How many European countries can I visit in 24hrs?🚆 🚌 🚋 🚲 #Europe24

[Music] foreign [Music] T I'm standing here in the most southerly city in the Netherlands the University City of the Maastricht here by the river MERS spanned by the oldest bridge in the Netherlands the 12th century since service book we're here today to start a new adventure we've done how far can you get by bus in 24 hours we've done how far can you get by train in 24 hours today we're starting Europe 24. how many countries can I visit by public transport in 24 hours this is the Borderlands this is as far south as the Netherlands get the province of Limburg so this is a great place to start now obviously we need some rules for this challenge firstly I'm making your life easy for myself I can start anywhere I like and I can start at any time I like so actually whilst it's a beautiful city and I'm looking forward to spending the evening here I'm not going to start here I'm going to head 10 minutes south to Little Village of Iceland right on the Belgian border 10 minutes in hand might come in useful later on secondly what can I travel on trains buses coaches trams boats pretty much anything that goes on the surface as long as it's not a car or a taxi or an airplane and thirdly what do I mean when I say I'm visiting a country I can't just pass through on an Express Train I need to actually change I need to arrive and depart on a different vehicle the exception of that rule is the first country and the last country after those of us of a certain age the name Maastricht is inextricably linked with a treaty with The single currency with the social chapter and we have a series of parliamentary rebellions that brought down a conservative government maastricht's name is set in history through all that but it's also an absolutely beautiful town and before I head down to Iceland to start this challenge I'd like to show you a few parts of it the first sign that there might be something quite special about Maastricht is it's fantastic just pre-World War One railway station Advocates the provincial capital majority Catholic Lindbergh it's quite High Church the stained glass The Soaring voltage roof the balconies no particular purpose but this is Netherlands after all so underneath it isn't Hellfire and brimstone but a vast sheltered bike park complete with travel acres for cyclists and an on-site bike mechanic just over the bridge and we find a genuine Church 13th century Dominican Gothic pile which itself was once used as a bike park but is now one of Europe's most dramatic book shops this may be firmly northern Europe but as a southern extremity to Netherlands there's what passes for a Dutch latinate vibe to this town with its handsome squares lined with Cafe Terraces and it's nearly Christmas or rather it's nearly Saint Nicholas Eve on the 5th of December which is the main Dutch celebration so the whole place is decked in tasteful decorations to fortify myself for the long night day and part of a night ahead I'm going to join the cafe culture and celebrate the fluid National boundaries of this corner with a huge plank of Belgian cheeses and a Trappist beer Mrs turtle is delighted they provide some parsley with the cheese but the night is wearing on so it's time to head back across the river and hop down to Iceland to begin the challenge proper eisten 10 minutes from Maastricht is the most southerly Village in the Netherlands and has a claim to also being the oldest it's a damp Cobblestone sort of place silent half past 10 as the Mist creeps up from the river the river is the border with Belgium here the Mars This Side the mirrors on the other and in the daytime I could bag a country via a quick ferry ride but tonight there's just a kind of waterfowl and the war of heavy industry on the Belgian Bank Eastern station looks like your average Dutch halt the usual Paving signage fonts and cycle stands but it has a distinction of being served only by trains run by the Belgian State Railway indeed it closed in 2006 because the belgians started running trains that were too long for its platforms fortunately for eisten and me they reverted to short local trains five years later and the station reopened there's just me and Mrs Turtle waiting on the silent platform tonight for the almost midnight train going anywhere or more specifically to liege it's 23.58 our train is spot on time and we're starting the 24-hour clock every hour won these little Belgian trains shuttles to 35 kilometers between Maastricht and liege a useful crossbar to hop for me apparently a vehicle of deep suspicion for the Belgian authorities who dislike its frequent use to transport drugs from Liberal Limburg to not so liberal liege it's partly the wire on here tonight though and within four minutes we're pulling into Visa in Belgium which means we can chalk up the Netherlands as done it gets harder from here usually the Netherlands borders the Flemish dutch-speaking parts of Belgium but here because the maastrix Salient pushes so far south is a rare location where we cross straight into french-speaking bologna and just a few minutes down the line we're rumbling over the mirrors