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I have just moved to Europe from the States and was hoping to gain some knowledge re European train services. Can anyone point me in the direction of a train service booking site for servcies between Italy and Switzerland and Germany. Many thanks
Though probably not exactly what you are looking for,
is a terrific resource for those less familiar with getting around Europe (and the planet!) by train.
I have found the www.bahn.de site the best in terms of setting out schedules, though booking specific trains can be a nightmare and is IMHO best left to a travel professional unless you are confident about what you are doing.
Don’t skimp on second class, either. It’s often not much more to travel in first and probably worth the money (especially in the heat of a European summer).
Agree with VK, seat61.com should be your first visit but bahn.de is a good site.
I agree with VK and flyingfor miles about seat61.com.
Some of the national railways have good sites: DB, as VK says, and also Belgian Railways.
Swiss Railways have an excellent iPhone/iPad app which is well worth downloading.
I hope that this helps,
Regards, Simon
I too agree with VK, Simon and others about seat61.com. The beauty of this site is that if you select the country you can see actual photos of the internal layouts of the train, dining cars, couchette plans. There are also links to Youtube video which shows a family in a couchette compartment.
There was a program on one of the travel channels recently and the guy that developed seat61.com also has a book out, but alas I can't remember what its called!
An excellent site with many links.
It's called the Man in Seat 61 if I remember correctly. I bought it, it's good but you can get all the info (from memory) from the site. I think he's got a revised version out or coming out soon.
The Swiss Rail booking site www.rail.ch is hard to beat when looking for a fast and simple display of trains linking Italy to Germany via Switzerland.
thank you all very much for your assistance. I have booked my train journey via
my schedule is to go from Milan thru Geneva to Paris. From Paris I fly. Logisitically it is far far easier and quicker to use the train service than to fly.
The Seat 61 web site is extremely interesting. Once the high speed rail link is up and running it looks like rail will be a good and timely alternative to airtravel for certain routes. Does anyone know realistically when this will happen.
Many thanks guys for your help - I hope to make some positive contirubtions to your forum.
Wife and I planning on Spain/Portugal in December. Am I better off getting 2 1st class tickets for 3 week period or renting and driving to/from Barcelona. thanks Alan
You will see more of the scene on a train than in the car and arrive more relaxed, it may also be quicker on many journeys. It does depend of course as to where you are going to visit and how the rail services fit in.
If you go to www.seat61.com it gives links to the relevant websites that can help you.
Mike Smith runs Seat61 and he is always keen to get feedback, etc., from users. And booking site die Bahn is the best.
I regularly try to use European trains and have done so London-Metz, L-Karlsruhe, L-Berlin and L-Vienna - and had Prague-London forced on me by the 2010 ash incident.
If you use sleepers - one piece of advice - walls are paper-thin - and screaming children in the compartment next door can be just as infuriating as on planes. After a bad experience on the Paris-Munich overnighter, have resolved to take my noise-cancelling headphones on any future trips. They won't provide total silence, of course but should help.
Also, many first class lounges at the main stations close latest 20:00 so it can be a bit depressing hanging around on stations waiting for the sleeper carriages to arrive.
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