If you'd told me ten years ago that I'd end up building a website about European trains, I would have laughed. Trains were how I got from A to B. Nothing more.
That changed on a rainy Tuesday in March, somewhere between Munich and Verona. My connecting train was delayed by two hours, and I spent that time in the dining car with an old man from Trento who'd been working on the railways since 1972. He told me about routes that don't exist anymore, sleeper cars that smelled of cedar, and the small Italian station where he met his wife. By the time we crossed the Brenner Pass, I had filled half a notebook.
That was the trip that broke me. After that, I started taking the long way home. Lisbon to Berlin, surface-only. Helsinki to Athens with a stop in every capital that would have me. I learned that every European country has its own rail logic, its own quirks, its own hidden corners. I learned that the journey isn't just the means — sometimes it's the entire point.
The best stories I have aren't from the destinations. They're from the trains.
But trying to actually plan these journeys was a different story. Every country has its own booking system. Some sell tickets six months in advance, others won't let you book more than 90 days out. Some have great English websites. Others have menus that haven't been updated since 2008. I'd spend whole evenings cross-referencing forum posts from 2019, trying to figure out whether the Brussels–Berlin sleeper actually still ran.
So I built this. Not as a business plan — as a frustration solver. A place where everything I've learned over years of riding European rails sits in one organised, honest, no-fluff resource. The site you wish someone had pointed you to before your first big trip.
Whether you're planning your first Interrail or your fifteenth night train, I hope you find something here that helps. And if you've got a story of your own from the rails — drop me an email. The dining car of this particular train is always open.