and into wallonia's largest city liege [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] station is one of Europe's most iconic completely rebuilt in 2009 by celebrity architect Santiago calatrava it's Monumental or inspiring and always bloody freezing the architecture sits well with the occasional high-speed train that calls here with a bit more awkwardly with the bulk of trains which are formed at Belgium's utilitarian and somewhat run down Fleet of regional Rolling Stock like our train from eisten not that sncb are strangers to Great design however they've got great use out of their classic being an oval logo designed for them in 1936 by Henry vanderveld won the nation's leading Art Nouveau practitioners a few rail companies can claim such value for money from their design commissions it's coming up to 1am and there's no more trains from liege tonight so to push onwards we're taken to the road and won the vast network of lime green flicks buses that cause Europe's trunk roads day and night Station cost 312 million euros I'm estimating the flixbus passenger facilities in the car park next door cost about 15. this conveniently timed coach makes a pit stop at liege on route from Amsterdam to Zurich four nights a week if it wasn't for my rules I could tick off four countries on this coach alone no well always by my own petard it's a bit disappointing to see a single deck of pulling when you've dished out a couple of Euros extra to reserve the front upstairs seat well I suppose when the next 100 miles is costing barely 10 euros I can't complain too much about ending up in a cramped aisle seat the coach is so full Mrs Turtle has to go in the hold shame she could have helped calm the unhappy baby who's everyone's favorite passenger at 1 30 A.M [Music] I can't see much but we're powering through the mistyard den skipping the stop at bastonia the Town most famous having its name mangled in American war movies we're now in Luxembourg but that's Luxembourg Belgium the Belgium Province father exceeds the namesake country and area if not in population and certainly not in GDP it was split from The Grand duchy in the third partition of Luxembourg in 1830. the details of the previous two partitions are far too well known to both of accounting here [Music] foreign but eventually somewhere on the damp auto route we crossed the border into Luxembourg Luxembourg and that's Belgium complete and two countries ticked off and slightly early but just before 3am we arrive at a park and ride on the edge of the third country's capital that is I guess Luxembourg Luxembourg Luxembourg so small they named it Vice I'm at Leon park and ride on accountably named after the stock you put in soup if my a level French serves me it's a good three kilometers from Luxembourg Central Station where I need to be next No Buses at this time the morning so time to file up The Velo bike hire app which wonderfully gives star ratings for each power assisted bike available at the docking station here number 11 seems to be a user favorite as well swiped right on that one [Music] foreign [Music] Luxembourg may have more cars per capita than any other Nation on Earth but at 3am the only other thing I'm seeing moving on the capitol streets is a dust cut [Music] thank you with the power assist eating up luxembourg's hills and allowed to make my connection I'm going a slightly long way round to do a bit of sightseeing of the Patrice Gorge and the bourbon fortifications which Together made the city so impregnable it was nicknamed the Gibraltar of the North [Music] thank you I've stopped the bike safely away and left it a good review luxembourg's Grand railway station dates to an early 20th century economic boom fueled by Iron deposits in Southern Luxembourg the nation got rich light being rich so opted to carry on being rich once again however we're not at a railway station for a train Railway geography gives Luxembourg poor links into Germany but the economics of the region mean there are lots of cross-border commuters seeking Luxembourg salaries and German cost of living so the shamanda fair looks in Bourgeois run a frequent express bus to sarbook which luckily for me and two other passengers this morning starts running at 4am Luxembourg famously made all its public transport free in 2020 except I've cleverly managed to use three modes in this country that I've had to pay for even the bike cost two Euros but this bus would have cost nine euros before 2020 and it's down to five now to pay for the German leg all in all it's a more relaxing Ambiance than the overcrowded Flix bus we come within a minute of entering France but Veer off just before the frontier but this is Luxembourg so we aren't far from a border for long popping out of a Motorway tunnel under the Marcus bag and we leap across the dark Valley of the Moselle by the small town of Schengen ticking off Luxembourg as we speed into Germany Schengen balanced the TriPoint of Luxembourg France and Germany is an appropriate place to cross a border on this journey without the eponymous agreement signed here in 1985 abolishing border controls in much of Europe Europe 24 would struggle to