I have had some unfortunnate experiences recently with the Eurailpass. What has been your recent experience and do you recommend it.
I have traveled all over Europe using the First Class 15 and 21 day passes in 1968, 1974, and 1984. It was reasonably priced and included everything...no reservations, no supplement for special trains, nothing except what I paid for the pass...and there was always room on the trains. This allowed for spur of the moment decisions which is almost mandatory for backpackers. For example, I departed from Frankfurt for Berlin and found out from the conductor that the pass wasn't good for East Germany. So I got off at 11 pm and caught the midnight train to Hamburg and on to Copenhagen. And there were night trains to almost everywhere that was more than a 6 hour journey. And I could usually pull the seats out in the first class compartment to make a bed, as there were not many travelers at night.
Now it's hard to find overnight trains. And every train, it seems, requires reservation. Anyway, I bought my son a second class, 6 days within two months pass, and he was charged extra every time he used the train, either for reservations, even though they were made minutes before the train departed, and every train seemed to require a supplemental. On the train from Geneva to Nice, there were no Eurailpass eligible seats left, and he was going to have to pay 200 Swiss Franc for the full fare. He just returned to Rome instead of putting up with the bulls**t.
So what has been your recent experience? In the future I will either rent a car or fly.
Reply to this Unfortunately backpacking with an interrail/eurail pass in Western Europe has become a ballache. In Central and Eastern Europe it's mostly as you described in the first paragraph (though night trains tend not to have enough seating accommodation). Travel between major cities is mostly run by private companies who charge through their teeth in supplements and compulsory reservations.. back in your time it would have been all state-owned, like most of the former bloc still is. I don't recommend rail passes for people travelling in the west - just plan your journey (or at least part of it) and book single tickets. There are exceptions like the Netherlands and Belgium, within which you can travel between cities fairly quickly using local trains without needing to pay surcharges.
In France I was trying to get a train from Paris to Bordeaux with an interrail pass (bear in mind this is a major route with trains leaving every hour) and I was just told "nope, nothing left, you'll have to go tomorrow". This isn't even anything to do with the rail pass, the French rail system is severely under-serviced. Compare France with the UK, which has a good enough service running with enough capacity and compulsory reservation and supplements are basically unheard of, only for the Eurostar and for the 2 remaining night trains in service.
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