Allena01

My boyfriend and I are going to Paris from December 21-27th of 2016. We want to go on a day trip to Amsterdam. We plan on taking a train to Amsterdam early in the morning (probably 6 a.m. train) on the 22nd and coming back the night of the 22nd. How late does the train run? Does it run later since its Christmas time? What is the best rail service? Thank you!

hetismij2

I seriously doubt the trains run any later because it is nearly Christmas.

Thalys trains for December are not yet bookable - you will have to wait until August 22nd to be able to do that.
The latest train back to Paris leaves a little while after 7pm normally, the first on out of Paris is at 06.25.

It seems like a very long day to me with more than 6 and a half hours on trains, but it is doable I guess. You won't see much of Amsterdam in a day, and if you are arriving from outside Europe you will probably still be jet-lagged.

greg

Why don't you look up "usual" schedule to get some idea of the train schedule? When the schedule and the prices get published later in summer, you can actually look up schedule on your own without having to wait for someone else to tell you. The holiday schedule would be a modification. For schedule, www.bahn.com is easiest to use. For actually buying tickets, you need to use www.captaintrain.com, www.thalys.com, or www.voyages-sncf.com.

Best rail service? Your trip seems to be strictly time constrained. It seems the only criteria of interest are the departure/return time and the duration of travel. Super early trains tend to have discount fares that tend to linger longer. But this is a special time, so the usual rules probably don't apply. As soon as the schedule and the prices come out, use the month price lookup feature of www.voyages-sncf.com, for example, to see what remain possible. Discount tickets on popular days do go away quickly, very quickly.

menachem

in my experience, early trains out and late trains back have premium fares, because they're used by commuters. maybe you'll get lower fares as it's the christmas holidays. make sure you book in august

menachem

pretty pointless daytrip by the way. is it for smokes?

Allena01

So would you guys recommend staying at least a night there? So leave Paris on the 22nd at 6am and come back to Paris on the 23rd at 6am? I arrive the 21st at 13:00 so I think I'll have a decent amount of time to rest, well hopefully. Smokes is one part but also want to explore the city and go to Christmas markets.

menachem

Christmas markets in Amsterdam aren't very good. There's always lots to do over the christmas holidays. Have you booked your planes already? You might want to arrive in Amsterdam, take Thalys to Paris after a few days. Or end your vacation in Amsterdam, going there by Thalys from Paris.

Ackislander

I think menachem's suggestion of flying into one city and out of the other makes enormous sense given your short time in Europe.

It's a long way to go to get high, and the area around the Central Station in Amsterdam struck me as not very interesting in the way that Paddington is not very interesting.