Train Munich to Paris
Tonight we’re traveling from Munich to Paris by the City Night Line sleeper train ‘Cassiopeia’, leaving Munich at 22:48 and arriving in Paris Gare de l’Est at 09:23 tomorrow morning. We could take a Ryanair flight for 25E for both of us, but then we would have to pay for another night’s hotel. An overnight train seemed ideal. City to city no hassle.
The Cassiopeia has ordinary seats, couchettes (4-berth & 6-berth) and sleeping-cars (1, 2 & 3-bed deluxe and standard rooms). We’ll be sitting up all night on the plane soon enough so we opted for the 4-berth couchette option instead.
There is a bistro car available in the morning for breakfast, but as we learned before train food is overpriced and usually not very good so we’ll be packing our own dinner and getting breakfast in Paris.
Travel tip: For a cooked breakfast in Munich or evening meal before boarding the Paris-bound sleeper on your return, try the typically Bavarian Mongdratzerl restaurant, located in the hauptbahnhof itself.
You can book online direct with the German train website. (Don’t worry, its way better than Trenitalia.com and takes American credit cards just fine) You can book up to 92 days in advance. We booked exactly when the fare first became available online for 69E each ($175 total at the time). Booking closer to the date of travel would have cost 272Euro “standard fare” each.
Savings fare is awesome, but it has to be booked in advance, has limited availability, no refunds, no changes. If you can’t commit to a particular train then you may look at a rail pass or Ryanair. These overnight trains pay to plan ahead.