visit as many nations in a shorter time as we hoped to [Music] we're on to the race track like twisting Autobahn following the Meandering with a Tsar now and just over an hour after leaving Luxembourg City we're pulling into zarbruchen squeezed into the valley and unmistakably a West German Town that as a major industrial center of strategic Railway Junction was flattened in the 1940s and rebuilt from scratch in the Universal architectural style of the 1950s [Music] had I come here between 1949 and 56 I'd struggle to know what country I was ticking off was it the nominally independent Tsar protector to its own currency and football team France were effectively managed as part of their occupation zone or basically West Germany the politically neutral 15 stars on the European flag reflect on the tsarland's status was not settled at the time of its adoption by the Council of Europe but it's definitely Germany now and our visit to the bundes Republic is a short one so we must take our Pleasures quickly most importantly fresh pretzels from the station Bakery it's a long time since that cheese plant came Maastricht the bus from Luxembourg dropped us at the hope barnhoff but we're actually waiting for our next leg onwards down by the red Sandstone Johannes kierka in the histolic Town Center because we're going to leave Germany on a rarity an international tram train and here's our ride the 0640 to Sal Grameen since 1997 when the local German authorities clearly decided that the railway South down the Tsar Valley wasn't being used enough it was effectively a French rural line so that's no surprise Starbucks and trams have been running through the streets of the city center then onto a Mainline Railway down to South gaming just over the Border in France so our tram stops in the middle of a roundabout to drive the radios for authorization to clatter over to the national rail network and we're soon speeding along a non-tran light Pace down the valley and before long we're rattling over the tsar and into France taking off Germany country fall foreign [Music] at the French border station of sarogamine we've got just three minutes to bustle through the subway for the Strasburg train nowhere is it clear if this is meant to be a connection or not but I and one other passenger make it the air here forms with idling diesel engines as tile Express Racino wait to set off on various wandering secondary lines deeper into our SAS only the German tram is electrified foreign very slow recall along what is clearly tracking very poor condition climbing painfully towards the summit tunnel at puburg at each stop we feel further with bleary-eyed school kids and well wrapped up Strasbourg bound commuters slowly the dawn breaks gray at first then a fiery line opening up above a distant outline of the schwarzfeld just over six hours into our Challenge and we're into our fifth country I'm under slept but also really pleased how well we're utilizing this country heavy corner of Europe accelerating at last we're soon speeding past the morning Peak traffic jams on the approach The Alsatian capital foreign connection should be in Jeopardy I run through the subway dripping painfully on the steps Sanctified by train South is delayed too those who follow me on train 24 will know this route the semi-retired long-distance coaches which wants race to the Mediterranean or the massive suntrail now shuttling comfortably along the Rhine plane between Strasbourg and Basel due to a locomotive issue we leave Strasbourg 15 minutes late just as we did on chain 24. should be fine my connection at Basel is 30 minutes now just to sit back and enjoy this ride along the foothills of the Vogue mountains [Music] foreign things start to go wrong due to the delay the chef de Tran tells us they're turning this train at St Louis mount ers Saint Louis is within spitting distance of Basel even though it's in France there's even a tram across the border to basel's main station but there's nothing I can find to get me there in time for my planned onward connection to Southeast Switzerland lots of urgent timetable juggling later I realize I've got no choice but to drop a country I'm finally leaving St Louis on the next train from Strasbourg but frustrated on the challenge with lots of tight connections it's a half hour one there's a bonus spanner moving my mood the Rhino's Basel Zoo were hiding in the house today that does mean we're in Switzerland country five is ticked off I'm half an hour down on my schedule now but after Zurich the way the timetables work I'm going to be an hour drift I've worked out that Hungary is going to have to be the poor country sacrificed getting there was always going to be a stretch but we should still make a high total spending a few moments in the great departure Hall of Basel SBB is like meeting an old friend again it leaks of historic Journeys made and Promises of great Journeys yet to come and much needed to pick me up for reasons known only to people other than me the next Basel to zero kids city is formed for double deck French tgv today despite this being a Swiss domestic shuttle on the minor side this means no restaurant