Take the Train: The Return of the Sleeper

For two decades the night train was a relic. Then the airlines became unbearable, the climate became a consideration, and the Austrians, who never stopped believing, built a fleet of new sleeping cars and a network that now reaches from Amsterdam to Rome and from Paris to Vienna. In 2026 the sleeper is not nostalgia. It is often the best way to travel between two European cities, and it is certainly the most pleasant.

Why it works

You leave a city centre at eight in the evening and arrive in another city centre at eight in the morning. No airport transfers, no security, no gate, no baggage belt. The journey replaces a hotel night rather than adding a travel day. And you sleep, genuinely, in a bed with sheets and a window, woken by an attendant with coffee twenty minutes before arrival.

The routes worth knowing

• Paris to Vienna. Departs the Gare de l’Est at 19:12, arrives Vienna at 10:00 after breakfast crossing Austria. The flagship.
• Zurich or Munich to Rome. Leave after dinner, wake up passing Florence, arrive at Roma Termini before ten.
• Amsterdam or Brussels to Vienna and Innsbruck. Through Germany overnight, into the Alps at dawn.
• Berlin to Stockholm. Onto the ferry and across the Baltic in the dark, the most romantic route in northern Europe.
• Paris to Nice. The revived Intercités de Nuit, cheap, simple, and the Riviera light through the window at seven in the morning.

The sleeper is the only form of travel where the journey gives you a night instead of taking one.

How to book

A private compartment in the new Nightjet cars, with a washbasin and, in the deluxe category, a shower and lavatory of your own: €200 to €350 for one, less per person for two. Book six to eight weeks ahead through the Austrian railway’s site or a specialist agent; the good compartments sell out. Avoid the couchettes unless you are twenty-five or travelling with your children. The seated carriages are for people who have not read this article.

What to bring

One bag, obviously. A bottle of something and two glasses from the hotel bar, because the dining car is inconsistent and a drink at the window as the city lights thin out is the best part of the evening. A book. Earplugs and a mask, out of habit rather than need. A jumper; the compartments are cool. And the discipline to put the phone away, look out of the window and remember that this is what travelling used to feel like and, on these trains, feels like again.