island" is not an island, it is the Corunian spit, which at its southern end runs over the Russian border, being in the Kaliningrad oblast, the separate area of land, formerly part of East Prussia in Germany until taken by the USSR at the end of the Second World War.

There is a very pretty village on the eastern side called Nida, that is the former home of the German writer Thomas Mann. Just inside the Lithuanian border there is a low hill with a decorative sundial laid out on the summit from which you can look out over the Russian border.

Klaipeda itself has an interesting history.  It was also ceded to the USSR at the end of the war, but ended up in the Lithuanian SSR. It was formerly known as Memel, and was the northern most city in pre-war Germany, and previously a Hanseatic city. You can see all those influences in the city, even if it's not the prettiest Baltic city. As you say, worth a visit, but you'll probably need to hire a car to make the most of the Corunian spit. Good for birding too!

[grahame]

That "island" is not an island, it is the Corunian spit, which at its southern end runs over the Russian border, being in the Kaliningrad oblast, the separate area of land, formerly part of East Prussia in Germany until taken by the USSR at the end of the Second World War.

Yes - it's a peninsula in the form of a long spit, with the land entry being via Kaliningrad - so the only way to it within Lithuania is by boat.

There is a very pretty village on the eastern side called Nida, that is the former home of the German writer Thomas Mann. Just inside the Lithuanian border there is a low hill with a decorative sundial laid out on the summit from which you can look out over the Russian border.

Klaipeda itself has an interesting history.  It was also ceded to the USSR at the end of the war, but ended up in the Lithuanian SSR. It was formerly known as Memel, and was the northern most city in pre-war Germany, and previously a Hanseatic city. You can see all those influences in the city, even if it's not the prettiest Baltic city. As you say, worth a visit, but you'll probably need to hire a car to make the most of the Corunian spit. Good for birding too!

There is a bus service from the passenger ferry (connects off at least alternate ferries all way down to Nida) and I understand there's also a bus from central bus station that takes the vehicle ferry that's about 5kms down but, agreed, a car for a short stop at spots along the way would be useful.

The forest and outer beach, even walking into them from the foot passenger terminal with its hordes of children in school parties, was an oasis of quiet and beauty - tranquil - and, yes, I could have walked for miles. Ahead of me on the path I saw a deer - no discernible photo (the technology of the eye is better at seeing these things than the technology of a phone camera to this day). 

I could have spent another 2 days in Klaipeda ... but then I could have spent longer in Amsterdam, in Rostock, and in the other placates along the way.   Two full days in Vilnius now and we are booked on one of the two international trains from here on Tuesday.