Interrail 1998

The first Interrail of my life, shared with Mauro and my cousin Ivano. In fact there should have been four of us, but right at departure time from Milan's central station “il Teo” showed up with this line: “Sorry guys… but I'm not coming!” The three of us obviously set off anyway, taking a TGV direct to Paris… In Paris we settled into a hostel in the Algerian quarter of the city, where going out in the evening wasn't exactly safe… quite the opposite, actually. Still, we managed to visit the whole city, spending a full day at Disneyland too. After three days in the French capital, where we used up almost all the FRANCS we had, by unanimous agreement we decided to move on to somewhere cheaper! We ended up in Besancon, where we stayed in a very cheap hostel, and after paying for two nights we were left with no money for two days.

Fortunately, in the main square we met a group of girls who practically looked after us during our stay in that city. Away from Besancon, passing through tiny Luxembourg, we arrived in Amsterdam, where we spent three strange days… nice but strange. Having left the Dutch capital, we ended up almost by chance in Zandvoort aan Zee, which turned out to be a lovely little seaside town. We finished our first Interrail by stopping for five days in Leuven, a beautiful Belgian university city. Here we were guests of Seppe, a dear friend of ours who had studied in Italy for a year some time before.