car for late second breakfast on the positive it provides a supremely comfortable viewing platform for a gentle swish through the cantons of Basel landshaft solar turn and Argyle where they're doing Autumn properly thank you [Music] just outside Alton which is the helvetic version of crew we swish across the green glacial Waters of the r Switzerland's longest or Swiss river and then swing East towards Zurich [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] drums and those chestnuts are two of the highest forms of civilization so good to see both outside of Jericho bahnhof I wasn't planning to even get off the train in Zurich so a silver lining is a few minutes to hang out by the lovely limat River gazing towards the distant Twin Towers of the ghost monster Richard fardner said they looked like pepper dispensers he's not actually wrong really But Country counting waits for no one and we need to head back to platform 7 for our train towards the mountain in the Southeast it's a sparkling new double deck in the city and because this is Europe's best way away I'm finally getting my restaurant car fixed upstairs nature foreign by asking if I could have breakfast at half past 11. that'd be very much against regulations but completely long time since the Master Cheese plank to go for a cheese course again a nicer compliment to the long Lakeshore Voyage down the zoo to say 30 kilometers at water level from telville to vangen foreign [Music] as we head into the Alps proper the zxa is followed by The Fjord like valenzie with its icy looking Cliff gut Waters so rugged is the opposite Northern Shore that there are Villages there still without Road access reachable only by boat on foot [Music] foreign [Music] ly pay the bill and Hop Off The Junction Station of sargans I couldn't do this challenge without a micro State and outside the station beneath the peak of gonzen there's a bright green bus to help us do that it's a three minute train to bus connection but this is Switzerland so of course that's official and it works we're quickly out of town on the unfortunately named lime mobile express bus crossing the young Vine to complete country number six just over half hour 24 hours gone we're out of country six and into the world's sixth smallest country the principality of Liechtenstein Rich of questionable Banking and excellent false teeth Lichtenstein consists of a narrow bit of flat Rhine valley floor where nearly everyone lives and a bulge of fearsomely precipitous mountains just 20 minutes from sargans and we're arriving in dominative capital fadous as soon as you get off the bus at vato's post office you can glance up to see the iconic Castle home of the prince above town Liechtenstein is the only European post-war Nation to vote to give its Monarch more Powers when in 2003 the prince gently suggested he'd decamped to his Palace in Vienna if he wasn't given veto powers the princely initiative referendum passed by 64 percent I have 15 minutes in vados enough to find out that it's ferociously clean it has an astoundingly ugly Parliament building designed by Hanover Architects and which looks like in a flat pack Parliament you'd buy from Ikea and the tourist information once free Swiss Francs to stamp my passport a final glance up to Vader's castle for Mrs Turtle who quite fancies marrying into minor European royalty interesting fact in a few years the lichtensteinwell family will technically become The Heirs of the Jacobite claim to the British throne hopefully we already have the same national anthem Melody wise at least we're on the number 11 bendy Buster Shan which is confusingly both lichtenstein's Second City and its largest town the narrow stretch of green space between Buddhas and Sharden is very much a blink and you miss it affair the number 11 is shockingly a few minutes late there's a four minute connection to the number 14 at Sean's strange circular bus station but the driver kindly Waits a few seconds for the Grateful connecting passengers oddly both buses are going to feel Kirk in Austria but the 14 takes a much more direct route along the main road as everyone making that Journey hops across to save 20 minutes there's still some substantial border infrastructure though largely mothballed while this is politically the Liechtenstein Austria border it's really the Swiss Austrian border Switzerland manages most of liechtenstein's external Affairs and the two of long had a customs Union regardless of where we're crossing out of that's little country seven ticked off foreign and we've almost immediately into bustling fell kick Austria's most westly town where our bus terminates outside the railway station I don't know why they decorated it with elevated oval Gardens on poles but it's rather fun kick station has if James choices do believed a great literary pedigree in 1915 he'd managed to Wrangle passage for himself his wife Norma barnacle and their children from Trieste to neutral Switzerland a fell kick station he was nearly arrested by austral Hungarian passport officials on suspicion of spying had the rest happened he'd been unable to write Ulysses over there on those tracks the fate of