sleeping on trains in Eastern Europe

We took the overnight sleeper from Krakow to Eger.
We were woken up a few times for passport checks at borders, but it was nice waking up in Eger. We bought the tickets in Krakow the day before we out problems.

You can see pictures of our trip at our personal blog: http://gadtravel.blogspot.com/

hi
what class were you in? did you have a sleeper?

oh, sorry, I see it was a sleeper. was it private for 2 people, and did it lock? we are trying to figure out if we would be comfortable enough to get a decent enough sleep to be able to tour around the next day.

Most people who write on this website (myself included) report difficulty getting much, if any sleep on a night train, even with a sleeper or couchette. Unless you are a very sound sleeper, the constant small jolts, accelerations and decelerations make it very difficult to initiate sleep. Even with a little pharmacological help, I still woke up many times. My opionion of night trains is that although they save travel days on paper, most people find their agenda the day after is compromised because they remain insufficiently rested.

I agree with Tom. We got very little sleep between Paris and Zurich. We had to have the window open because there was no A/C. The noise from the tracks, etc. made it difficult to sleep.

Thanks for the frank feedback. I have a feeling we would be the same, even with pharmacological help!

We had the sleeper all to ourselves and it locked and we felt safe. We just did not get much sleep, but the next day as not ruined.

We (myself and my girlfriend) took two night trains in Eastern Europe - Prague to Krakow and Warsaw to Berlin. The private doubles were incredibly cheap, something on the order of 20Euro per person. The rooms were comfortable, clean, both had nice clean duvet's and locked securely with two locks. The conductors both told us to keep the doors locked, and we never had a problem on those two or the other night train we took.

Normally I cannot sleep at all while moving, but the reasonable comfortable beds along with
half a Dramamine gave me a good 5-6 hours of sleep on an 8 hour trip - I stayed up for an hour or so reading the paper before falling asleep. In my limited experience, the Eastern night trains were comfortable and I would recommend them to all.

Brian

Thanks. I'm surprised how cheap it was for you. Other posts have talked of costs of over $200 for the same run. They said you had to buy a first class ticket, and then pay the sleeper.