Transit to Dresden

Woman, waiting for a train in the cold

Not just efficient, they're pretty

I love German trains. As a matter of course, if you asked me my preferred mode of travel, I would say it is by train - but that's because when I think of train travel, I think of German trains. If you reminded me of experiences with Italian or American trains, I might reconsider that preference but nothing beats travel by German train.

What's so good? Well it starts with the departure - which will happen pretty much exactly when they say it will happen. Even with the difficult weather Northern Europe has been experiencing, for the most part the trains kept rolling and if they were delayed (as some we used were) they kept you in informed of the delays and delivered accurate information about them. Compare that to an airport experience.

But they are not just reliable.  They are also pretty comfortable and reasonably priced. MC and I traveled on what is called 'Schönes Wochenende' fare (nice weekend) that cost us only €39 and allowed us to go anywhere in Germany we wanted to go. In fact it would've allowed us to transport five people on that trip. Pretty reasonable - anywhere you want, about eight euros per person. We, of course under utilized ours. It seems we were not aggressive enough about finding partners. Some folks go to stations and try to find someone with extra room on their ticket to share the fare. The person sitting across from us had done exactly that. Did not even sit with her "group".

No reason to hurry

There is a catch. You have to ride the slow trains. On the Berlin-Paris stretch that might make a big difference, but on our route it only cost us less than one hour, in comparison. We used that hour to read, chat and have lunch on the way. At the end of the trip we stepped off our train in the heart of the city rather than 30 min. outside which seems to be a minimum for the airports we have used.