Do you know (or can you quickly find out) the price for this route (the exact route isn't important, but through SE France, Switzerland and Austria looks the best).... I'm thinking about buying a normal ticket and stopping off in a couple of places - is it only return tickets which allow you to do this?
Not only return, any SCIC-NRT(previously known as TCV) ticket allows stops during validity period, which is for long distance usually at least one month. But the problem here is in a bit different thing - usage of NRT tickets in Spain and France. Both tend to sabotage the whole thing, and if previously it was mainly Spain, but now it seems also in regard to SNCF, since jizdenka (which is basically what you can purchase in Czech Republic and Slovakia) just stopped showing many tickets in regard to France. And that is bad sign, especially in case you'll try to buy such ticket in Slovakia.
But in theory SNCF segment in SCIC-NRT costs around 75-80 EUR (Cerbere-Montp.-Avign.-Lyon), while easily purchasable Geneve-Bratislava (via Lausanne-Zurich-Buchs etc.) cost 148 EUR. For segment Cerbere-Barcelona just better to buy regular regional train ticket for <15 EUR
Do you know any tricks to reduce the cost of Bratislava to Liverpool by train (one way would be best) The cheapest I can get it to is about 180 Euro each way including some couchettes etc (if my memory is right) - can it be done cheaper???
Hmm... the most obvious way to travel cheap by rail is to 'hunt' for the discounted tickets from DB/OeBB, first one from Bratislava to Cologne (depending on connection seats from 49 EUR, couchette from 59 EUR) or Vienna-Cologne (seats from 29 EUR, couchette from 39 EUR). While then DB sells London-Spezial with change in Brussels (
Thalys +
EuroStar) from 49 EUR (
http://www.bahn.de/p/view/angebot/international/london-spezial.shtml). Those 49 EUR tickets are difficult to catch, but the ones for 59-69 EUR are a bit easier to find. London-Liverpool depends on the offer and company, but generally it's not very difficult to catch good fare by crosschecking all the possible options here, so you can travel even for 5 GBP
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