My dual fascination with France and train travel began the moment I climbed aboard a southbound sleeper car in Paris at the tender age of five. My parents had splurged on a six-week family tour of France and Norway. Our adventure began with an overnight trip from Paris to the sleepy seaside town of Agay, then not much more than a dot on the map between St. Raphael and Cannes.
It was a different era, before discount air carriers and autoroutes were an option. Inside our wood-paneled Train Bleu compartment, we sat on plush velvet-covered banquettes. I remember a large white porcelain water basin and pitcher for washing up and keeping cool in the summer heat. No AC. The whole vibe, looking back, seems more 19th than 20th-century.
Our seats transformed into four tidy bunks with crisp linens and puffy pillows. We opened our eyes in the morning to sunshine streaming into our cabin and palm trees rolling by the window as we coasted smoothly along the Côte D’Azur.
The experience was a revelation. And, as a way to get from one place to another, it sure beat what was at that point the full extent of my travel knowledge—piling into the family Chevy for road trips to visit my grandparents in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Plus ça change: overnight train travel is having a moment in France and across Europe. After a decade or more of government policy intended to kill off French sleeper trains to focus on speedy TGV routes, the French government, taking its lead from the European Union, has reversed course and is taking a stab at investing in green rail travel. That’s a plus for both travelers and the environment. Aside from allowing riders to save costs on a night of lodging, trains are significantly more energy efficient than the swarm of polluting short-hop planes criss-crossing the continent every day.
French Sleeper Trains Can Take You Farther for Less
Climb aboard an SNCF Intercité de Nuit sleeper car in Gare d’Austerlitz and you can wake up in the morning in Toulouse or Perpignan, where you can catch high-speed train connections to Barcelona. You can also hop on night trains for Aurillac, or head to the Southern Alps, getting off at UNESCO world heritage site Briançon, with its gondola connection to the pistes of Serre Chevalier. And the famed Côte d’Azur overnight run I took as a little kid is still rolling along (minus the wood-panelling and plush velvet seats): Paris to Nice by way of Marseille, Saint Raphael, and Cannes.
A couchette in a 2nd class cabin to Nice this fall will cost about €45 when booked on the SNCF website, compared to the €30 it would cost to sit up all night in a seat with a standard ticket. A berth in a four-bunk first-class cabin on the same train goes for about €90 each. And if sharing a cabin overnight with strangers is not your thing, it’s possible to book an entire 4-berth first class cabin for about €300 by selecting the Espace Privatif option. Women traveling alone can request a women-only shared compartment for no extra charge. For passengers arriving in Paris and Toulouse, there’s also an option for a morning shower at the station. The Man in Seat 61 is an excellent resource for planning train travel around France and beyond.
Explore Night Trains from Paris to Other European Cities
Night trains leaving directly from Paris for destinations outside France have also made a comeback in recent years, though they’ve recently hit a snag. A few winters back, on my way to ski in the Italian Alps, I took a detour to Vienna aboard an Austrian Nightjet train for a couple of days of sightseeing before doubling back to Innsbruck and the Italian Dolomites for a week of skiing.
The rolling stock was nothing fancy, similar to the night train that I rode a dozen years earlier from Paris to Berlin, the year that service was discontinued. But my bunk was cozy, the ride was smooth, and a hot breakfast came right on time to my cabin.
While it’s still possible to book this popular Paris-Vienna run, service is slated to end Dec. 14, following recent French budget cuts. Overnight Nighjet trains will continue uninterrupted from Brussels to Vienna.
For the hopelessly nostalgic rail fan with deep pockets, one can’t do better than the iconic Venice Simplon-Orient-Express to Istanbul. The legendary five night, six day trip aboard the train takes you through Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria, with stops and tours along the way, for about $24,000 per person (double occupancy).
If you don’t have that kind of time or money, hop off at Budapest. The overnight train leaves Paris at about 3 pm and arrives the next day around 7 pm. Prices start at about $5,800 per passenger, and include a four-course dinner and a three-course lunch in the restaurant car, as well as breakfast served in your cabin. Overnight Orient Express trains also run from Paris to Rome, Florence, Portofino, and elsewhere in Italy.
Another ritzy option for the pure Francophile is Le Grand Tour France, a seven day sightseeing and culinary loop around the Hexagon, traveling from Paris to Reims and Beaune, and on to Avignon, Carcassonne, Arcachon, and the Loire Valley, three-star Michelin meals. The trip, run by tour operator Luxury Train Club, costs about $13,500, or about $27,000 per couple.
For the rest of us, more beds at affordable prices could be rolling across the continent in the near future. European Sleeper, a Belgian-Dutch cooperative, plans to continue expanded routes launched in 2025 with overnight service to Venice—with stops in Innsbruck and Bolzano for skiers. The company has been running three overnight trips a week to Prague from Brussels and Amsterdam since 2023. Nox, a German startup, also recently announced big plans to launch a Europe-wide overnight train network in 2027, with modern all-private cabins for one or two travelers. The startup is promising to serve 35 routes, including multiple daily departures from Paris, at prices competitive with discount airlines.
That’s great news for anyone looking to save money on lodging and reduce their carbon footprint. But for those, like me, looking to escape the clutches of time-sucking, soul-crushing airports, the best part of it all is the joy of simply rolling along.
Rick Schine is a travel writer and has been a lifetime Francophile since his first night train voyage from Paris to Agay at the age of five. In addition to travel, he has reported on politics, business, and economics for the Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, The New Republic, and Harper’s Magazine.
