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Paris to Rome by sleeper train
By | September 18, 2007
John Valentine on his train trip between two great European cities
Paris is the great rail hub of western Europe. Every night of the week trains leave various stations in the city to cross the continent to the north, east and south - and every night, in the middle of the night when most passengers are asleep, each train meets its counterpart travelling back towards Paris. It’s good to remember, on this little cheap-flights addicted island of ours, that trains are still a mainstream method of mass transport, with many hundreds of people every night making international journeys in mainland Europe.
One of the longest of these journeys is the 700-mile journey from Paris to Rome, on the Palatino express. It leaves Gare de Bercy just after 7pm each evening, and arrives – or is supposed to arrive – at Rome Termini station a few minutes before 10am the following morning. It stops briefly for custom checks in Switzerland (not in the EU), then goes through the Alps to stop at Bologna at about 6am and Florence 75 minutes later. If you wake early, the scenery in northern Italy is breathtaking.
Waking early may depend on how well fed and watered you were during the previous evening. The dining car does an ok dinner for 26 euros and much better half-bottles of wine for 7 euros – the best bit is the evening views of south-western France, or on the return journey the approaches to the Alps. But many people take a picnic and top up their supplies of panini and drinks at the bar. Either way, if you have booked a sleeping compartment (1, 2 or 3 berth) the attendant will come and convert it from sitting room to bedroom while you are at dinner or when you ask, but if you are in a 4 or 6 berth couchette compartment you have to do that yourself. Bedding is supplied for all berths.
Recently three of us travelled together and had a three-berth compartment – roomy with a wash basin tucked into a corner, with complementary towels, soap, bottled water and morning breakfast. No breakfast if you travel in the couchettes, but for four travelling together a four-berth couchette is a good option, a good deal cheaper than two adjacent two-berth compartments. Singles or twosomes on a budget can book berths in couchettes, which are gender segregated unless fully booked by one party. Bear in mind that space for luggage is limited in the six-berth couchettes.
Our train was an hour late into Rome and (more importantly for the Eurostar connection) the train back to Paris was also an hour late. We stayed at the Hotel des Artistes, a busy, young and international 40-room hotel within walking distance of the station and with the bonus of a roof terrace for take-out pizzas, games (from reception) and conversation. If you need somewhere to stay on arrival, leave Termini station by the Via Marsala exit (next to platform 1) – there are lots of 1, 2 and 3 star pensions and hotels in the side streets opposite the station.
The city is quite small and many of the ancient sites walkable – the metro is not all that useful, though there are stops at Termini station and at the Colliseum. In late August Rome was hot and busy, and we were grateful for the water fountains scattered everywhere. On our third and last evening in Rome we took bus 660 to Via Appia Antica and walked for a few hundred quiet and traffic-free meters along the same flagstones as the imperial legions. Then a train south to Anzio (trains hourly, journey time one hour) to catch a hydrofoil to the island of Ponza (check the Vetor website for times – supposedly a 75 minute journey though ours was late both ways). Ponza is a jewel which the Italians like to keep for themselves: we didn’t hear or read a single work of English during our stay.
Some notes on booking trains
The whole system is soon to be rationalised and made more user-friendly, but until then the only easy way to book European rail journeys is to talk to an agency on the phone. The trouble is that the cheapest fares – called Prems – are only available on the internet, and the agencies charge the normal fares – presumably this is where they make their margin. So it’s worth getting to know your way around the websites – a berth in a 4-couchette compartment from Paris to Rome and back starts at £88 on line, but the normal fares start at £140.
It’s best to book trips from London as two separate journeys – London to Paris (or Brussels to pick up trains to Germany and eastern Europe) and then Paris to your destination. The main reason is that booking for continental sleeper trains opens three months (90 days) before the date of travel, but Eurostar accepts bookings much further ahead. So book the Eurostar trip (on their website) as far ahead as you can, bearing in mind that, as always, early booking gets the cheapest seats. It is usually possible to get a return fare for £59, although all the trains into London on Sundays book up quickly. Eurostar train times are changing with the opening of the St Pancras terminal, but you need to leave an hour to get from Gare du Nord to Gare de Bercy. Allow two hours on the return journey, to allow for the sleeper to be late and for passport control at Gare du Nord.
For the Paris-Rome leg we used the SNCF website, paid in Euros with a UK credit card, and had them send the tickets to us in the UK. This works well (there is an ‘English’ button at the bottom of the homepage) but it’s important to remember that the 90-day restriction applies to the date of your return journey, not your outward journey. The Rail Europe site uses the SNCF booking system, and accepts payment in pounds – both sites are fairly user-unfriendly at the moment and need patience. But they do work, and will provide cheap fares for journeys in much of Europe. There are other online booking sites, in particular Deutche Bahn for trips to Germany and eastern Europe – see the amazing website seat61.com for further suggestions but beware: the author’s enthusiasm is infectious, and you could easily find yourself booking trips to some fairly exotic places.
A final note about getting across Paris. All Eurostar trains arrive at Gare du Nord, but the sleepers leave from several different stations. Trains to Italy leave from Gare de Bercy, which is a pretty obscure station that no-one in the tourist information office at Nord had heard of. Leave the Eurostar platform and turn left to Metro line 4. At the small ticket window on your right buy enough single tickets (1 euro each) for outward and return journeys – it’s difficult to buy metro tickets at Bercy. On Metro line 4 (direction Porte d’Orleans) go to Chatelet les Halles and change onto line 14 (direction Olympiades) to Bercy. The main line station is round the corner. It all takes about 20 minutes.
Topics: Alternatives to Air Travel, Business Travel, European Destinations, Rail Travel, Your Experiences |