Night Train (Technically)

“Girls, what is something you want to do while we’re in Europe?” we asked last summer.

“Night train!” answered our wistful children with a dreamy sparkle in their eyes.

And, yes, full disclosure, it is an awfully romantic idea to me as well. I have visions of gentle creaks and clacks rocking me lazily to slumber while whispers of the train’s whistle enter my cozy dreams before the steward knocks unobtrusively on my cabin door with steaming mugs of coffee and the new day’s sun streams refreshingly over the fields, reaching its fingers through my compartment window.

And also, yes, I’m not so naive that I actually expected this to be the reality of night train travel. But it could happen. You never know until you try.

So we’ve been trying to fulfill this fantasy for almost a year. And we ran into some problems right away. First off, being in the middle of the continent means that we are in the middle of the train routes. So either we hop on the train in the middle of the night, or conversely hop off at a similarly indecent hour. But let’s say we decide to go crazy, stay up late, and then make it up by sleeping late on the train. No, because the routes aren’t that long; we get on at midnight, we’re at our destination by 6.

So, it was obvious we were going to have to make some compromises, adjust the fantasy a little. Enter: Croatia.

It was actually pretty ideal timing-wise. The train left Croatia two hours after bedtime (walk 30 minutes to a bowling alley for a few games and sloppy burgers, dip our feet and throw rocks in the Adriatic one more time, fuel ourselves for the walk back with double ice cream scoops). And arrived in Salzburg an hour later than we normally rise (Starbucks for non-European-sized coffees opens 30 minutes after that).

The compromise we knew we were making was sleeping arrangements. There are no sleeper cars that travel that route during this time of year; only train cars with seats. I did reserve us a private compartment, though, so at least we wouldn’t be sleeping with strangers.

Bill and his dad tried their darndest to get those seats to pull out flat (as was possible in our previous Slovenian train compartment), but to no avail. Good thing the girls are still small (ish)! Tessa laid down on her seat with her legs on my lap, and Maggie stretched across 2 seats and Bill on the other side. Us grownups kind of mushed down and across the remaining space wherever we could find a crack.

Once we pulled out of the station, the gentle rocking (and Bill’s soothing Harry Potter recital) put the girls right to sleep. It was super cozy with lights of villages twinkling in the distance, deep breaths and occasional snorts of snoozing children mingling with the train’s clickety-clacks, all of our arms and legs and jackets overlapping to form one big snoozy pile.

The girls slept pretty well (although don’t ask Maggie — she’ll tell you she was up all night). And the grownups dozed here and there.

Although, it was tough to get in much of a long stretch because of, well, for multiple reasons. But mostly because officials kept coming to our compartment at frequent internals. First was the (expected) ticket check. Then we crossed the border out of Croatia (which is still in the EU, but not part of the Schengen area), so Croatian police came to look our passports over. Then we crossed into Slovenia (which is part of the Schengen), so Slovenian police came on board to stamp our passports. Next was another ticket check (new conductors on the train at some station), followed by turning on all the lights for some reason for a few hours, and then turning the lights back off, and finally a last ticket check (maybe when we crossed into Austria). And all the while, there are people getting on and off the train as if it were a normal commuter route, chatting in the halls, playing music, and generally wandering (there was at least one dog too). And we stood at stations for verrrrry long stops (I guess that’s one way to make a normally 6 hour trip into 10 hours), coupling and uncoupling cars and engines, and then leaving the station the same way we came in (change of train direction is apparently a little disorienting when you’re so sleepy).

Final assessment of our night train experience (yes, it was technically a train traveling through the night so it counts): We may not have had cozy beds or a steward bringing us hot coffee (or any water on board, actually) or a restful night. But we sure had a super-memorable experience. Together. Happily adventuring through parts unknown.

That is always what we want.