Realistic Travel Itinerary - Switzerland to the east - how far can I go in 2 weeks?

Question

Hey everyone.. I'm going to be studying in Switzerland for the next semester, january - june, and I will have 1 break, and few random days off, and then 14 days at the end before I fly home.

Realistically, how far east do you think I can get? I want to see as much as I can, while I'm in a good strategic area - are Greece and Russia too far? Can I hit up Prague? Thanks.. curious as to how much I can stuff in!

Would Sweden/Finland/Norway also be too far?

Answer 1

You can pretty much get anywhere you want these days. There are a lot of budget airlines for long distance travel. This site is a good source for identifying the budget airlines that fly between a given pair of cities: http://www.whichbudget.com/#from15 There are links to the airline websites so you can check specific schedules and prices. Switzerland is pretty well connected - the budget airlines include Air Berlin and Germanwings. Another good site for locating cheap flights is http://www.skyscanner.net/. Air Berlin goes to Moscow from Zurich and Germanwings goes to St Petersburg.

As someone else mentioned, the night trains are a good way to get around too. You can sleep through the night and arrive at your destination the next morning. The train stations are usually near the city centers, so there's no wasted time with transfers to the cities. A good source for checking schedules throughout Europe is: http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en Sometimes, the airfare can be cheaper.

I highly recommend including Prague in your travel.

Answer 2

Prague is an overnight train ride away. For Greece, Russia, or Scandinavia, I would definitely recommend flying.

You could take one of your breaks to visit Greece, go to Scandinavia for a long weekend, and then plan on a train ride via the Czech Republic/Poland/Ukraine to Russia and then fly back.