Celebrated as a huge win for sustainable travel, rail companies in France, Austria, Germany and Switzerland have announced this week a commitment to restore night trains – connecting over 12 European cities within the next few years!
Fancy falling asleep in Vienna and waking up in Paris?
One of the first connections to be revived is the sleeper train from Vienna to Paris (via Munich), set to go live from December next year!
From December 2021, you will also be able to travel from Zurich to Amsterdam, via Cologne.
Skip forward two years later, and sleeper trains will connect you from Berlin to Brussels, and Paris & Zurich to Barcelona.
The plan is to increase night train travel to 1.4 million people per year.
A huge win for sustainable travel.
Sleeper trains were once a significant part of European travel, when flights were less frequent and more expensive.
As budget airlines grew, and quick, cheap flying became the norm, the sleeper trains died off. But in a post-Covid world, where the impact of plane and car travel on the environment is more apparent than ever, the sleeper train is a great alternative for guilt-free travel.
The 500 million euro investment into the European train lines, comes a year after the German government announced that train travel is crucial in the efforts to reduce carbon emission.
On top of this, the European Union last month reached an agreement to call 2021 the “European Year of Rail,” with aims to launch more programs to boost train travel to help combat climate change.
At Boutique Bike Tours, we are all about sustainable & responsible tourism.
It’s no new revelation that cycling is the best way to travel in a city without any environmental impact.
We explore by bike, not just because it is a super authentic way to discover Paris & Versailles, but also because we love these places and want to have as little impact on them as possible. Since 2015, Paris has invested 150 million euros ($178 million) as part of a goal to become a “world cycling capital”, and it is now safer than ever to cycle in Paris, across over 300km of new bike lanes in the city.
We also travel by train, rather than car or bus, from Paris to Versailles, not just because it is the insiders fastest journey, but to reduce pollution.
At our picnics single use plates, cups and cutlery are an absolute no no – thank goodness for ikea picnic kit!
Looking forward to seeing you all back here in 2021, and adventuring through Europe on the sleeper trains!
