Would that this sort of option existed in North America from most significant cities - with GOOD service and amenities. I'd love to have that option.

Of course, here, the timeline difference in flying that they quote versus train applies to plane versus car. This is why I drive anywhere that is within a day, sometimes a bit more.

LINK

Oliver Smith, digital travel editor
28 NOVEMBER 2019 • 7:00AM
Reaching Europe’s great cities by train is easier than you thought, finds Oliver Smith
Suggest trains as an alternative to planes and most people will cite two factors. The first is money. It’s cheaper to fly, they claim, thanks to low-cost airlines and pricey rail fares. Yes, it can be – but book a month or two in advance and you’ll usually find a good deal. Returns fares to Amsterdam in January, with Eurostar, can be found for as little as £86.50. Opt for EasyJet instead and, once you’ve added airport transfers, the price is pretty similar.

The second factor is time. Why take six or seven hours to reach Provence when a plane will do it in two? But add an hour or so to reach the airport, two hours waiting in the terminal, and another hour or more retrieving your luggage and navigating immigration, and the difference is negligible.

Furthermore, train travel – the occasional delay notwithstanding – is actually enjoyable. You can wander to the dining car, tuck into a bottle of your own wine, and read a book or watch a film in relative comfort. Book a berth on a sleeper service and you can get a proper night’s rest. Flying is a dreadful chore that must be done before the fun can begin. Train travel is part of the holiday. No baggage fees, no rip-off transfers, no cramped cabins, no turbulence – and no Ryanair. And it’s far better for the environment.

Ditching flights doesn’t mean endless weekends in Paris and Brussels – a surprising number of cracking cities are easy to reach by rail. In under four hours you could be exploring medieval Aachen or quaffing champagne in Reims. In six hours or fewer you can swap grey London for sun-soaked Avignon. In under eight hours, Geneva, Biarritz and Trier are at your fingertips. Catch an early morning departure from St Pancras and on the same day you could enjoy a nightcap as far south as Valencia, as far north as Aarhus, or as far east as Bratislava.

To illustrate just how much of Europe can be seen by train, and to offer some inspiration, Telegraph Travel created the map below. It shows every European city we think is worth at least a weekend of your time – and which can be reached by rail on the same day you depart London. Each dot on the map represents a city; the darker the dot the longer the journey. Select a dot to discover which city it represents, how long it takes to reach by rail, and three reasons to go – then follow the links for more advice on planning a trip.


The map in numbers
124: Fantastic European cities you can reach by rail in a single day.

16: Cities can be reached in under four hours.

42: Cities can be reached in under six hours.

72: Cities can be reached in under eight hours.

12: Cities you can reach without changing trains: Calais, Lille, Brussels, Paris, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Lyon (in summer), Avignon (in summer), Marseille (in summer), Moûtiers (in winter), Aime-la-Plagne (in winter) and Bourg-St-Maurice (in winter).

72: Cities can be reached with just a single change.

4: The most circuitous journeys require four changes. To get to Vaduz, for example, capital of Liechtenstein, you’ll need to go via Paris, Basel, Zurich and Sargans, where travellers must catch a 30-minute bus to Vaduz (it has no railway station).


61: The closest station on foreign soil is Calais – a 61-minute journey from St Pancras.

940: The longest journey on our map is to Perugia – it takes at least 940 mins with changes in Paris and Milan.

18: Cracking Italian cities can be reached by rail in a single day. Turin (8 hours 54 mins) is the closest. The others are Venice, Milan, Genoa, Bergamo, Vicenza, Verona, Mantua, Parma, Modena, Bologna, Ravenna, Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Sienna, Rome and Perugia.

6: Top-notch Spanish cities feature on the map. The closest is Girona (9 hours 13 mins). The others are Barcelona, San Sebastian, Zaragoza, Madrid and Valencia.

14: European countries you can reach by train in a single day: France, Spain, Luxembourg, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Denmark, Slovakia, Monaco, Sweden and Slovenia. Poland, Croatia, Hungary and the Czech Republic are just out of reach in under 16 hours.

The furthest east you can reach in a single day is Bratislava. The Slovakian capital is 14 hours 49 mins from London, with stops in Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna.

The most northerly city on the map is Aarhus, Denmark’s hip culture capital. It takes 15 hours 9 mins to get there, changing in Amsterdam, Osnabrück, Hamburg and Flensburg.

The most southerly destination is Valencia. Expect a journey lasting 15 hours 29 mins with at least two stops.


Rail surprises
Given its physical distance from London (558 miles, as the crow flies), it is impressive that a train to Biarritz takes just 7 hours 34 mins. Conversely, it takes 12 hours 45 mins to cover the 599 miles between London and Bergamo.

