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TRAIN TRAVEL

EXPLAINED: The new international train routes you can take from Germany this year

From new sleeper trains leaving Berlin, Munich, and Stuttgart and more capacity on the Berlin-Warsaw route – here are the critical international train updates in Germany in 2023.

Published: 3 January 2023 16:54 CET
Updated: 8 January 2023 14:42 CET
A train station in Berlin at dusk.
Passengers board a train station in Berlin at dusk. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Christoph Soeder

As new night train services kick off, Deutsche Bahn is also expanding its offerings following a big injection of investment cash from the federal government. That means train travellers from Germany are about to get a lot more choice, especially in the south of the country and from Berlin. Some of the highlights include:

Stuttgart to Venice, Vienna, Budapest, Ljubljana, and Zagreb

The southwestern German city has become a sort of hub now for accessing Germany’s Mediterranean neighbours. New daily services with sleeper cars can now carry travellers comfortably from Baden-Württemberg’s capital to destinations all around the Adriatic Sea.

The first big change involves a Nightjet service starting out in Stuttgart and passing through Göppingen, Ulm, and Augsburg before cruising on to Udine, Treviso and finally ending up in Venice in the morning.

Another service – EuroNight – is also now departing from Stuttgart, again with pickups in Göppingen, Ulm, and Augsburg. You can then sleep your way in either a full sleeper or couchette car all the way to Vienna, Budapest, Villach, Ljubljana, Zagreb or Rijeka. The Rijeka service though, is seasonal. It operates at Christmas, Easter, and then between May and October.

A man enters a train carriage in Lübeck. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-tmn | Christin Klose

Munich through Austria and Italy by night

The Bavarian capital too, has got a host of new Nightjet options for destinations you can reach by sleeper car. Passing through both Salzburg and Vienna, Munich passengers can now wake up in Genoa and a host of other Italian cities. A seasonal train, operating from June 10th until September 9th this year, will also take passengers from Munich to end at Ancona in Italy.

Leipzig to Basel and Zurich

The south of Germany isn’t the only place getting a new nightly option. EuroNight has also started running a night train with sleeper cars from Prague with a stop in Leipzig. From there, passengers can settle in for a night all the way to Basel and Zurich in Switzerland.

New connections from Berlin

The German capital too, is getting new international train links.

First up, a new night train has started up between Prague and Zurich, with a stopover in Berlin. A new direct IC line is also now in place on Sundays from Rostock, through Berlin and Leipzig all the way to Vienna. The Berlin-Warsaw route is also getting more capacity, with an extra trip added per day.

READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: How Germany’s long-distance train services will change from December

European Sleeper, a train start-up, is now selling tickets for a new overnight route operating three times a week between Berlin, Amsterdam, and Brussels. Starting in May, it will leave Brussels on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings before stopping in Amsterdam and heading onto Berlin for morning. It will make the return trip from Berlin on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays – although European Sleeper says it wants to eventually make it a daily service. Towards the end of the year, the company hopes to expand the service to both Dresden and Prague.

READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: How travelling by train between Berlin and the UK will get easier in 2023

Freiburg to Bordeaux

As of December 17th, French rail company SNCF is now operating a weekly service between Freiburg in Germany’s far southwest and the western French wine region of Bordeaux.

Member comments

  1. Always good to read of better inter European city links by rail, but what I’m really waiting for is a direct connection by Die Bahn (or another operator) to London. It would transform being able to travel from the UK to Germany, rather than having to book and wait for time consuming connections in Brussels. Die Bahn had plans several years ago, and even did a triial run through the Eurotunnel, but then shelved them.

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WILDLIFE

Southern Germany sees explosion of mosquitos after floods

First flooding, and now a plague of mosquitos: hoards of the annoying bloodsuckers are spreading on Lake Constance. Here's what to expect if you are visiting the region.

Published: 24 June 2024 16:57 CEST
Southern Germany sees explosion of mosquitos after floods

After severe floods in southern Germany, conditions are ripe for mosquito populations to explode, according to an expert in the region. 

Rainer Bretthauer, environmental and climate protection officer at the city of Radolfzell on Lake Constance, told DPA that the popular holiday location is already seeing signs of a mosquito plague.

 Bretthauer said that the floods have offered perfect conditions for egg laying, resulting in masses of mosquito offspring.

People living around the area or visiting should be prepared, Bretthauer said. He suggested, for instance, wearing loose-fitting and long clothing.

Timing also plays a role when you’re outside. “They tend to bite during twilight hours when the temperature is higher than 18C,” he said. 

Mosquitos ‘not a bad thing for wildlife’

While growing mosquito hoards may ruin peoples’ camping trips and planned lake vacations, for local wildlife, the mosquitos are a good thing, according to the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (Nabu).

“All the insects that are now developing are a very important food source for many fish species and also for birds,” said Eberhard Klein from Nabu in Constance.

Around 50 species of mosquitoes are known in Germany. Some of them are counted among the so-called floodwater mosquitoes, which increasingly hatch after flooding.

According to experts, these mosquitos are particularly zealous blood hunters, as they have to reproduce quickly before the favourable conditions disappear again.

Floodwater mosquitoes like to lay their eggs on moist soil, often in riparian zones and floodplains. There they can survive in the soil for several years.

When these zones flood and the temperature is favourable, the eggs develop and hatch mosquitos. Therefore large-scale flooding, as seen recently in Southern Germany, can lead to mass hatching.

Mosquito borne illness is spreading to Europe as temperatures warm

Warming temperatures brought by human-caused climate change have allowed mosquito populations to extend further northward in Europe, including disease-carrying species that were previously limited to regions closer to the equator.

For example, the Asian tiger mosquito is not native to Europe but has already been observed in much of southern and central Europe, including Germany.

Tiger mosquitos are particularly concerning because they are known to spread diseases such as dengue fever, chikungunya and Zika virus. Mass outbreaks of these infections have been rising globally. Last year local Dengue outbreaks were recorded in France, Italy and Spain.

With reporting by DPA

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