Hi there,
In July, we are flying to Paris, staying overnight, then taking a train to Nancy.
After spending the weekend in Nancy, we’ll take the train to Gent, stay one day, then Bruges for one day, and finally to Amsterdam. After that we’ll fly to Prague.
I am looking for advice on booking the train trips.
Thanks a lot!
Hi Nancy,
I usually google search each route. In your case, you will be doing individual tickets, with choices as to what train company. For example when I google search 'Paris to Nancy' I get this as one:
https://www.trainline.eu/train-times/paris-to-nancy
There is a website called Seat61 (linked below) on which a British man tells you everything, and I mean everything from where, when, how, who, etc. about train travel in Europe. You could look around that site to learn in more detail about how ticketing and different train companies work related to the countries you will be traveling in and between:
https://www.seat61.com
The only train you need to book in advance (to get a good price) is Paris to Nancy TGV.
Now you can take a straight route from Nancy to Ghent using TER and IC that are unreserved and no real advantage to buying ahead. You go Nancy to Luxembourg to Liege to Ghent. That takes about 6 1/2 hours.
The other way, faster, is to take a TGV back to Paris, change stations from Est to Nord (about a half mile walk) and then a Thalys to Brussels then IC train to Ghent. That takes about 4 1/2 hours and would have to be booked in advance to get a decent price.
Ghent to Brugge is just an IC train you buy when you want to go.
Brugge to Amsterdam can be done with an IC train to Brussels then the Thalys to Amsterdam. That will be the fastest, but again, buy in advance to get a good price. Otherwise, IC train to Ghent to Antwerp to Amsterdam you can buy when you want to travel. It takes about 1 more hour than using the Thalys.
first, look up train times to find one that is convenient, that can be done on the DB website: https://www.bahn.com/en/view/index.shtml
Buying tickets is usually best done on the website of the company running the trains. In all these cases (except Ghent-Brugge), you can buy at Trainline, which has the same trains and fares as the national companies: https://www.trainline.eu/
