Overnight Trains & Connections Question...

I'd say you're mostly safe in these places at night, though A'dam can be spooky.

Check the gaps in your train changes too - you don't want to be stuck for 2 hours at 3 am somewhere.

Longer routes will have better or no connections as a rule. Maybe A'dam - Interlaken??

I don't think I'd schedule any train that didn't have at least 6-7 hours for one leg where you could get some genuine shuteye.

You are very observant that some of the train changes will take place in the middle of the night. On you Salzburg to Interlaken overnight, only the first leg is a sleeper (Salzburg/Zurich). Only 5.5hrs possible sleep there. After that, you are on trains where your luggage is in overhead racks or stored at the end of the carraige. It's not secure.

On your overnight from Interlaken to Nice, there are 3-5 train changes. No easy way to get there. No long sleeper train segements either. Again, you need to make sure that your luggage is secure while you sleep.

I'm not trying to be an alarmist about securing your luggage as most trips are uneventful. But theft does occur.

The luggage issue was my next concern. Being that some of our 'night' trains are not easy routes, we realize we won't be in full sleeper trains the whole way through. Can your luggage not be at your feet or above your head? We are both carrying backpacks, one a person and that is it.

The Amsterdam to Salzburg I found one route with only one connection in Munich so we'd get a good bit of sleep. It's the others that i'm more concerned with..

Tradeoff's... do we waste a day traveling and get sleep @ a hostel, or do we take the overnight trains and have to wake every couple of hours to change trains and then have full days to enjoy each place...

EDIT: HOW CAN I FIND the connection places and how long i'll have to wait. i'm using bahn.de to get my train schedule info.

JB, from other posts I read, you're 20 years old. You'll make it. With backpacks, there is enough room on the trains to place them under your legs. That should help quite a bit. I always loop my day pack around my arm if I'm going to snooze off.

You can easily see the train connections and times on www.bahn.de Once the train schedules come up, look to the lower left of the schedules and select "details for all". They will appear.

CityNightLine runs a night train from Amsterdan to Munich. This is a real "Night train" (as opposed to an "overnight train") so maybe you don't want to spring for the cost of accommodations.