I once had a compartment all to myself from Venice to Geneva. It was great. Slept very well. A couple other times I shared a compartment with others and it was terrible. Guaranteed if it is hot the others will want the windows closed or if it is cold they will want them open. They will want to read when you want to sleep etc. Night trains are great if you have a private compartment and that is not cheap.

Larry J

Back in 2000 I had a sleeper all to myself in the ride from Vienna to Zurich. I had no problem falling asleep, I even had to set my alarm clock to make sure I woke up in time to get ready to get off in Zurich. In point of fact, I tend to sleep better in trains than in planes...

In a couple of weeks my daughter will be riding the night train from Berlin to Paris. Besides FauxStMarie, has anybody else taken that long ride?

Hi again,

Thanks WallyKringen and HopScotch for the links about the tips when taking an overnight train!

Thanks Ira for the link about budget flights!

Thanks BasingStoke2 for that hillarious way of illustrating what sleeping on an overnight train is like!

Thanks everybody else for sharing your experience!

NOT for me. many are seduced by the fact that they are combining getting to their next destination without paying for a hotel. sounds great, but it's not (at least for me it's not).

however, let's wait for mr haines to present the other perspective.

We took an overnight from Barcelona to Madrid in a couchette and slept thoughout the shole travel. Being nicely horizontal on a soft (bunk) bed is way better than sitting, even with the spacious First class.

Having said that, a couple of years ago, we took a 1-hour Air One flight from Brindisi, the closest airport to Lecce, to Milan and IIRC it wasn't that expensive. It also beats spending time-wasting hours in a train.

<i>Author: basingstoke2
Date: 12/29/2006, 07:40 am
Lie down on an ironing board and have a few friends toss you up and down for awhile. If you enjoy the experience, take the night train. </i>

You should not sleep on the floor of the mail car.

I've had three different overnight train experiences, two of which were awful, one passable. The more awful overnight was from Oslo to Copenhagen on a second class regular seat. Despite making an inquiry two weeks in advance, all sleeper or couchette seats were taken. Our luck was to share the car with soccer/futbol fans going to the Euro cup games. They drank, they smoked (in a non-smoking carriage), they pinched girls' rear-ends and had a great time. We slept a total of 9-1/2 seconds, though did enjoy moving about loudly as morning approached and we had to disturb the drunken hooligans passed out on the floor as we wove our way to a restroom.

Second experience was six person couchette from Zurich, I recall, to Amsterdam. No room for luggage, all of us snored, the train made ker-clunk noises on the tracks all night and we slept perhaps 1 hour. Better than the Oslo seats, but not great.

Third, and best by far, was a two person sleeper from Copenhagen to Oslo. It was cramped and we thought we'd never get the door latch unopened, but we did sleep 3-4 hours. Felt and looked like crap the next morning, but as described above, could have been worse.

Personally, when you add the fact that you see none of the scenery of a country, I'd skip night trains unless no other options presented themselves.

I think one of the things I like best about overnight train travel is that after a night of jumping every time another train goes by and rattles the windows, sleeping on a hard &quot;bed&quot; in an airless compartment, and being awakened a dozen times during the night by all kinds of things, it's so nice to relax in a nice large steamy shower and then get dressed to face a new day -- since you can't get into your hotel for hours after arrival.

Yes, my tongue did just make a big dent in my cheek.

As Geoff clarifies, I had a second class train ticket but with a private sleeper (wagon-lit) added to it.

Awful experience and we had a private sleeper car. Hot, noisy and didn't sleep much. I never do it again.

We took the night train from Paris to Rome about a week ago. I purchased 4 first class tickets - we were in a 6 person couchette with just the 4 of us. We were fairly comfortable. We each had a sleeping bag type sheet, a blanket and a pillow and the cushion on the couch was OK.

We took wine and food and had a great picnic. We slept fairly well. I woke when we stopped a couple of times but went back to sleep.

It wasn't until the morning, when I wandered the train looking for coffee, that I realized we weren't in first class, we were in second. I suspect it's because the first class sleepers on this train only accomodated 3 people.

The temperature was comfortable but that's because it was winter and frosty out. I suspect it would have been much less comfortable in the summer.

We took the CityNightLine from Amsterdam to Zurich and enjoyed the journey. We had a private deluxe cabin with an ensuite shower/toilet. It was very comfortable and definitely a unique experience. We slept really well and they served breakfast in the cabin in the morning. I would say take a night train only if you can get a private cabin/compartment.

Castellanese, are you a pretty heavy sleeper or no? That would make a difference as well. I'm a heavy sleeper so I'm OK on first class sleepers. On one (Paris - Frankfurt), I had the cabin to myself, and it was not bad. On another (Munich - Prague), I lucked out and had a very nice room mate. Although these were non-smoking cabins, I could definitely smell smoke during the night. that was the one uncomfortable thing for me.

Another time, I was in a regular cabin--6 seats (I can't remember) in a cramped compartment. I was with my sister and my mother, and across us were two Korean students. The girl directly across me kicked hard during the night so I got almost no sleep.

What is the price difference between flying and training for your destinations?

I had a terrible experience taking a night train from Paris to Florence. And I had first class tickets. If you're a heavy sleeper and don't mind being stuck in a couchette with complete strangers, then a night train would be OK. But flying is faster and can be cheap on a low-cost airline, like http://Volareweb.com, http://Ryanair.com or http://MyAir.com. You can use http://skyscanner.net to find a low-cost airline that flies within Italy for less than $100 roundtrip.

I rather enjoyed our overnight train experience myself, although I admit that I didn't sleep very well. There is something romantic about overnight training around Europe, but just know what you are in for. We arrived in Florence, from Vienna, at around 6:30 in the morning utterly exhausted and with no place to go. We dropped our bags at our hotel and hopped on a train bound for Pisa just so we could take a nap for an hour or so.

Tracy