Our first overnight train experience

My wife Joanna and two children, Augusta and Fenella, travelled to Alpback in Austria by train for February 2012 half term, with Skiline.  It was our first experience of an overnight train trip and we loved it.

For anybody contemplating this trip, you need to catch a train at St Pancras mid afternoon on the Friday.  Intrepid train travellers also need to be willing to pack up a picnic for dinner on Friday night but as there are effectively no luggage restrictions this is not a problem.

The trip to Paris was quick and entirely event free.  There is then a 15 minute walk to Gare du Est so wheel along suitcases and ski bags are an advantage.  There are also taxis readily available.

The overnight train was great.  We settled ourselves in our compartment.  The train leaves at 8pm so we were fairly quickly into dinner and a video of “Chalet Girl” courtesy of our daughters’ laptop.

Beds were made and lights out at about 11pm and we all slept remarkably well until Munich.  With a 30 minute stop there is plenty of time to get some coffees, hot chocolates and croissants and we then travelled through the German and Austrian countryside for the remainder of the journey.

The return trip was even easier.  The train leaves at 9pm so that you have all of the final Saturday to ski and plenty of time to shower, eat dinner and make the train.  The next thing you know is that you are being woken up by a friendly train guard delivering coffees and then you are in Paris.

For anyone travelling to any of the resorts near Innsbruck I would thoroughly recommend it. The holiday was great overall, we really liked Alpbach.  The fact that it was the best snow since 1907 helped things of course!