There are five (four adults and one child) of us traveling in late September and we want to travel from Warsaw to Budapest one-way. We're thinking of taking an overnight train, so here are the questions: 1. Do you recommend this trip by train or plane? 2. If by train, can we travel overnight and, if yes, what is the quality in a 1st class sleeper?
3. And, finally, any ideas about costs? Thanks so much! James
Posted by
Chicago/Rural WI
811 posts
Hi James, If you use the Polish Rail website you'll be able to see schedules: http://rozklad-pkp.pl/bin/query.exe/en? There is an overnight direct train that departs Warsaw Centralna (the main train station) at 21:05 and arrives to Budapest Keleti pu at 8:35. It's 11h30m in transit and I believe the train has a sleeping car. I'm not sure about the cost, the rail website (above) isn't listing it, I think because it's an inter-country journey. If you were interested in buying tickets in advance, one way to do it is by using PolRail.com, which is often recommended on TripAdvisor.com by the regulars. It's a ticket re-seller and they will add on a transaction fee but one advantage is you can have tickets booked in advance. I have no direct experience with PolRail. Night trains in general are somewhat regularly discussed here, and some people do better on them than others. I have taken one and although I thought I slept somewhat okay (in a sleeper), we arrived at our destination early in the morning and I felt completely jet-lagged all over again. It was a long day. Personally... I'd fly.