Vienna, Amsterdam

Lacking anything better to do after Zermatt, I headed to Vienna for a couple of days, but I only had accommodation there till Friday, so on Thursday I got back on the rails again and said “onward to Amsterdam!”. 10 hours later I’m on the last part of my trip.

People who don’t take European rail ask me why I’d take a 12 hour train trip instead of a 2.5hr flight. The answer is that a 2.5hr flight is always longer, you have to get to the airport at least an hour before (unless you’re confident in timings and have no checked luggage, and aren’t flying international), and airports are always out of the way, train stations are usually central, so add another 30 mins on each end, at least. Now we are looking at 4.5 hours. 

On a plane you can’t easily get up and walk around, there isn’t a dining car, the seats are small. 

To put it simply — air travel sucks.

If you are fortunate like me and have the time to spend travelling, rail is so much nicer. I do confess that getting to my hostel at 10pm does suck a bit, but to be honest, I’m not getting there exhausted from travelling — I had a nice day looking at the country side and watching movies (wifi on trains is a lot more reliable than planes).

I’ll take this mode of transport over air travel any time I’m not in a rush.