Wow, great videos Ayman, thanks for sharing your adventures. Very well done.
Thank you very much; as it was my most ambitious adventure to date, I'm glad I managed to make great content out of it. I actually feel like doing more Interrail trips in the future, given how many different ideas I have on what I could do with it, as well as what I would do differently after my first experience. Easiest way is to get a 4-day pass (cheaper than point-to-point tickets, as it already paid for itself after the first three trains travelling between Preston and Luxembourg) and travel from Monday to Thursday to avoid the weekend crowds.
There is one idea I have been thinking of for a future trip (although probably sometime next year at the earliest):
DAY 1 - Get into London in time for the 1104 Eurostar as I did before, but this time just as far as Lille to connect with the direct TGV to Marseille. After spending maybe an hour or two there, I'd get a TER to Toulon where I would stay overnight, since that actually has affordable hotels near the station compared to Marseille, Cannes or Nice (the latter two can actually give Switzerland a run for its money for accommodation).
DAY 2 - Catch the 0648 TER to Cannes, where I would have breakfast by the beach which is a short walk from the station, unlike Toulon or Nice where it's a bus or tram ride away. As the connecting TER to Ventimiglia just across the Italian border is half-hourly, it would allow me to easily make a quick stopover in Monaco to tick off a bonus country before getting back on the next train. However, I would have to get to Ventimiglia in time for the 1059 Intercity service (which appears to be infrequent) across to Milan, or else I'd have to make do with the slower regional trains. After a coffee and maybe some pasta at Milan, it'll be a Frecciarossa to Venice, where I can chill in the square outside Santa Lucia station awaiting the night train to Vienna.
DAY 3 - Start my morning exploring a bit of Vienna before getting a Railjet all the way across to Zurich, possibly with a stopover in Innsbruck on the way or instead maybe Feldkirch/Buchs/Sargans for Liechtenstein (I'll buy a bus ticket here since the local train is infrequent), as I'd have more frequent onward trains to Zurich from Sargans. I'd have enough time in Zurich to do more shopping at my favourite Coop outside the Hbf and chill by the Limmat, before getting the overnight IC(E) service all the way up to Hamburg.
DAY 4 - Stay around the area near Hamburg Hbf before getting an ICE down to Cologne or Frankfurt, where I get an ICE across to Brussels, but leaving plenty of time in-between to make sure I don't miss check-in for the 1752 Eurostar back to London, which is the latest Eurostar I can get in time for trains back up north to Preston or Manchester.
But as day 2 of this potential itinerary may be a tad too ambitious, I could consider many alternatives to allow some more time to take in Cannes, Monaco and Ventimiglia (Nice has too much to see all over the place for a short stopover to be viable there) before getting to Milan at a more leisurely pace (perhaps somewhere different like Genoa and down the coast) and just staying overnight there. Thereafter, I could either go further down Italy on the Frecciarossa or up Switzerland the reverse of what I did before, but with different stopovers like maybe Lucerne or Bern instead of Zurich and spending more time in Lugano. Maybe I can even get the slow train and stop in Fluelen near Altdorf (discovered it when looking back at my footage to better see where I passed on the fast train), which I found the ideal spot to relax by the lake right next to the station to enjoy a quintessential Swiss Alps view. You can see why Interrail can't be a 'one-and-done' experience; so many things you could do differently just in one area, let alone the millions of new places you can go to.
