Trouble booking trains - Germany - Belgium - Netherlands

You should be able to book this in www.bahn.de
The reservation for Köln - Brussels is automatically included. Do not select to add any other reservations, as all the other trains you take are without reservation,

For Brugge - Amsterdam book with www.b-europe.com, which is the official website for the Belgian Railways.

SNCF would not be a good place to book this, as this trip does not involve the SNCF. This is a trip involving only German and Belgian trains, so book with the German or the Belgian railways.

Thank you for the links. I am still stuck. I had not had the "b-europe link" and I tried that one too. Each time I get to the point of reserving - I get a message that says "sorry, this cannot be reserved" or "we cannot sell you this requested journey". I even got to the point of seat selection at one point but still it stopped me before purchase. The Bahn.de website guides me to the Interrail Pass website. Is that what I am forced to do - buy a Rail Pass for one journey?

Hi Amy. I tried a sample booking of the Bacharach to Bruges on bahn.de and had no problem; I got all the way to cart, entering my name and email, and to entering credit card info. On what screen are you getting the 'cannot book' message?

It has to be my date.....June 26th. I called the bahn customer service number and they said the issue is the Eurostar connection from Cologne to Brussels in the middle. It looks like it is sold out until like 6pm that day getting us to Brussels at like 10:30pm and we are not even to Bruges yet. Ugh. I am scouring now for any conceivable alternates.

For some reason this connection is bogged down on June 26th and somewhat open the day before and the day after. Maybe I switch my hotel reservations. I don't know. Its turning into a best of the worst situation now.

Ok. I’ve no idea if this might be the problem, but could it be the impact of soccer matches (EURO Cup) in Germany? Here is the EURO schedule

https://www.google.com/search?q=euro+cup+schedule&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#cobssid=s

Amy - any chance the spelling is causing a problem? There is a Bruges city in France, and that spelling can also be used for the Belgian city, causing confusion. But the Bahn website is expecting Brugge, and I see several trains available on June 26 getting you to Brugge, Belgium as early as 2:51 pm.

Linda - my son is a huge soccer fan, so I will look into that - maybe we luck out and see a game. Bob, I know its not the spelling because a couple times I got my hopes up for a ticket only to find that the connection was in Bordeaux....so I knew I got the France city of Bruges. The problem is that Brussels as a connection to get to Bruges and I can't seem to find any way around Brussels! Soooo I am pivoting and looking at busses. Does anyone have any bus websites that they know and can recommend (worried about legit websites). My first google hit was "Flix Bus". Looks cheap and by comparison - pretty fast connections. But I have no idea if Flix Bus is even a good website? If you know of any bus companies/websites for Germany to Belgium?

Are trying to book an ICE or an Eurostart between Köln and Brussels?

Amy, here is a recent thread on FlixBus that may be helpful. For my Portugal trip recently, I downloaded the FlixBus app but ended up not using the bus. Other Forum members seem to have good experience with the company.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/flixbus-experiences

@Amy- The solution to the Koln to Brussels enigma is to use regional trains. The end to end journey time is between 4:30 and 5:00

S Bahn Koln to Aachen, regional train Aachen to Welkenraedt (on the German/Belgian border), Inter City Welkenraedt to Bruges.

That solution runs every hour. Regional trains do not sell out.

&isn31c - thank you. That gives me hope. The stops listed and time of 4-5 hrs from start to finish is totally doable. Is there a way to pre-purchase this route? On Bahn.de when I used the option of regional trains only - all the routes were 11 hrs long and 6 connections. If I can do your suggested route - I will. I just worry showing up without a reservation in busy summer (esp with Olympics season).

Amy,

One other thing you might try is under "mode of transport" de select the high speed trains and leave everything else selected. That will usually show options other than Eurostar options. You can also de select the "show fastest connections". I've had to really play around with it when looking at options between Brugge and Metz France.

ETA: Just realized I left a step out. you have to select "user defined" under mode of transport to be able to deselct high speed trains.

I found this route because I know it exists, not through journey planners so fiddled around. I've crossed the Belgian and Dutch borders on multiple routes on slow trains so it was just knowledge.

As far as I can trace it has to be booked in two halves-
Koln to Aachen on DB, and Aachen to Bruges on the SNCB International website. On SNCB you want the 37 minutes past the hour option. No SNCB (Belgian railways) journey has seat reservations, but the Aachen to the border train is only a brief ride, and is well just not the busiest route in the world. And joining the IC at it's start at the Border you have the benefit of being first on.

Koln to Aachen being an S-Bahn may or may not be bookable on line. No-one ever would, it's just a commuter train- as far as I know still a double deck, long train. It may just be turn up and buy.

These are not trains with much if any seasonality and no-one in their right minds would use this route to the Olympics in Paris, so I just don't see that as a problem.

The regional route does not need to be pre-booked. But you can book this on line by forcing a stop in Welkenraedt. (Add a stopover).

One advantage of doing it like that is that you can actually still get a "Sparpreis". I see for June 26th still departures with prices in the 30ies.

Note: In order to get a discounted ticket you need to include an ICE service somewhere, even if it is for a short stretch. Once you have that ticket do not worry to much about connections. Trains go at least hourly along the entire route, so you just take the next train that comes along. On the ICE you may get a reservation, or that may no longer be possible. So if you for example buy a routing that involves an ICE between Köln and Aachen you may end up standing for the 37 minutes that leg takes.

@isn31c and @WengenK - thank you both. This is exactly what I will do. I definitely was not going to find this solution without your help - it is appreciated greatly!