Train Travel in Europe.

One of the best way to travel in Europe during your stay is by railways. The Trains connect almost all major cities in Europe including England. The trains from one country often go to destinations in other countries as well. For example, taking a train at Munich you can reach Zurich in Switzerland, Vienna in Austria or Amesterdam in Holland. In Europe, there are are many category of trains like the high speed ICE (Intercity Expresses), the Regional expresses and the luxury trains like Thalys which connect several Capitals of Europe.

You can book tickets in the railway websites of different countries. For example, you can book tickets in Germany railway website www.bahn.de or the Netherland’s railway website www.ns.nl. Many of these websites are in native language and also in English.

The Railway websites of other countries are:

Austria http://www.oebb.at/en/, Italy http://www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html

Switzerland: http://www.sbb.ch/en/ and www.rail.ch

France: Voyages-SNCF, Spain: http://horarios.renfe.es/hir/ingles.html

Sweden: http://www.sj.se/, Belgium http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/

Finnland http://www.vr.fi/heo/eng/index.html

For example, if you plan to travel from Luzern to Zermatt or St. Moritz in Switzerland, then type the stations names, the date and time of travel to find the connections and also fare. Please note, often there can be a number of stations in a particular city. In all German speaking countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland the main railway station of a city is called Bahnhoff or Haupt Bahnhoff (in short just Hbf). For example, main railway station at Frankfurt is called “Frankfurt hbf”.

In some railways, there are special concessions if people travel in small groups or if you reserve the ticket well in advance. I found that these discounts in countries like Germany can be as much as 40 to 50%.

One can also travel in European railways by EURAIL Pass. http://www.eurail.com/

Please note, many European countries and some of their cities have names in their native language which are displayed in websites and in railway stations. For example, Austria is “Oestereich” for Austrians and Munich is actually written and pronounced as Muenchen by Germans. Similarly, Switzerland is known as “Der Schweiz” and Netherlands as Niederlande.

I loved the train journeys in Switzerland, especially the Red coloured Raetische Bahns.

Video of Glacier Express.

I also loved to travel in German high speed ICE trains.

Video of a fast ICE Train and Interior of ICE.