This is for my husband, who wants to visit Lithuania from Paris in June. I have figured what look like good trains to Cologne and then to Warsaw. After that, bus? Or are there trains running?

He has the romantic idea that this will be better than flying. For some people, yes. For him with his ultra-sensitive ears at night, and his tendency not to notice which train he's jumping onto, I'm skeptical. I get to sit this one out, anyway.

Check here:

www.seat61.com
www.bahn.com/i/view/USA/en/index.shtml
www.rome2rio.com

But as I recall when checking (because I am going to Vilnius next month), there are no easy train connections between Warsaw and Vilnius, but there are long bus rides...

bahn.de shows a couple of options. All over 14 hours and mostly overnight or at odd hours. I don't think romantic is in the picture.

Flight - just over an hour.

I know which way I'd go!

Funny as I was just looking at this today. I have a friend who lives in Kaunas who I would like to see again but would like to meet with her in Poland. I think for me the best airfare would be to Warsaw but when checking to see about trains from Lithuania both Kaunas and Vilnius, the travel time was outrageous when to fly its only like an hour long. I'm not sure about the cost but if it were me, the train option would be out.

Isn't the far bigger problem that the only railway lines between the two involve going through Kaliningrad (in Russia) or Minsk (in Belarus)?

Most people using this forum need no visa to enter Poland or Lithuania for business or tourism: all need visas to get into Russia or Belarus, and the border crossings between the EU and the CIS countries remain survivals of the Cold War era.

Even hard-core train addicts tend to lose the will to live when confronted with the complexity of organising this journey by train: the planes between the two cities don't involve any customs or immigration checks.

Oh, my. Thank you all. He doesn't have all that many days for the trip, even if everything ran smoothly. Flying is the only thing that makes sense.

If he outlined his idea for an overnight stay each between trains in Berlin and Warsaw in a question on fodors, the reality-based answers would pour in.

The visa part never occurred to me, flanner.

I love www.rome2rio.com. show me MANY options.

There used to be a night train from Warsaw to Vilnius, I took it back in 2004, but it was canceled some time ago. As were a number of other useful routes in the area.

Buses work well between the Baltic capitals, otherwise you might look at Air Baltic. I've flown them and they were fine. I believe Wizz may fly that area too.

We needed to get from Vilnius to Krakow; although our first choice would have been a train, we ended up with a flight (Norwegian via Oslo).

Thank you, Jan and Thursdays. GinnyJo, my husband also has gotten airline tickets. Thank goodness.