Photo Credit Reiner.Kraft

My three overnight sleeper train experiences were excellent. For one trip I shared a four person sleeper with friends, in the day time the upper two bunks pushed back into the wall and the other two made in to sofas. iI wasn’t a lot of space but it was comfortable and came with breakfast delivered to our car. The second sleeper experience was a room for two with bunks. The top bunk had a skylight, which I particularly enjoyed, but the daytime seating area was crazy small with just a window and a pull down tray like airplanes use for meals. The third sleeper had it’s own private bathroom. It was a tiny affair with a shower over the toilet but it was ours and it was modern and efficient. That sleeping room was also for two but with the private bath and a bit of walking space it felt spacious in comparison. Each time our trains offered a luggage room for baggage and breakfast delivered. For the first two trips our bathroom was down the hall, minus a shower. If you plan to travel like this, plan accordingly with comfortable night wear, slip on shoes and a tiny bag for bathroom essentials to make trips back and forth simple.

Photo Credit Lorelei Flickr Creative Commons

My nightmare overnight train experience actually started out blissfully fun with three friends and a sleek, well appointed long distance train headed to Genoa, Italy, where we would meet our cruise ship. We switched trains in Switzerland and that’s where the cameras should have begun rolling. We reached our connecting train and found our sleeper car for four already occupied. We found the conductor and in German and English explained our dilemma. Thankfully we were blessed with a friend who spoke fluent German. The conductor checked all of the tickets and discovered our travel agent had booked the sleeper car for the previous night. Our train departed at 1 am and she should have booked the following day. We were stunned, exhausted and disgruntled. How could an experienced travel agent make such an elementary mistake? The conductor was kind enough to check for other sleeper occomodations but everything was booked!

We then began the crazy rush to find another car where we could rest and sleep comfortably in fold down seats. After ten mintues of searching car to car we found a car with just two single men Thus began the the long night of trying to find a way to sleep and rest in a train car with six adults when really the folded down seats only allowed three to stretch out fully. It was a comedy of errors trying to fit four men with long legs and two women into the tiny area. We ended up sleeping like pretzels, periodically moving and shifting in frustration. After a few hours the two single men departed and it was easier to rest, but still we were four friends unused to sleeping in such accomodations. We certainly got to know each other well on that trip and it became a story to share with family and friends and remember with laughter. In our lighter moments we joked about how we were going to arrive at the cruise terminal after approximately seventeen hours of travel and no shower facilities. We arrived in Genoa bedraggled and tired but we made our ship and we all bought a copy of the photo they took of the four of us as we boarded the ship. It became a memento of our rite of passage of suriviving and adapting to the unexpected moments that international travel can throw your way.

Photo of Rome By: Lisa Overman

Trattoria El Corso serves homemade cuisine and freshly made pasta’s, they also specialize in Italian wines and offer carryout meals.

Trattoria El Corso
HauptstraBe 70
12159 Berlin-Friedenau
030-8540-1459