My wife is there on a business trip.

I’ve developed the slightly mad desire to turn up on her doorstep by train. I was thinking of flying, when I thought what would Bryan Blessed do? Not fly that’s for sure, there are far more adventurous ways to get there and I have an irrational hatred of airports.

I can’t for the life of me get the TGV website to work and give me journey times, it comes up with errors. So I’m thinking of just buying an Eurail pass. How would I get there and what kinds of trains would I be using? The info on the net all seems a little bit confused.

She’d probably be pissed off for some reason or other.. just stay at home, clean your parts in the dish washer, watch some pron with the volume on and maybe ride your bike.

Now – to be fair I’m olde – but for the eurail tickets I did several times : even if youre a chicken you’ll possibly / probably? do better outwith the eurail structure.

Gis a clue on final to / from cities? Day to arrive? You ok sleeping in a train station in the arse end of somewhere?

#edit – as a mad guess London-Lisbon : voyages-sncf have a train sigle at £180. Cheaper to fly sadly.
But give us the details.

Nahh, I felt the sudden urge to go adventuring. Life is passing me by.

I can just about justify it if it’s to visit my missus. Found a nice page on EUrail that helps with the planning

I am fine sleeping on stations, I’d like to get from London to Paris then Paris to Irun or Madrid and then on to Lisbon, preferably next week or the week after. Any trip that I have attempted to plan that goes via Irun just creates an error message on all the sites. The EUrail Europe wide passes seem to be cheaper than buying a return ticket to Lisbon, via the site you mention.

Cheers 🙂

I use the OBB travel portal.
OBB is Austria’s train service and it runs like like clockowrk. I’ve used the portal to go to various cities.

http://www.oebb.at/en/#

Ferry to Santander, then the train? I am determined not to go via flying sardine can.

Cheers iolo.

The man in seat 61 has all the answers…..

Edit: [/url]

If you’re resident in Europe you’ll need an Interail pass not a Eurail one. Eurostar isn’t included in either pass (though you can get a discount).

But if you’ve got the time and money spending a few weeks bimbling around Europe on the trains sounds like an excellent plan 😀

Ferry to Santander, then bike.
Does she know? It would be a bit odd just showing up!

Have you met her boss?

You thought of signing up to Blablacar? I did a dummy run for Leicester to Paris, £31 in an AM Vantage (ffs) was the offer. I also had an offer for Talinn that looked reasonable. Should you go by train, the line from Madrid to Lisbon is pretty diverse and spectacular.

Tom go for it. I’ve done a few trips Paris to cities in Germany and found it all ran very smoothly, was cheaper (booked in advance, specific train times) and quicker when taking into account airport check in / waiting for luggage. In your case the trip isn’t going to be faster than flying but certainly more interested. I would suggest a stop to explore a bit. The Ferry to Santander is a top proposal.

I’d second the ferry to Santander too. It’s so easy and takes 20hrs crossing, book a luxury seat near a window and nod off when the trip gets boring or book a cabin. I’ve done the trip 6 times, with the van full of windsurfing gear, rolled on, settled in seat, nodded off. Foot passengers cost about £150rtn (off the Brittany Ferries website) which I think is a bargain. Catch the train down to Portugal from there, it’s very well connected.

how long is she in Portugal on business for?

The ferry is fine in good weather. Crossing the bay of Biscay in gale force winds was one of the worst experiences of my life. I really thought i was going to die.