winter pass

winter pass
Snoqualamie pass, Washington

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

europe trip 2014

The adventure begins.... (plug in theme from Star Wars here)...

Currently I am planning the trip to Europe in May--- June, with my brother for a part of the trip.

I have booked the flights for myself from Seattle to Krakow, Poland a few months back. And I also booked a flight for my brother to leave a week later from LAX to Charles De Gualle, Paris. I plan to leave Krakow to Paris a day before he lands into CDG.

The planned cities are Krakow, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Granada, Seville, Lisbon. Then fly to London, visit friends at Wheymouth, then to Cardiff (Wales); 33 days total.

Hotels are all booked at this time, except for London.

star date: April 23, 2014, Pacific time, 1210 am...

I have just booked eurail tickets for the train travel (eurail. com: http://www.eurail.com/eurail-passes/what-eurail; there's also a site called Rail Europe, but the charges are more expensive. After searching the former site, the options are select pass or regional passes. The global pass is for more extensive travel. the select pass is through  4 countries of travel, while the regional pass is for 2 countries. Although I travel through 4 countries, Poland, France, Spain, and Portugal, in Poland I will use local trains, and from Seville, the last city of Spain on my itinerary, to Lisbon is by bus, therefore no need to include Portugal in my pass. That leaves me with needing pass for France and Spain only. I chose the 1st class since it's only $60 more.

The select pass is for 6 days of actual travel sitting on the train, 2 persons. confirmation order #EU0151475; it will be sent to my address in Pasco, Washington by May 5th, or so it says.
total cost of pass: $872 (I added the pass lost protection for $20/pass).

I also downloaded the confirmation sent by email of the purchase to the dropbox, then DL it to my iPad, and then save it to a folder Europe trip 2014 in iBooks. This way I will have all the documents on my ipad in one folder for the trip.

After booking the eurail pass, there are reservations required on some trains. Most trains in France required advance reservations, despite having the pass. From the eurail site there's link to submit reservations for the trains and days of travel.

train schedule:

Barcelona Sants to Madrid-puerta de la Tocha: AVE 3082 8am-11:10am 3hr10min.



No comments:

Post a Comment