The constant advice on this forum is to slow down and smell the roses, and I certainly appreciate that. But my personal view is that for someone who is traveling reasonably light, it can be highly rewarding to hop off a train, check one's suitcase at the station, and walk and see a sight or two before continuing one's journey. This often works well with a nice meal.

I'm not suggesting that one should blow through Europe visiting four cities a day. But I also think it's foolish to just pass through certain cities without getting off to look around. So at any rate, I'm going to list a few cities that I think are ideal for a stop of a few hours. Their inclusion doesn't mean they aren't worthy of a stop of several days; just that a few hours is better than none.

COLOGNE -- The Cathedral, very close to the train station, is ranked by many as the top sights in Europe. And after the Cathedral? Well, not so much. Nobody should pass through Cologne without taking two or three hours to see the cathedral and perhaps climb the towers.

BRUSSELS -- Some declare this city "boring," but the Grand Place is still grand. I've stopped in Brussels twice for a five or six hour break and enjoyed it both times.

PADUA -- You have to go through here to go from Venice to Florence. Why not stop for two hours and see the Scrovegni murals? Book ahead.

FLORENCE -- Okay, I think it's dumb to go to Italy and visit Florence for four or five hours. It's even dumber to just take a train from Rome to Venice and skip Florence altogether. At the very least look around, see the Duomo and Ponte Vecchio, maybe have lunch or at least a gelato!

Does anyone else have cities that are on regular rail routes that they think are ideal for a quick stopover visit of just a few hours? If so I'd love to hear them!

There are tons of such places for people who are interested in just 1 or 2 buildings rather than in the whole city. Examples (buildings/railway station):

Switzerland:
Chillon Castle/Montreux
Gstaad/Glacier3000
Stockalper Castle/Brig
Yverdon Castle and Grandson Castle/Yverdon
walled medieval city/Murten
Roman amphitheatre/Avenches
medieval city and castle of Gruyeres/Bulle
medieval city and cathedral/Bern
medieval city and cathedral/Fribourg
medieval city and cathedral/Solothurn
medieval city and cathedral/Basel SBB
medieval city and 3 castles/Belllinzona
Swissminiatur and Monte San Salvatore/Lugano
baroque monastery and cathedral/Einsiedeln
baroque monastery and cathedral/St. Gallen
Munot Castle and Rhine Falls/Schaffhausen

Italy would have hundreds of such places, but there are usually no luggage lockers available.

Ferrara

In Italy, many (most) stations don't have luggage storage (I don't see any listed for Padua for example). Also, many sights don't allow large bags. Storage is an issue for stops. Not even all large stations in Italy have storage.

http://www.centostazioni.it/cst/Le-s.../Veneto/Padova

STRASBOURG would be an obvious (lunch break) stopover when traveling from Paris to Munich by rail.

The station is close to the historic city center, and you can absorb a lot just by walking around, sampling Alsacian cuisine and visiting the Cathedral.


SALZBURG - en route from Vienna to Munich. It's just a 15 min walk to the town center and even just 3-4 hours can give you a good first impression.

Yes, there are countless places in Europe that are worthy of a stop-off on a long rail journey, but there are two problems:

1. The luggage storage issue already mentioned

2. You have to buy two separate train tickets. You can't just jump off a long train trip at whim and get back on when the mood strikes.

It depends on the booking engine and pricing policies of the railway company(s) if you need two tickets or not.

One choice would be to have a planned stopover.
If you wanted to travel from Berlin to Munich, for example, you can add a "via" like Nuremburg and choose how many hours you want the layover. The result will be also a saver fare (unless not available).

If you want full flexibility, you would need to buy the more expensive fully flexible tickets.
With those you can jump on any train you want - with those railways that allow it in principle. Which would be the case in many countries - with France, Spain, Sweden and Italy (?) being the exception for fast long-distance trains.

We were able to store our bags at the Padua train station several years ago, and Seat61 says luggage storage is available. Certainly bag storage is more expensive these days, due to added security.

As Coybow 1968 says, on Bahn.com you can book a stopover of up to 48 hours at no extra charge, provided the connection is also a discount ticket. So you may need to tinker with the times a bit to get things to work out, because if you tell it three hours it is going to get you the train closest to three hours regardless of cost. I don't know if other sites allow this or not.