All of Western Europe’s big hitters can be reached by rail in a single day, including Berlin, Venice, Copenhagen, Rome, Barcelona, Florence and Vienna.

Germany is closer than you might have thought. Aachen is 3 hours 20 mins from London, with a change in Brussels, while the train to Cologne takes only 3 hours 59 mins.

More changes often means a quicker trip. We found 16 cities where an extra change of trains provides a shorter journey.


Lunch stops
To reach 79 of the 124 cities on our map, you will need to change trains in Paris. But where to refuel? Our Paris expert recommends La Régalade Conservatoire, a short walk from the Gare du Nord. It has a stylish setting, complete with traditional chequered floors and a floor-to-ceiling wine cabinet, and the three-course set menu (€37/£33) offers French staples with a contemporary twist. If your outbound train departs from the Gare du Lyon, you could do far worse than dine at Le Train Bleu. This ornate and iconic restaurant is among the finest to grace any railway station in the world.

To reach 30 of the 124 cities, a change in Brussels is necessary. Not far from Brussels Midi, where Eurostar services arrive, is Colonel. It specialises in beef, but everything on the menu – cured meats, scallops and skrei (Norwegian Arctic cod) – is worthy of attention.

More information
See The Telegraph’s rail travel homepage for the latest advice and inspiration.

Rail subsidies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rail subsidies are largest in China ($130 billion) and Europe (€73 billion), while the United States has relatively small subsidies for passenger rail with freight not subsidized.

Plus there is a distance factor when comparing Europe to US.

This provides perspective on relative sizes...

They should build a road bridge over the channel. Then they could just drive to France.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
They should build a road bridge over the channel. Then they could just drive to France.

But then everyone would just crash head on into each other half way across the bridge...

quote:

Originally posted by feersum dreadnaught:
This provides perspective on relative sizes...

Yep.

The 'secret sauce' that makes this work is proximity, not some magic rail network.

quote:

Originally posted by feersum dreadnaught:
This provides perspective on relative sizes...

I have travelled by train in Europe, and it is great. Comfortable, you get to meet others, and there are no worries about parking, car getting broken into, etc.

There are train systems that run partially or fully on solar. If fuel becomes hard or super expensive to buy, trains will be a great alternative.

I’ve done a bit of train travel on Amtrack.

It was pretty horrible.

It took 24 hours from Baltimore to Orlando, for example. That’s probably 800 or so miles.

Spent 5 hours waiting in Raleigh one time for a suicide on the tracks.

It was nice to have the dining car. Especially when you could find a poker game and smoke and drink all night, and encounter the occasional loose woman.

But it was certainly not fast.

If only Long Piddleton (a fictional village in Martha Grimes’ detective stories) was among them.

quote:

Originally posted by chongosuerte:
It was nice to... ...encounter the occasional loose woman.

But it was certainly not fast.

But if the trip is slow and the women fast, doesn't that average out?

Americans think 100 years is a long time, Europeans think 100 miles is a long way.

We were in London several years back and went to Paris for the day. That still somewhat amazes me. We think of Europe the way we think of the USA. But it's so much smaller.

I did the train from Hanford to Sacramento a couple of times with my son - not fast at all, but it was entertaining and you could relax.

Big deal. What was stated earlier, you’re talking a much smaller land area.

Yes, but do they all have an Applebee's?

On a semi-serious note, what qualifies as a great city? There's probably less than 20 cities worldwide that would be worthwhile to travel to just as a city.

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:

quote:

Originally posted by feersum dreadnaught:
This provides perspective on relative sizes...

Yep.

The 'secret sauce' that makes this work is proximity, not some magic rail network.

Yep, spent a couple summers traveling around Europe on a Eurail pass. Once skipped my Monday classes so I could stay in Paris an extra day and take a day trip to Normandy. Then high tailed it back to Innsbruck. The journey from Caen required changing trains in Paris and Munich and yet I still made it back Monday night in time for an early dinner.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
They should build a road bridge over the channel. Then they could just drive to France.

But then everyone would just crash head on into each other half way across the bridge...

Ha! I saw what you did there! Great minds think alike!

Somewhere in the middle they'd have to put a flyover lane crossing. You start out in the UK driving on the left side of the road and end up in France driving on the right without having to do anything.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
They should build a road bridge over the channel. Then they could just drive to France.

But then everyone would just crash head on into each other half way across the bridge...

quote:

Originally posted by Doc H.:
Americans think 100 years is a long time, Europeans think 100 miles is a long way.

One to remember.