Ulysses was decised in 1915 he said later and it still says over the station Bakery our train onwards is a deep red rail jet the flagship trains and the Austrian Railways to my mind they're among Europe's best Frontline trains from a passenger perspective which is just as well as there's an afternoon evening ahead on this train like us it's come from Zurich and is a once a day Epic free Country Connection all the way across Austria and onto Bratislava capital of Slovakia [Music] thank you Beyond blue dens our train begins to slow climb up to the 1 300 meter alberg pass pretty much the only direct route linking the far west of Austria with the rest of the country plans to build a railway Up and Under the past date from 1842 with the British Empire Keen to establish an East-West route for traffic to Egypt it wasn't until 1883 that had actually opened with traffic then going so fast the line had to be doubled just two years later [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] tunnel and we're sending down the Valley of the Rosanna a tributary of the River Inn that's notable because before the tunnel the rivers were draining into the Rhine and hence the North Sea on this side they'll eventually reached a Danube and the black suit the eruptions at land deck it's very tempting to hop off and take a bus from outside the station over the Russian pass in less than an hour we could tick off Italy but I think it's better to have patience it may seem odd to be sitting on a train rolling through one country for six about 24 hours but the key is getting to another part of Europe if you like the belly Luxe corner where we can tick off lots of countries quickly obviously slightly more if you want to know 100 schedule Mercy sncf yeah what do you think [Music] foreign [Music] atene's book we couple up to another rail Jet Set headed for Vienna Airport that half of the train has an Austrian Airways flight number and everything so it can be used in lieu of a domestic flight to connect into something more long-haul where an impressive 14 coaches and two locomotives long underneath its formidable Fortress which the Habsburg used to bank up Hungarian political dissidents kuffstein is a Border Town and we're about to cross into Germany the fastest way I've worked from Innsbrook to Salzburg is through Bavaria the so-called deutscheck German corner and nearly every chain between those Austrian cities is a corridor train Kong running non-stop on German rails obviously this wouldn't have counted to tick off Germany zarbroken was necessarily I'm gonna pass the time in the darkness with a generous veg lasagna from Australia bundesbanon's Autumn menu ordered to my seat by app the waitress apologized wholeheartedly that they hadn't loaded any tablecloths today you can't miss the Train's return to Austrian soil as it rumbles over to salzac with salzburg's unmistakable floodlet Skyline laid out for our delight and delectation John Salzburg were Racing for Vienna along the best Barn one of Austria's first Railways but now upgraded beyond recognition 200 kilometers an hour this is the closest we'll get to a high speed running on this challenge [Music] as we approach Vienna there's a pulse stopping announcement about a technical issue am I about to lose more countries luckily it's in the airport portion which is going to be detached and terminated The Hope and hot my portions doing just fine to head on to Slovakia I should have been changing at Bean hop on half an hour ago and there's a Hungarian train waiting to connect across the platform to tempt me no we must push onward on this now very empty mail jet foreign [Music] I should be waiting on that cold platform pond off right now returning from Hungary watching this warm Express race through never mind in a few minutes we threw kitsy across the old Iron Curtain and Country number eight will be ticked off I'm about to listen a bit old the rail jet makes three stops in Bratislava and the last laughter is the one I want for my next connection but it's a slow slow Loop the train has to make to get there it's faster to hop off at the first stop petruz and hop on a frequent bus across town especially when the connection's a bit tighter foreign there isn't a pair of capitals in Europe and quite possibly the world as close as Vienna and Bratislava less than three quarters of an hour after departing the Austrian Capital I'm at Bratislava Patel zalka a large somewhat bare unloved and Bleak secondary station just across the river from the center of the Slovak Capital the single Subway is almost a thing of beauty in its nakedness thank you thank you I'm deliberately heading away from the main station buildings and the subway deposits Us by our busy Dart dual carriageway I could have fiddle with an app and got a further nine cents off the bargain 90 Cent bus ticket but it turns out the ticket machine is simple enough now to await the next 93 bendy bus to take us to the main station another advantage of taking the bus over staying on the train is getting a Whistle Stop tour of this young Capital sites after over six hours of the Danube Basin we're finally Crossing it on the most SNP that's