(30 May 2025)
To travel to Prague for a few days, we used the European Sleeper service from Brussels, as recommended by The Man at Seat 61.
Seat 61 guy says:
I have a soft spot for these venerable sleeping-cars. They’re old but comfortable, and with only 10 compartments not 12 in a 24-metre car they are relatively spacious by European sleeper standards.
He also shares a bunch of photos that make it look ok.
I came away from the journey (both ways, there and back) with very mixed opinions.
I love the European Sleeper for what it does: takes you from Brussels (and a bunch of other stops in The Netherlands) all the way to Prague, overnight. No planes, no airports. You arrive in the centre of Prague and you’re good to go. Excellent.
But what I really disliked about the European Sleeper - and what Seat 61 really doesn’t make very clear - is that it’s an extremely basic service. So basic, that it fails to live up to some pretty low expectations.
Everywhere you looked, inside and out, the trains were coated in sticky grime, clearly many years in the making. Once I noticed it, I realised it was everywhere, and I become reluctant to touch anything. I also became fearful of what sort of muck I’d be lying in when I turned my seat into a bed for the night. Ugh.
The bathrooms - I accept that on a train, the bathrooms are going to be minimal - but the bathrooms were also barely clean enough to use. Touching any of the walls left black marks on clothes and fingers.
This happened to us on the outward journey.
We’d booked a 5-berth couchette for ourselves - the online booking system allows for this, and we were taking advantage of a special offer: “Enjoy a romantic train journey for 2!”
But hours before boarding, we got an email: “You have been downgraded.”
The train was two coaches short, for some reason. So our private compartment was now a shared compartment.
We were sharing with a Belgian couple who’d booked exactly the same thing, for exactly the same reason, via exactly the same special offer. They were very nice to us about it, but clearly as pissed off as we were.
“It’s not the romantic journey we were promised, is it?” said one of them.
Homeward, we were not downgraded and we did get a compartment to ourselves. It made a big difference and made the journey much more enjoyable.
This service, from what I can tell, has been cobbled together on a shoestring, and that probably explains why it’s so basic.
But one consequence is that, aside from your compartment, the corridor, and the bathroom, there’s nowhere to go. No seating car, no dining car or cafe or bar. No observation car where you can watch the scenery go by. Nothing.
So you end up spending a lot of time in an enclosed space, with few options to stretch your legs or anything.
My advice is: if you want to avoid flying, it is worth using the European Sleeper - as long as you’re well prepared for what you’ll get.
Don’t expect a clean environment. Don’t expect room to move.
Do take plentiful picnic supplies for your evening meal and your breakfast - they provide bottles of drinking water, and sell very expensive, low-quality coffee, tea and snacks, but I’d avoid all that if you can.
Do be prepared for the dirt. Take sprays, wipes, bottles of anti-bacterial goo stuff, whatever. A change of clothes, or two. Basically: plan for the feeling that when the journey is done, you’ll be keenly looking forward to a shower.
I write all this not to complain - well, maybe to complain a bit - but mainly to forewarn. I love trains, I love travelling by train, I much prefer it to flying, and I really want to see more sleeper services everywhere. (We should have more of them in the UK, and more late night journeys too, but that’s for another day.)
So I want European Sleeper to succeed. I want them to improve and grow their service.
Step one, in my opinion, would be to give every carriage they own a very, very thorough clean.
giles (at) gilest.org
🛌