Fodor's Travel Talk Forums

Ms Lubeck replied with more detail, so I wrote as follows. I've not looked into the Raileurope site on the net, so I'm afraid can't answer you. But over the years, standing in various railway stations and sitting in various trains, I've found the Thomas Cook times to be the same as those in printed timetables in Spain, France, Holland, Germany, Italy, and Sweden. This year I have on my shelves the printed timetables for Hungary and for Romania: the Thomas Cook timetable agrees with them. And so it should do: Cooks get their information from the advance proofs of the national timetables (except for Albania, which has none). They can sometimes err on how a tain is made up. Not a major western train like yours, of course. But last summer they failed to show the through sleeping car between Budapest Nyugati and Iasi. Now that I am richer than I was when young, I seldom use couchettes, and use instead 3-bertn second class sleeping compartments. The advantage for me as a bachelor is that they book single travellers by sex, so we are all men, and can with decency change into pyjamas to sleep. Also, they have a wash basin per each three people, making it easier to brush my teeth before bed and to wash before disembarkation. But they do cost more. A couchette in a 6-berth cabin costs an 18 dollar supplement: a bed in a 3-bed sleeper costs a 45 dollar supplement. You can both lock and bolt the door of a sleeper, and you should ask your conductor to show your party how to do so. He or she does not wake you during the night. In Paris, and later in Florence, you hand over your rail tickets and passports as you board or ten minutes later, and 30 minutes before final arrival he or she wakes you to hand them back. Even for countries where in principal there are customs checks -- Switzerland is not in the European Union -- the task of passing passport and customs checks lies with the sleeping car attendant, acting on your behalf. This has been so for thirty years or more. In central Europe, I'm afraid, they wake you at each frontier, but you stay in bed, and hardly need to wake up fully. Then at the frontiers of Turkey... But there, your mother has no plans yet to take the train to Turkey. When she does I hope you'll tell me. It's a pleasant trip to remarkable places. There's much traffic to and from Florence around Easter. When you see how beautiful Tuscany is at Eastertide you'll know why it's popular. For night travel between 26 March and 9 April you should book two weeks ahead -- though you may get away with just one week. The computer opens bookings two months before travel, but hardly anybody books all that time ahead. The reason is that once you've booked you can use your basic ticket price for any train on the route, but must pay all over again the supplement for sleeper or couchette. You have a bit more flexibility than most people, since if the train to Florence out of Paris (the Gallilei at 1937) is full you can make do with the Rome train (the Palatino at 1933), get off at Pisa at 0656, and take a local train the hour it needs across to Florence. In the same way, if you don't get the later train to Munich (the one out of Florence at 2341) then you can book the earlier, out of Florence at 2130. I've been thinking about that. With three of you, and concerned for your mother's comfort, you might see whether you can hold onto just one bedroom in Paris and in Florence for an extra night, and use it as your sitting room for your last afternoon and evening in each city. There may be less need in Paris: you can sleep in for your last morning in Paris as late as the hotel lets you, pay your bill, leave your bags, and find plenty to do, perhaps with a quiet hour in a brasserie just after lunch there, to stay awake and happy until 1830, when you go off to the hotel, pick up bags, take the metro or bus to the station, and board the train: it will be ready to board at 1900. (May I recommend a Paris bus if there is one: it saves much up and down stairs with luggage). But if, as I advise, you avoid arrival in Munich at 0635, and choose to arrive there at 0830 by the later train, then your train leaves Florence at 2431, nearly midnight, and a room of your own is a great comfort, even if (as I hope) you find for your last evening a concert, opera, restaurant, or film show, or a combination of these. This train stops at Florence only a couple of minutes, so you should arrive on the platform ten minutes early, hold your bed reservation tickets in your hand, and ask station staff or fellow passengers to show you where your sleeping car is going to draw up. It's no problem: your conductor will be looking out for you. Still, you don't want to walk the length of the train, with luggage. Sleepers have room enough for luggage for three people, but not to open and use luggage for three people. So on your last mornings in Paris and in Florence each of you should take a plastic