InterRailing In Italy and Greece

Introduction

The idea

The ticket we got in 2005 allowed free travel on the standard railways and heavily discounted travel on the faster railways. At the time we went InterRailing the most common ticket was a single Zone pass lasting for 16 day. Europe was split into lots of zones each consisting of 3-4 adjacent countries. Since we went on our InterRail holiday the tickets have changed to be more simple - the zones have gone, and you now just buy an all-zone ticket - it allows travel on the faster trains too. Check the official InterRail site for up to date details.

We really wanted to do some traveling in Italy so we decided to go for the Zone G interrail ticket. This allowed travel in Italy, Greece, Turkey and Slovenia.

Over the course of two weeks we would travel to all the places you see below. Follow the links to follow our journey.

Planning The InterRail Trip	Milan	Venice
Florence	Pisa	Rome
Naples	Bari to Patras Ferry	Athens

Tips

• If you want to know where you will be sleeping then book your accommodation well in advance. The best hostels can book up months in advance. By booking early you will usually pay less.
• Place any toiletry bottles (shampoo etc.) in plastic bags to stop them from ruining the contents of your rucksack if they leak.
• Use plastic bags to keep you clean and dirty laundry separate.
• If you have a phone or camera which needs charging then charge it at every oportunity. You never know if the next places will have plug sockets that you adaptors will fit in. The sockets in Italy do seem to vary a bit.
• When you get your Euros try to get them in small denominations. €50 and smaller are best.
• If you have a one megapixel camera then taking photos of timetables can be faster than writing the details down.
• If you are arriving at a place in the evening then work out in advance how to get from the station to the hotel / hostel. You don't want to be lost at night.
• Lock your rucksack when you walk around with it. Tourists make easy targets for robbers and pick pockets.
• Keep you rucksack on both straps so it can't be snatched.
• Only keep a small amount of cash in your wallet. Keep most of your money in a money belt strapped around your waist.
• Be very careful on the roads of Italy and Greece. The drivers are crazy and are very reluctant to let you cross - even on official crossings.

How much does it all cost?

For the two of us we spent roughly €1600-1800 in total. This includes the accommodation, food, train upgrades / booking and attractions (but not the InterRail tickets which were an extra £145 each).

You can see the breakdown of all the hostel / hotel costs in the table on the planning page. The total for the accommodation was €827. In each place we had a double / twin room. In some places we went en-suite and in others we had a shared bathroom.

The next major expense was food. We ate out at restaurants for lunch and dinner. This worked out at €15 to €35 for both of us for each meal.

Not much was spent on any attractions. Most of the sites we saw were free. The major expense here was the gondola in Venice at €60.

However we certainly didn't have the cheapest InterRail holiday possible. If you want to cut down on the price you could stay in dorms, and cook your own food in the hostels with cooking facilities.

Links

• www.interrailnet.com - Official Interrail Website
• www.hostelworld.com - Where we bought out hostels from