st petersburg - london

[katreeen]

Can anyone suggest a more interesting way to get to London from St Petersburg, other than flying? Is it possible to get trains to poland/germany etc? Time is not an issue but price is... I'll have got all the way from Shanghai on the train so it would seem a bit of a letdown getting on a plane home.

[dzug]

You can get a bus most (but not all) of the way. See the Eurolines site. I think they get as far as Latvia, from where they may well be other buses and/or trains on.

And you can certainly get a train via Moscow - maybe more expensive though..

[Buenchico]

(2-part post):

Rail times throughout Europe are available on the German Railways website:
http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

I've just asked this site how to get from St Petersburg to London, starting out on Monday, January 30th. Here's one of the routes:
Depart St Petersburg 1750 Monday
Arrive Orscha 0424 Tuesday

Depart Orscha 0534 Tuesday
Arrive Brest 1250 Tuesday

Depart Brest 1320 Tuesday
Arrive Cologne 0617 Wednesday

Depart Cologne 0714 Wednesday
Arrive Brussels 0932 Wednesday

Depart Brussels 0956 Wednesday
Arrive London 1126 Wednesday
Total journey time = 44 hours 36 minutes.
(NB: In practice, I don't think that there's enough time for Eurostar check-in allowed in that schedule - so you should add another hour or so on to allow for catching the next Eurostar service).

[Buenchico]

If you don't fancy that route, the German Railways website has alternatives available, including this one: (I'll omit times on this occasion)

Rail to Helsinki.
Bus to the port.
Ferry to Stockholm.
Bus to the rail station.
Train to Malmo.
Train to Copenhagen.
Train to Hamburg.
Train to Brussels.
Train to London.
(Total journey time = 51 hours 58 minutes).

To get a price for this journey you could contact Rail Europe. (This is the firm which National Rail stations will probably direct you to):
http://www.raileurope.co.uk/
If you do so, however, you'll end up paying a booking fee for their services. How can you avoid the booking fee? Simple! Just contact the same company which provides all the timetable information, i.e. German Railways. No, you don't need to speak German; they've got a UK office which can handle all bookings for European travel:
http://www.deutsche-bahn.co.uk/-S:PtVOSN:dJdsoNNNnl-cstN NNN5M/db_uk/view/info/index.shtml

Hoping this helps,

Chris

[gary baldy]

You can get a bus from Manchester to Warsaw (and visa versa) once a week so i'm sure it either goes via London or there is a similiar service.
It is very popular but i dont know who runs it (its a Polish firm).

[CalumAH]

What might be an idea is to pay for a ticket from St. Petersburg to some random city in Europe, and then buy a month-long Inter-Rail pass (www.raileurope.co.uk). For �285 you have a ticket that allows you unlimited travel to, or between, 28 European countries... Would definitely be interesting!