Surface travel to/from Finland

Hee · Post by **Hee** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 10:59 pm

Does anyone have any experience travelling from France, England, or some other similar distance, to (or from) Finland by any combination of train/bus/ferry?

I'm looking for the most economical route (in time and money) from the west of Europe to Finland by public transport along land or sea and would love to hear if anyone has any experiences taking transport along this route and what services they used.

I do know a little about Eurorail, but it doesn't seem to have any direct (within reason) routes, especially passing through Eastern Europe.

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EP · Post by EP » Mon Jul 27, 2009 12:55 am

Ages ago I used to go regularly by train from southern France to Stockholm, ferry over to Turku and then a bus home. My kids have done this a number of times : ferry to Stockholm or Tallinn, train from Stockholm onwards, and bus from Tallinn onwards. Jump into a train in Warsaw.

Hee · Post by **Hee** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 1:09 am

EP wrote:Ages ago I used to go regularly by train from southern France to Stockholm, ferry over to Turku and then a bus home. My kids have done this a number of times : ferry to Stockholm or Tallinn, train from Stockholm onwards, and bus from Tallinn onwards. Jump into a train in Warsaw.

Thanks, good to know!
Also, approximately how long did the entire journey take?

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:04 am

For train connections, try this: http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml

DMC · Post by **DMC** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:14 pm

I stumbled across http://www.seat61.com/ today. It looks like it might be relevat here, but I haven't used it myself.

raamv · Post by **raamv** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:28 am

http://www.vr.fi/eng/ulkomaat/interrail/index.shtml

Also a FAQ by experienced travellers:
http://www.vr.fi/eng/ulkomaat/interrail ... ndex.shtml

Woverke · Post by **Woverke** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:37 pm

I think the shortest route is:

London [GB] - Brussels (Eurostar) Day 1
Brussels - Cologne [D] (Thalys/ICE) Day 1
Cologne [D] - Kopenhagen [DK] (CityNightline) Day 1-2
Kopenhagen [SE] - Stockholm [SE] (X2000) Day 2
Stockholm [SE] - Turku [FI] (Tallink) Day 2-3

There could also be a route Amsterdam - Kopenhagen or Paris - Berlin - Kopenhagen, but that will take you more time and cost you more.

The cheapest without surface would be Ryanair to Tampere of course .

From my proposal I have done the Turku - Stockholm ferry and Ryanair from Tampere to Frankfurt Hahn. All went well and there are good and easy connections everywhere (allthough from Stockholm ferry terminal you have to walk 15 minutes to the nearest T-Bana station, which will take you to Stockholm Central in about 10 minutes).

blaugrau · Post by **blaugrau** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 2:21 pm

I've done Austria-Finland (Turku) by train+ferry once, and it worked splendidly. The only thing was that I had to book each part of the train journey separately and worked out the connections myself, at least that way it was much cheaper than booking the whole journey e.g. via the Austrian railways. I was lucky and found some specially offers for certain parts of the trip, so it was relativley cheap in the end (150 Euro incl. all trains and the boat Stockholm-Turku).

It was great fun, and I'm thinking of doing it again sometime when I have enough time.
All in all it took me about 2 days and 2 nights of non-stop travelling.

This was the itinery:

Depart Sunday:
12:00 noon: Graz-Munich;
7pm: nighttrain Munich-Copenhagen

Arrive Monday 8am Copenhagen
Depart 12.00 Copenhagen-Stockholm (direct train!)
Arrive Stockholm 5 pm
Depart Stockholm 8pm ferry to Turku

Arrive at final destination on Tuesday 7am. in Turku

Pursuivant · Post by **Pursuivant** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 2:26 pm

Is there still an overnighter Hamburg-Stockholm train? That was pretty good coming from ferry => morning hamburg back in the day.

Then again back in the day there was Pomerania that dropped you off to Oxelösund for peanuts...

Woverke · Post by **Woverke** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 8:36 pm

Pursuivant wrote:Is there still an overnighter Hamburg-Stockholm train? That was pretty good coming from ferry => morning hamburg back in the day.

Then again back in the day there was Pomerania that dropped you off to Oxelösund for peanuts...

I think there are no nighttrains from Europe to Stockholm whatsoever.

SJ is planning to have one from Stockholm to Brussels though.

sinikala · Post by **sinikala** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 9:17 pm

Someone (might have been Mossman?) posting on here travelled from Finland to England by train and reported it on here, as I recall it didn´t go as smoothly as hoped. Perhaps someone else remembers more?

Bavarian · Post by **Bavarian** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 10:11 pm

Woverke wrote: I think there are no nighttrains from Europe to Stockholm whatsoever.

Berlin Night Express.

You can also go from Stockholm to Malmö, take the Øresund train to Copenhagen, and travel from there to Flensburg in Germany, although I don't know how convenient that is.

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