Inter Railing hotels & travel advice

jannev94

About 5 of us are going inter railing this summer. The plan is to choose four or five from Prague, Krakow, Bratislava, Budapest, Zagreb and Ljubljana. Just wondering, would people recommend booking hostels and trains in advance or just going to the cities and then deciding when we're there how long we want to stay and planning hostels a few days in advance? Is it better to get the over night trains when possible instead of hostels? Also we only have 2 weeks because we have jobs and can't get time of work so how many cities would ye think is reasonable for 2 weeks? Thanks!

GrumPy

We did: Warsaw, Vienna, Munich, Prague, Berlin & Amsterdam in 2 weeks.
It was fun and we got to see alot - would need a holiday after it though!

If you need hostel recommendations, I can dig out my TripAdvisor reviews of the places we stayed.

purplecow1977

GrumPy wrote: »

We did: Warsaw, Vienna, Munich, Prague, Berlin & Amsterdam in 2 weeks.
It was fun and we got to see alot - would need a holiday after it though!

If you need hostel recommendations, I can dig out my TripAdvisor reviews of the places we stayed.

Would be interested in your reviews for Munich and Prague please.

GrumPy

purplecow1977 wrote: »

Would be interested in your reviews for Munich and Prague please.

Prague: Hostel Santini. Cheapest hostel on the whole trip, and by far the nicest. The building is a UNESCO heritage site (old residence of some wealthy relatives of someone important or something) and it has marble interiors, rooms cleaned TWICE a day and includes breakfast. Get up early though, or otherwise all that will be left is dodgy cereal and warm crappy milk.
Towels provided, too. We stayed in a mixed, 12 bed dorm. Spotlessly clean, with two full bathrooms. Amazing showers and very central. (Around the corner from the Irish Embassy) Awesome place.

Munich - A&O City Hackerbruecke. A massive, multi-story, hotel sized crap factory. We had a 6 bed mixed dorm, toilet was unclean and the room was grubby. NEVER enough staff on the desk, they were always overwhelmed with check-ins and people looking for information (3o minute queues). The luggage room was sketchy, a bag had been robbed within the last few days we were there. Unfortunately, it was the weekend and a last minute booking, and it's all we could find. It was central enough though. (There are two hostels in Munich by A&O, our one was slightly further out, maybe 1km from the one closer to the centre)
It was one of the more expensive ones too if I remember correctly.

Hope that helps a tad!

purplecow1977

The Prague one sounds great.
The other . . . Not so sure, I like a place to be clean!
Thanks very much for your reply-very helpful

GrumPy

purplecow1977 wrote: »

The Prague one sounds great.
The other . . . Not so sure, I like a place to be clean!
Thanks very much for your reply-very helpful

No problem, we got the recommendation from some girls we met in Vienna a few days before hand! You'll get lots of useful info from fellow travellers you meet along the way.
While on that point, if you ever end up in Vienna, check out "Hostel Ruthensteiner". By far the best hostel of the whole trip, the rooms were small and simple, but clean, and the communal areas for meeting new people and socializing where second to none. Beer garden with BBQ area, big kitchen, hostel had it's own bar, instruments to use, comfy couches, decent WiFi, internet cafe type room, laundry, EVERYTHING!

Popescu

I have always book trains and accommodation in advance and three days is a minimum stay to get to know the place. I was in Prague when it was the capital of Czechoslovakia. I'm sure it is overrun with tourists since then.

Slunk

Bratislava is nice but not a lot going on there. Similarly,we found Zagreb a little boring but if your there do a trip to plitvice lakes. Prague and Budapest are both beautiful and good nightlife. Ljubljana is a nice spot too, we were there when the euro basketball championship was so was busy but id imagine its fairly quiet.
Stayed in sofias house in Budapest, staff recommended some good things for us and was central enough.
Ljubljana was stayed in tresor, very nice hostel right in the centre.
Can't recommend anywhere in Prague as I stayed with friends.

grimm2005

Krakow is great, was there earlier in the year and loved it, close to some significant sights and there's plenty to see in the city itself. Would highly recommend Mosquito hostel near the main square. Free breakfast, free dinner, and events every night in their common room, before a free pub crawl every night at 11pm. They can organise trips to Auschwitz and the salt mines every day also which is pretty handy as transport picks you up outside hostel. It's quite a small hostel (maybe 40 beds or so) so you get to know everybody and the staff are great, they almost become like fellow guests.

Has all your mod-cons as well, wifi throughout, very clean and modern feeling, they'll even do your laundry for free. Definitely the best hostel I've ever stayed in and contributed a lot to my enjoyment of my trip.

cson

Stay in Wombats hostels where possible. Excellent accommodation.

grimm2005

cson wrote: »

Stay in Wombats hostels where possible. Excellent accommodation.

Can attest to this also, stayed in Wombats in Budapest and it's literally a converted 5 star hotel. Really nice accommodation for peanuts.

One thing I will say is that it is a huge hostel, so I wouldn't stay if you were planning on going alone and easily meeting folk as they don't really have any common room events set up afaik (although I'm sure you could find some pub crawls etc). Definitely one to stay in if you're in a group doing your own thing though.

As an aside, the Hoscars (run by hostelworld) is a good place to check out the best rated hostels worldwide in different categories (small, medium, large etc.) and you can check out all the reviews etc: http://www.hostelworld.com/hoscars-2014

purplecow1977

Thanks guys, very helpful

jannev94

Thanks for all that info! Really helpful

purplecow1977

Does anyone know how much extra you pay for night trains if you already have an inter rail ticket? Is this info available somewhere online?!

Slunk

We got the night train from Krakow to Budapest. It was an extra 21 euro each, two person cabin, may be cheaper if three people as they can be set up that way. Don't expect any sleep or get a few beers into you, spent an hour in a forest coupling and uncoupling various trains for Budapest /Prague /Vienna etc. Got the ticket on arrival in Krakow, that's what I done in most places. Arrive and book the train for when I'm leaving

edunne2010

http://www.interrail.eu/

deecom

Slunk wrote: »

Bratislava is nice but not a lot going on there. Similarly,we found Zagreb a little boring but if your there do a trip to plitvice lakes. Prague and Budapest are both beautiful and good nightlife. Ljubljana is a nice spot too, we were there when the euro basketball championship was so was busy but id imagine its fairly quiet.
Stayed in sofias house in Budapest, staff recommended some good things for us and was central enough.
Ljubljana was stayed in tresor, very nice hostel right in the centre.
Can't recommend anywhere in Prague as I stayed with friends.

Ljubljana in summer is busy enough, however not a crazy party town. Plenty of places to stay, but can be busy so be mindful of that. Nightlife is good, mostly tourist bars in the centre, and some cool underground spots to be found too. Food and drink is cheap if you watch the prices.

Have a good trip whatever you decide to do!

jannev94

Has anybody any hostel recommendations for Amsterdam? I tried the Flying Pig Downtown but they're all booked up. Thanks!

GrumPy

jannev94 wrote: »

Has anybody any hostel recommendations for Amsterdam? I tried the Flying Pig Downtown but they're all booked up. Thanks!

Most places in Amsterdam are crap, seriously crap & overpriced. Flying pig is always booked up, because it's one of the few decent ones!

If you get lucky it will be OK, but you'll still feel like you're paying far too much. (especially if you've stayed in other European capitals, like Vienna or Berlin - Prague being the best value for accom)