What is the best website to use to book a train ticket from Paris to Salzburg, Austria, in September? I tried the SNCF website and it said that this trip was not bookable now.
Posted by
Bellingham, WA
748 posts
You may be trying to book too soon. Consult The Man in Seat 61 for all train-related inquiries, including where to buy your tickets. I have linked his "from Paris" page. Scroll through to choose Salzburg as your destination.
https://www.seat61.com/international-trains/trains-from-Paris.htm#Paris-Salzburg
Posted by
Wengen
2850 posts
For SNCF the world ends where their trains end. So places that do not have direct trains from Paris are not bookable. If you were to try to book this for a date next week you will see that you cannot book either. It is just SCNF that cannot be bothered to offer tickets for that trip.
Best place to book this is in www.bahn.de or Trainline. And wait a bit till the complete schedule is available. I would book this in June.
Posted by
Somewhere out there
150 posts
You can catch an ICE/TGV from Paris to Stuttgart and then connect on down to Salzburg but the schedules will not be out till June.
Posted by
Alsenborn, Germany
1836 posts
You might also want to consider flying to Munich and then taking the train. Cuts the time in half.
Posted by
Wengen
2850 posts
Train: 8 hours Paris Est to Salzburg Hb.
Plane; 1h from downtown Paris to the Airport. 2h hours check-in/buffer 1 1/2h flight. 1/2 hour to get off the plane, get luggage etc. 2h from airport to Salzburg. So that is 6 hours by plane.
Train is certainly an option on this route, and it is going to be cheaper.
Posted by
Uppsala, Sweden
7311 posts
Flying to Munich won't really save you much time. My suggestion is to take the overnight train, www.nightjet.com
Posted by
Los Angeles
4998 posts
Plus the carbon impact of the train is much lower
Posted by
Alsenborn, Germany
1836 posts
Plus the carbon impact of the train is much lower
The airplane is going to fly, full or not. Judging carbon costs is not valid unless there's an actual decrease in usage. You could just as easily say that by flying you are decreasing the carbon cost per passenger and helping the environment. If you really worry about this, stay home.
The night train is over 12 hours. Personally I can't sleep on the train, and especially when it makes multiple stops and you have to deal with the announcements and transients. If it was non-stop that would be different.
I like trains but, for any trip over 5 hours, I'll fly. I'd much rather spend an hour in the airport than an hour on a train. And I calculate my vacation time at my minimum billing cost per hour, so every hour I can save to spend doing something other than traveling is time well spent.