carrier bag and put in it your pyjamas, toilet gear, perhaps a change of shirt, bedtime reading, rail tickets for that night only, passport, and a couple of banknotes for the city you'll arrive in next morning, and any note you need on where your next hotel is. Then you put the carrier bags on top of your packed luggage, and get it out loose that evening, not in the train, but on the platform two minutes before you board the train. Your conductor and you will be glad to get the bags put away in your cabin on shelves and under beds, leaving you to scrabble ad lib in your carrier bags. Since the point of sleeping cars is to sleep, you won't want to use any buffet or restaurant car on either morning. But it makes sense to eat as you roar southwards from Paris. The classic routine (as in the great movies) is to book and then dine in the restaurant car. But these days that car offers just one meal, without choice, and rather expensive for what you get. Also, your mother may not enjoy the walk down to the restaurant car and back again in the shaking train. You know of the glories of Paris charcutterie, fromagerie, and patisserie. So I think on the afternoon of your last day in Paris you should all go to a supermarket and buy up cold meats, cheese, butter, fresh bread, tomatoes, olives, other salad to taste, fruit, and wine: a red and a white, as they're cheap and good. Your hotel may even let you keep these goodies in their fridge till you leave for the station. Also, paper cups a newspaper to serve as tablecloth. And the day before that you should buy three table knives and a corkscrew that works well for you, or bring them from the States. You draw the first cork as you roll through Fontainebleu and wipe the last fruit juice from your lips around Laroche Mignennes. And so to bed. I bet your mother won't need a sleeping pill after that lot. Most sleeping cars have roller blinds that draw down and seal out all outside light. If there are curtains too, you should check that the roller blind is down before you go to bed. Curtains alone are not enough: your train stops at night at platforms with bright lights that pour into the train. Again, most have a small blue light: you should decide by agreement whether it's useful for getting up to go to the loo at midnight, or better switched off to get a deep night's sleep. One solution is for your mother, in her lower berth, to have a hand torch by her pillow, so that you can sleep in pitch dark and she can still go to the loo. (You see what strange things I learn from being aged 62). You should say clearly and firmly to your conductor that you want to sleep as long as possible, and that you want no morning coffee -- it's not good on trains anyway, except in Belgium and in Bulgaria. If there's a language problem, you can do all this through a friendly fellow-traveller. Your conductor will tell you things abbout his duty to wake you: you look sad, and imply if you can that this won't be good for his or her tip. Trains don't run early, so you should know your arrival time, and get out of bed only 30 minutes before that. Even if you're all awake your body travels more restfully in bed than sitting up. The Gallilei Express passes through Pisa, bus does not stop, about 0750, so you should not stir before that. The Naples to Munich Express stops at Rosenheim also at 0750: that's your signal to start to budge. Though to be honest, the mountain view from Innsbruck onwards is so good that if you are all awake I don't mind if you lie in bed and look at it. But only if you are all awake, and your mother won't be. On arrival you leave the train, but in no great hurry, except if you have to change in Pisa. You do anything that you want to do in the arrival station -- exchange money, have a coffee, buy the newspaper or city events list (such as "Pariscope", a good listing issued every Wednesday), and go off to your hotel. There there's always a handful of armchairs and sometimes a lounge, so you can sit still and let the morning develop around you, not rush out to the first event. I often find that my room is in fact ready already at nine in the morning, at no extra cost, and catch up on any sleep. On the other hand, many city tourist offices run a two hour walking tour of the city centre starting at ten am, and this is a good way to see fine buildings and get an idea of the shape of the place (Last year in Augsburg we were a walking group of eight, and asked so many questions that our 2 hour 5 dollar tour turned into 3 hours, to the mutual delight of our lecturer and ourselves, and we all had a great appetite for lunch). There you are. A few points that may be useful, and many things that you never wanted to know about Albania and Augsburg. But it's been fun to draw upon what I have in common with your mother. And the thought of your train picnic south of Paris is making my mouth water. So please write again if I can help further. Ben Haines, London