Brian Melican highlights some of the best train travel options from Berlin…

One of the great things about rail travel in Europe has got to be the sheer sense of possibility that descends when you enter a big station in any major city. The UK is different – at London termini (with the exception of St. Pancras) every destination on the Departures board is somewhere in the United Kingdom; often, all of the destinations are even in the same region. After several years of frequent rail travel all around Europe, I still get a buzz from walking into a central station, realising that I could get to Denmark, Switzerland or France without ever having to change trains.

Europe is your oyster (image by daveknapik)

A great place to enjoy that feeling is Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof. The Departures board regularly shows destinations as diverse as Warsaw, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Paris and Zürich.

All of these are places to which the majority of people in Berlin would probably never think of taking a train, but there are plenty of reasons to consider making better use of Berlin’s rail connections.

The greener amongst you will be well aware of the environmental benefits of taking the train, and the more adventurous will definitely be convinced of the idea of night-trains, complete with long boozy card games and plenty of “randomers” that just don’t take those low-cost, short-haul flights.

Then, there’s the fact that the price advantage monopolized by airlines for so long has continued to erode over the years, as the costs increase in everything from fuel prices to baggage fees. If you’re still not convinced, let’s look at which international destinations you can reach from Berlin, broken down by the hours it takes to get there.

Two hours

Most of the destinations within two hours of Berlin are still in Germany.  Although Hamburg, Hanover, Leipzig, and Dresden are definitely worth a visit in their own right, if you strike out east or northeast, you can make it to Poland in just about the same amount of time. One hour to the east is Frankfurt an der Oder, which straddles the Polish-German border, and anything after that is…well, east of the border. Frankfurt an der Oder is directly opposite the quaint Polish town of Slubice, with which it shares a friendly-next-door-neighbor connection in an effort to represent a new era of German-Polish relations. Sitting just across the water from one another, one can see how close the countries truly are in history, as well as in modern geography.

Usedom shore

Alternatively, around two hours and one train change to the northeast lies Stettin (unpronounceable in Polish as Szczecin). The train ride to this interesting Medieval-turned-communist port town will take you through  Uckermark, which notably spawned Angela Merkel. Beautiful valleys carry on to Usedom, the Baltic island shared by Germany and Poland, which boasts sandy shores and reed-side cottages.

Four hours

Extending the radius out from Berlin by a few hours brings Prague within striking distance. There are good intercity train connections to the Czech capital via Dresden, offering a spectacularly picturesque stretch along the Elbe just after the city. A fascinating glimpse at the rural (read – dilapidated and donkey-powered)  parts of the Czech Republic before reaching Prague is to follow. Trust me, this is one journey for which you need not bring too many books.

Meanwhile, if you keep going east down the line from Frankfurt an der Oder, you’ll be in Poznan just three hours after leaving Berlin. Alternatively, you can get into Southern Poland via Dresden, with the stunningly well-preserved city of Wroclaw (in German: Breslau) just a little over five hours away from Berlin. Old cathedrals, a town hall, and intimate streets often give the illusion of a pre-war Poland, despite Wroclaw’s long history and large contemporary population. It is easy to get to: there’s even one direct train each day.

Six hours

Spending almost half a waking day on a train might sound somewhat claustrophobic, but the six hours and fifty minutes from Berlin to Copenhagen are anything but stuffy and boring. After passing through Hamburg, this specially-designed, diesel ICE train continues onto the rural Baltic island of Fehmarn, then straight onto a ferry. During the half-hour crossing, passengers can leave the train to enjoy a little sea air on deck or to stock up on over-priced alcohol (read – expensive until you actually make it to Denmark). People who like machinery get an up-close-and-personal look at the axles and bogeys on the ICE. It’s an unusual, fun and ultimately very practical way to travel, giving you the chance to stretch your legs, while feeling that you’ve really “moved” from one place to another.

Furthermore, six hours is more than enough to get you to Warsaw, by travelling on the Frankfurt-Posnan line.  There’s no chance of getting on the wrong train by accident, either, as the carriages are painted in a striking blue-white livery and carry the words “Berlin-Warszawa-Express” on the side.

Southern Dutch countryside, by rhodes

Heading west, six hours’ travel will get you to Amsterdam with just one train change. Thanks to the new high-speed line between Cologne and Belgium, six hours can get you to Brussels in just under seven hours, as well! The landscape of this stretch over Europe’s northern lowlands demonstrates the rich soil and open land that give birth to some great hops and great cheese.

Eight hours

For the really hard-core railers amongst you, or just those with large amounts of reading to get through, the extra two hours are really worth it to make it to the following destinations. With the Öresund Bridge now open, there are connections from Copenhagen to most of Southern Sweden, putting the country’s bustling third city Malmö only seven hours or so away from Berlin; its second most magnificent city, Gothenburg, is now just over ten hours away.

Additionally, a judicious change at either Brussels or Frankfurt can put you in Paris for a day’s rail travel. There really is something very old-world and civilised about the idea of breakfasting in Berlin and dining in Paris after a train journey, isn’t there? This is the kind of thing that should be done with an ivory cigarette holder… The same is true of London, which is just over eight hours away thanks to Eurostar baggage and passport controls. However, you of course gain an hour by going back a time zone, so dinner doesn’t have to be too late, relatively speaking.

To the South, Zürich is suddenly within your grasp at eight hours and twelve minutes. If you fancy some mountain scenery, changing in Zürich can even get you into Northern Italy before the day’s end. Snow-capped peaks and cows with bells – not purple, unfortunately – are hard to beat.

There’s also the possibility of carrying on from Prague down to Vienna and Bratislava without even changing trains, although at nine hours journey time, you might want to walk up and down the train you’re on to keep the blood flowing. If you grow attached to the train, giving the carriages names and such over nine hours of close contact, you can head to its final stop of Budapest in only two additional hours. That makes a journey in which you leave Berlin at 10:45 and roll into the Hungarian capital at 22:35.

Not everyone’s cup of tea, but for the statistics freaks amongst you, all of this means that fourteen – count’ em – countries are within a day’s rail travel of Berlin: Denmark, Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK.

Ten hours + (night trains)

The longest one-day journey I have ever undertaken by rail was from Edinburgh to Hamburg, which had me leaving at 8:00 and arriving at 24:00. For all my love of train travel, this was admittedly about the limit of what one pair of legs could stand up to or, well, sit down to in one day. Nevertheless, it just goes to show what is possible by rail travel (even if not the most pleasant).

A cracking way to make this kind of sixteen-hour mission of a train journey into what feels more like a four or five hour jaunt is of course to take a night train. The night train to Paris, for example, takes about eleven hours, seven to eight of which you should sleep through. This allows you to think about striking out even further afield, while avoiding the sweats and motion sickness. If you travel to Paris by day and take a night train out of Paris in the evening, you could be in Madrid or Barcelona the following morning.

Berlin to Barcelona in twenty-four hours, without the stress of an airport, and a dinner in Paris thrown in? Sounds like a deal! I’ll just get my pack of cards and my ivory cigarette holder…

Most of the services mentioned in this article leave from Berlin Hauptbahnhof. You can find information on tickets via the Deutsche Bahn website. For information on Interail passes and general train travel and ticket buying within Europe, visit the wonderful Man In Seat 61 website.

About The Author

Born and bred in London, Brian Melican moved to Germany in 2008 after a degree in modern languages. Since then, he’s lived in several parts of Germany and now calls Hamburg something like home – if he’s ever there. Brian likes slow travel and even slower food, but very much enjoys fast trains. He works as a translator, journalist and writer.

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