the bridge of the Slovak National Uprising not a tribute to Hibernian separatists and there's plug lit Bratislava Castle high above the river if you want to be confused by the history of this part of the world know that for two centuries the kingdom of Hungary was ruled from this Castle but at least residual Kingdom left off the Ottomans captured Budapest past the new seat of power Slovakia's presidential Palace and was soon arriving at lavna stanitza just six minutes by bus from petrozalka compared to over 20. [Music] bratislava's main station divides opinion some point out it's cramped for both passengers and trains and has a 60s concrete protuberance stuck on its early 20th century facade I personally love it has great character it's also rare as an over excitable 18 year old I set foot in the former Eastern block for the first time back then it provided enough of a culture shock because they still hold his infection it may smell strongly of dope but look at those socialist realist frescoes over the departure Port they've got Sputnik on them and everything foreign we're 22 hours into the challenge in our ninth country but if all goes well we can grab one more in this border which corner of Europe our final train is a classic European night express bearing the name Metropol originating in Budapest and conveying coaches for four different destinations I took a gamble I'd get here and splashed out 30 Euros in the sleeper reservation in the Prague coach Prague we reached well past the deadline tomorrow morning but we should be over the Czech Board of In Time thank you thank you and here's the Metropole 15 minutes late but we can absorb that if it doesn't grow at the front polish carriages running to Warsaw then Hungarian carriages going to Berlin [Music] now my solitary check coach for Prague and behind that Hungarian seating coaches that will terminate just after the Border no expansive shots of the sleeping compartment as I'm sharing with another traveler on this busy train this coach has a slightly old Arrangement truth be told it isn't really that far from Budapest of Prague and even less so from Bratislava so when we get to wedslav the other sections will disappear after their distant destinations while this coach will sit quietly in the siding for six hours before being shunted onto the front of the first Prague Express of the morning effectively I'm getting a hotel room in Westlife without the need for an early alarm call we leave cootie a little Junction Station in the last stop in Slovakia swing sharply West and in the darkness rattle over the river marava which marks the Border formed by the so-called Velvet Divorce of a month short of 30 years ago that's country nine done thank you the good news is the Metropole hasn't lost any more time it's just coming up to 23.25 that's 23 hours and 27 minutes since we left icedem and because of my rules all I have to do to tick off my last country the Czech Republic is set foot on the platform of that's 10 countries taking them off with an average rate of one of two hours 20 minutes [Music] foreign in the Czech Republic 10 countries in 24 hours not quite 11 we were hoping for but I think I think just a little bit against us by stuff ing Global achievement opt out from middle of brushing my teeth in order to go to bed on the sleeper chain which will uh now sit here for a few hours before it wanders off [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] sleeping car from Budapest and in my case Bratislava has just arrived here at the main Central stationica uh rather than being in the middle of a train with lots of destinations as it was last night when I got to be depressed went out just a single carriage at the front of the Morning Express from beschlav now it's been a very comfortable night checked Railways surf me up with a very small but breakfast I'm off in search of a second one catch up with you soon [Music] so on the Charles bridge here in the heart of Historic Park the castle up behind us it turns out if you're just see the cobblestones on Charles bridge come on a cold November Wednesday right here at the end of Europe 24 my technically it ended on a freezing platform in breeslav just before midnight last night but it feels more spiritual end of it uh Incredible Journey uh I think eight trains five buses one coach one tram uh obviously and of course 10 countries very much hope to get 11 unfortunately a butterfly flapped its wings somewhere in a maintain maintenance Depot in Alsace which caused us to end up missing Hungary um well that leaves the challenge probably open because on paper 11 11 countries is very much doable but it stands at 10 for now um it's been absolutely great fun thank you so much for coming along with me and I'll see you on the next video whatever that turns out to be [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Travelling Turtle

Views: 54,121

Keywords: trains, bus, coach, tram, europe, netherlands, belgium, luxembourg, germany, france, switzerland, liechtenstein, austria, slovakia, czech republic

Id: whReaMNZYAI

Length: 40min 52sec (2452 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 04 2022