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Couchettes/Sleepers/Berths vs Hotel Trains

Can someone please give me some details? I'm using Rick Steves to help plan a trip to Europe. He mentions that couchettes/sleepers are available for overnight trains. These are cheaper than the hotel trains (for example, a hotel train from Paris to Madrid, overnight, is going to be $100 pp plus the rail pass).

My question is this: do all trains have a berth for sleeping? even if it isn't a hotel train? For example, I'm looking at taking the train fron St-Jean-de-Luz-Ciboure into Madrid, to avoid the Hotel Train, and it's an overnight trip (leaves at 21:04, arrives at 8:20). (Trains are CVG 8543 and Coralt 204). I'm assuming that if I take this train, I can find somewhere to sleep for the night, or do I just have to sit up in my seat for 12 hours?

Posted by
8700 posts

TGV 8543, which you would take for the short ride to Irun, is not a night train. Corail 204 (Irun-Madrid Chamartin) is a night train with couchettes and sleepers. You can see this for yourself by going to www.bahn.de and clicking on "Internat. Guests" for English. After you get summary timetables, click on "Details for all" to see the connecting points.

Posted by
47 posts

Thanks for your replies Tim; I suppose I should have been a bit more clear. I understand about the change in Irun, and the night train will be the train out of Irun into Madrid. I just didn't know if the fact that it was a night train meant it had couchettes or not :)