The Independent's pick of the Best Rail Trips in Europe

Now this has to be fate.ThereByTrain finishes slaving over the tweaks to its blog, which we hope will be a directory of, amongst other things, the best articles we can find online that will inspire train travel.

Just two days later, British newspaper, The Independent, publishes this great article by Kate Simon, in which she selects her favorite rail trips in Europe.

There's some great ideas here and the Bergen line is on our wish list for 2014!

If you want to follow in the path taken by TV presenter Michael Portillo on his 'Great Continental Railway Journeys' program, you can follow Kate's suggestion and book one of the holidays that cover parts of the route that have been organized by Ffestiniog Travel, or you can use a Eurail or InterRail  pass and see the best  of all five programs on one trip.

ThereByTrain has put together a 10 journey itinerary that includes many of the places Michael visited and the trains that he used.

10 Rail Routes That Would Enhance European Rail Travel

In April 2013 it is highly likely, (unless the start date is put back again) that for the for the first time ever there will be direct daytime trains from Paris to Barcelona.

TGV trains will complete the journey in approximately 6hrs and 30mins which is of course fantastic, but it leaves me pondering, if Paris and Barcelona can be connected by direct trains, why can't other, perhaps more obvious gaps, also be closed on the European rail network.

So here's a list of ten DAY train routes that for the time being remain on ThereByTrain's wish list. Many of them have existed before, and some were only cancelled in recent years, probably for sound commercial reasons.

But we suspect that more people would choose to spend a holiday travelling around Europe by train, if when travelling between so many of the continent's most popular tourist destinations,they didn't have to change trains. So my suggestions for direct train routes that could/should be operating are...

1. Brussels – Berlin

For some years now direct ICE trains have linked Brussels with Frankfurt, but Berlin would be 6hrs 30mins (ish) from the Belgian capital on a direct ICE. And yes that still would be a lengthy journey, but no longer than that from Paris to Barcelona.

When people ask me where they can travel on to from Brussels when connecting from a Eurostar, their interest somtimes wanes at the mention of Frankfurt, but Berlin would have a wow factor. It would of course also help make the likes of Hannover and Wuppertal beome more accessible by train from London.  

Thanks to Michael Portillo's Great Continental Railway Journeys, we suspect quite a few British people have added Wuppertal to their must see places list.

 2. Amsterdam – Munich

Pre-high speed lines, the iconic European train the 'Rhinegold'* used to link these two cities, that we suspect are on the must see lists of the majority of those that are heading out to explore Europe by Eurail or InterRail.

Today ICE trains could link Amsterdam and Munich in approximately 7 hours, not an extreme journey time compared to others in Europe. 

However, if you don't want to change trains in Cologne/Koln or Frankfurt the only current direct option is to take the overnight CityNightLine train.

When planning a pan-European railway trip, many travellers have probably have asked themselves, 'so I can get the train to Basel from Amsterdam, so why can't I also go to Munich?'

* = I think it was the Rhinegold, AND I may have got the spelling wrong, but the point is that for more than 50 years Amsterdam and Munich were linked by direct train, so why can't they be again?

  3.  Nice – Genoa – Pisa - Florence

Travelling around the Mediterranen coast by train should be on the list of most mentioned 'Greatest Railway Journeys In The World', up there with the likes of the Trans-Siberian and the Canadian Pacific.

You can of course currently experience the wonders of travelling from the south of France to Florence by train, after all they don't look that far apart on the Thomas Cook Rail Map of Europe. 

However, to travel between Nice and Florence you have to spend the best part of a day,changing trains two or three times, with awkward connections and at stations that are a long way down any 'Best in Europe' rankings. In our dreams it doesn't have to be like this.

 4.  Vienna - Venice - Florence - Rome

 In 1999 I travelled from Vienna to Venice by train, it was one of the greatest journeys of my life. Despite leaving Vienna shortly after dawn, the long EC train was packed with people, the majority of whom were probably fellow InterRailers.

The train carried on beyond Venice to Bologna, Florence and Rome so linked the Austrain capital with four of  the most popular cities in Italy.

