From Barcelona to Amsterdam by sleeping car? The new night trains that will cross Europe

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The rattle of train convoys on the tracks, crossing borders under the moonlight is for many travelers the height of romanticism, as well as a good antidote to the fast pace of life and against the carbon footprint.

Europe is betting big on sleeping trains at night.

Imagine falling asleep saying goodbye to Prague, its cafes and Kafka, and waking up in the morning in Brussels, a paradise for Magritte and beer.

This is the idea, something as simple as getting to the train station, almost always in the heart of cities.

And as slow, but as comfortable, as is the carriage of a locomotive.

This spring the routes of the night train grow.

The European Commission has given the green light to a dozen pilot projects to give a boost to these trips.

Among them, the new route

of the Belgian-Dutch company European Sleeper, which is scheduled for spring 2025. Before that, this coming May 25, the route between

opens .

Always at night and horizontally, that is, in a sleeping car.

Tickets are already on sale.

With the mission of developing "a more pleasant and intelligent way of traveling within Europe", European Sleeper was born in 2021 thanks to the efforts of the entrepreneurs Elmer van Buuren and Chris Engelsman, two key figures in the movement in favor of reviving the services of night train on the mainland.

"Our ambition is to introduce a new train connection every year. Traveling by night train is efficient and affordable. In addition, it is better for the environment," they stress.

This is real.

The slower we travel, the more sustainable we will be.

Beyond the ecological level, these routes allow the traveler

upon arrival and, incidentally, save on accommodation.

We don't know exactly how long the train will take between Amsterdam and Barcelona, ​​but we do know that it will stop at destinations such as Rotterdam, Antwerp, Brussels and Lille (with a connection to London on the Eurostar) in the evening and at Avignon, Montpellier, Perpignan, Figueres and Girona in the morning.

The operator has also announced a future route between

in 2024.

The initiative joins older night trains such as the

, which every night except Saturday links

with towns and cities across

just in time for breakfast.

Or the

of the Austrian ÖBB, which is leading the renaissance of the night train in Europe.

The operator began its journey in 2016 with the itinerary between

via Salzburg and Munich.

Such has been the success that many more routes have been added between the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Italy.

Berths in the Austrian Nightjet.ÖBB/Harald Eisenberger

Another budding project is that of the

French

s.

In this case, the ambition of its founders, Adrien Aumont and Romain Payet, is to reinvent the train journey so that the experience is as close as possible to luxury trains.

It intends to create a whole network of night services

, including Madrid, Barcelona and Porto, all between 800 and 1,500 kilometers away from the French capital.

It will never be like traveling on the Orient Express, but maybe we can afford these.

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