What it’s like to catch the Brussels to Berlin sleeper train

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At first sight, there’s nothing uncommon about the passengers assembling on platform 4 of Brussels Midi shortly earlier than 7.30pm. There are households with big suitcases, enterprising fiftysomething {couples} and youthful single travellers with backpacks. Excitable youngsters are already in pyjamas, clutching cuddly toys. It’s a typical crowd for a world train, you may say, and but we eye one another, and nod imperceptibly, acknowledging an instantaneous confederacy: everyone knows what we’re in for.

The secret’s out when the 19.22 pulls in. Through the glossy Eurostars rumbles a choose and mixture of carriages, most of them initially inbuilt Eastern Europe in the Seventies, towed alongside by a locomotive clearly marked “freight”. Although on this occasion, the “freight” is folks who need to do the 500-mile journey to Berlin (by way of Amsterdam) as sustainably as doable: on a sleeper.

Over the previous couple of years, there was a quiet revolution in long-distance train journey in Europe. Where as soon as the focus was on how briskly and much you may go in a day, now all of a sudden there’s a clutch of extra leisurely overnighters, of which this European Sleeper is each one in every of the latest – and oldest. It can also be the most helpful for UK travellers as a result of it connects with the Eurostar from London, and will quickly lengthen its service to Dresden and Prague.

On board, the sense of throwback continues. This isn’t any Orient Express, though the carriages did run into Istanbul (from the Bulgarian capital Sofia) in a earlier life. Dimly lit – “the batteries will recharge once we get under way”, says the train supervisor – there are such a lot of levers and switches in my compartment that it appears as if I may drive the factor myself.

But there’s nothing arthritic about the method it strikes effectively off into the evening. I shortly bear in mind why I like this type of journey. The sense of being in a timeless cocoon, with its instantaneous multinational neighborhood. In the hall, I get into dialog with Tomas, who has a job in Berlin however a girlfriend in Brussels. He’s initially from the Canary Islands, though he solely goes again there yearly.

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It’s early January so I’m alone in my six-berth couchette, which implies I can maintain the curtains open and watch northern Europe gallop by, passing unnoticed as tons of of 1000’s go about their recurring bedtime routines, and rumbling over the brushed velvet of well-known rivers and glimpsing illuminated cathedral towers. In brief, all the romance of the midnight train.

I lie in my berth (there’s a sheet, blanket and pillow) and interpret the sounds. The method the train creaks like a yacht catching the wind because it begins. The murmurings, the snorings, the midnight footfalls of these searching for bladder reduction. And that ever-present sense of Berlin, method down the line, beckoning us onwards till the second we arrive – having crossed three nations – precisely on time.

The nice benefits of the sleeper are in fact the saving each of the planet and lodging prices, so by the time I’m again on the train once more, I’ve had three full days in a metropolis that’s wealthy in historical past and creativity, however have solely had to pay for 2 nights.

I’ve been to its model new (and free) equal of the British Museum, the Humboldt Forum, an enormous assortment consisting of carvings, masks, pots and jewelry from round the world. I’ve hiked out into the woodlands to the west of the centre to the former Teufelsberg Cold War listening submit on the prime of a hill, its tattered installations moaning in the wind and lined in big road artwork creations, most with a political edge. I’ve had my compulsory currywurst supper, tried the new and extremely digital Cold War museum and visited the new Swedish Fotografiska gallery, which inhabits a constructing whose inside remains to be lined in graffiti relationship again to the fall of the Wall.

Well happy with all I’ve been in a position to see, and do, I’m again at the Hauptbahnhof in loads of time for the sleeper again.

This time, the carriage is best lit however there’s an intruder on board and not using a ticket who causes a little bit of a stir by declaring that he’ll solely obey directions from the Chinese embassy or John Connor (of Terminator fame, I assume).

Once this uncommon character has been de-trained, I’ve a fast chat with a relieved steward. “This train does tend to attract an unusual kind of traveller,” she says.

Quite so, my expensive, fairly so.

Getting there

The European Sleeper travels twice per week in every course. A berth in a shared six-person couchette prices from £68 a method. A Eurostar ticket to Brussels prices from £57 a method.