Today I can still make the journey from Vienna to Venice by train, but I'd have to change twice in Villach and Udine and reach my final destination late at night - though being able to complete the the journey by train at all is a step in the right direction! (Please don't withdraw this service this summer).

However, the majority of travellers now complete the journey by taking the bus from Villach to Venice. The journey time is little different, but a bus is not train and arriving or departing from Venice by train is one of life's 'isn't this fantastic' moments.

5.  Venice - eastern Europe

Until comparatively recently it was possible to take a train from Venice to Croatia, Hungary and Serbia, Venice  was a rail gateway to the many delights of eastern Europe.

No doubt many of those planning a once in a lifetime Eurail trip of Europe think, 'let's get the train from Venice around the other side of the Adriatic and then we'll end up in Athens, or maybe Istanbul and then....'

They now probably go on to decide, 'What? We have to get the bus from Venice to Villach in Austria and make connections there, oh let's not bother.' 

 6.  London to beyond Paris and Brussels

There's a good chance that the sensible people at D-Bahn will one fine day provide direct trains from London to Cologne/Koln, but ultimately the fact that British won't let passports be checked while people are on the Eurostar trains, may still scupper their plans.

I suspect that there are more people who want to travel from London by direct train to Amsterdam, Brugge, Switzerland, the south of France etc, than there are people who to travel by train from Paris to Barcelona?

But the connections at Lille are awkward, (does anyone at SNCF ever look at the Eurostar timetable), people don't want to cross Paris from one station to another, or they panic that they might miss their connections in Brussels, so they fly instead?

 7.  Lille to Switzerland

Direct trains from London to Switzerland may ultimately be a permanent fixture on the wish-list, but a welcome recent addition to the European rail timetable was the Saturdays only direct train from Lille to Brig.
Intended to appeal to skiers, who'd rather not hump all their equipment around airports, it will stop running in April, until it hopefully, returns next winter

But it's not only skiers who want to avoid the bother of transferring between stations in Paris when they want to travel from London to Switzerland by train.  

The likes of Basel, Lucerne, Bern, Interlaken and Zurich are all theoretically within 7 hours train travel time from London, IF there were direct trains between Lille and Switzerland AND with good connections.

It should be just as easy to change trains in Lille for these Swiss destinations, as it is for those who want to avoid Paris when heading to Lyon, Marseilles or Montpellier.
 
8.  Switzerland - Bologna - Florence - Rome

I'm happy to spend an hour or more in the magnificent surroundings of the concourse at Milan's central station, but many of my felllow travellers probably wish they didn't have to see it all.

Florence need only be three hours (ish) from Switzerland by train and in theory you could cross the Swiss border and be in Rome in less than five hours, but Milano (Centrale) is a barrier to direct train travel between some of the most popular destinations in Europe. I wish it wasn't

9. Frankfurt - Prague

It turns out that I may have been mistaken, but I thought a metro style railway map of Europe would be useful.  
Once I'd plotted the popular cities in Europe on grid I ended up with a near horizontal line from Paris through Frankfurt and across to Prague. So you might conclude that this would be a logical journey by train?

However, if I wanted to travel during the day by train from the likes of Paris or Amsterdam or Brussels to Prague at some time this year, my quickest route would be to  travel via Berlin, despite adding more than 100 kilometers to my journey!

If I wanted to travel from central Germany to Prague by train, I'd be told to take the bus to Prague from Nuremberg. On a direct train, Prague could be less than 7 hours from Frankfurt.



10. Hendaye - north west Spain

The Mediterannean Coast route by train from France to Spain is about to gain from its direct Paris to Bacelona TGVs, but over on the Atlantic coast route, the train connections have gone from bad to worse in recent years.

This maybe because it is already quicker to travel during from Paris to Madrid by train by making connections in Figueres, than it is on the classic Atlantic coast route via Hendaye and  Irun.

High speed lines aside French and Spanish train tracks aren't compatible, but the Spanish have laid their tracks across the border to Hendaye. 

So in theory it would be possible to take a TGV from Paris to Hendaye and connect there for Spanish trains to must see cities such as Burgos, Leon, Pamplona etc etc. This will never happen, but I wish it could!