Interrail Global Trip | DAY 1 | First Time for Everything | 6/6/2024

First time doing this Interrail/Eurail thing, so decided it would be sensible to start off with a basic 4-day flexi-pass to test the waters. After taking my usual Preston to London Avanti service, I walk over to St Pancras to catch a Eurostar (finally, after all these years) to Brussels. However, my target city to explore for the day is further afield in Luxembourg, the namesake capital of this small nation world-renown for its free public transport. Thereafter, I finish the day off riding the frequent TER service across the border to Metz in the Grand Est region of France, where I stayed overnight.
0:00 - Avanti Class 390 Preston to London Euston
1:35 - Walking from Euston to St Pancras
2:00 - Eurostar Class 374 London St Pancras to Brussels Midi
6:02 - SNCB IC M7 Brussels Midi to Luxembourg Ville
11:10 - Exploring Luxembourg City on Free Public Transport
18:02 - SNCF Z24500 Luxembourg to Metz Ville
NOTE: If any of the captions go too fast for you to read, I would recommend pausing the video. Whenever I get the time, I hope to use the RUclips captions feature to overlay captions that stay on for longer.

[@kamlaky]

We are Traveling from Australia to Switzerland next week and 8 countries from Zurich ON EURAIL. Looking forward!!!

[@AymanTravelTransport]

Sounds brilliant, hope you have fun! There's a big Coop store outside Zürich Hbf (Central Station) which has an insanely good selection of food, including all the Swiss chocolate you could ever want. What itinerary have you got planned?

[@WINGSANDRAILS]

You will get addicted to Interrail! Nice way to travel.

[@AymanTravelTransport]

Yeah, I'm already feeling the urge to go off on another one, although I'd have to wait for the high season to die down. It would be necessary for any rail journey to the continent anyway, as I found that a 4-day pass (including Eurostar reservation fees both ways) is actually cheaper than regular tickets one-way (even a month or two in advance) from my local station to any city in Europe.

[@WINGSANDRAILS]

@@AymanTravelTransport no fun in high season. To busy

[@AymanTravelTransport]

@@WINGSANDRAILS that's what I was thinking; most reservations would be fully booked (especially mission-critical Eurostar to get on the continent in the first place) and accommodation would be expensive. Does high season end in September or October?

[@WINGSANDRAILS]

@@AymanTravelTransport well depends a little always which country i think. I always aim for half way thru September early okt. As of this year also

[@AymanTravelTransport]

@@WINGSANDRAILS I have an idea for a challenge which will definitely only work in the off-season. Basically, a spontaneous interrail challenge, where I would do it without booking any accommodation and reservations only at short notice. This would mean finding the necessary Eurostar passholder reservations less than a week in advance to set up the challenge. Thereafter, see where I can go without reservations on day trains and then at night, rely purely on overnight trains that either don't require reservations (plenty of IC and ICE trains like that I recently found) or can be reserved on the day.