September 8, 2026, 8:52 am | Read time: 7 minutes

With over 25 years of experience, I consider myself a seasoned traveler. This involves not just sightseeing but also figuring out how to reach a destination. I’m a hopeless romantic in this regard. I’ve taken multi-day ferries when I could have flown in an hour and a half, biked for three weeks across Germany to a wedding instead of taking a convenient bus, and had the adventure of a lifetime on a cruise from Portugal to Panama on a repositioning voyage. Travel time: two weeks instead of a relatively short flight. No journey is too long or too arduous if it promises a good dose of adventure.

So I was more than thrilled when I recently had the opportunity to take a night train from Prague to Warsaw, a cherished way of traveling from my childhood. I was quite excited. Would I try to stay awake all night to admire the passing landscape? Would the gentle rocking of the train eventually lull me to sleep? Although the ticket cost about 80 euros, which seemed quite expensive to me, I booked it without hesitation and eagerly anticipated the journey. In the end, everything turned out differently than expected, and some disasters occurred. Still, I would take a night train again anytime.

A Crime of Ugliness

Admittedly, the timing of my trip was not ideal. At the end of June 2026, all of Europe was suffering from an enormous heatwave. It was about 40 degrees Celsius when I departed from Prague, an oppressive, oven-like temperature. I had been on a hike for a few days before. Now I was dragging myself and my not-so-light backpack on foot through the beautiful old town of Prague toward the main train station. The station itself is a curiosity. Since my first arrival there more than 25 years ago, it hasn’t changed a bit. That means it hasn’t been modernized at all. It’s a wonder how such a radiant metropolis tolerates such a crime of ugliness in a train station. But this was where I was to board my night train.

The Prague main train station is also an unpleasant platform for arriving, departing, or transferring for another reason. It seems to be teeming with all the city’s drug addicts and homeless people at all hours, in various stages of decay. Due to my physique, I rarely worry about assaults, but the presence of these figures always gives me a queasy feeling. Once inside the building, the real adventure began: finding my night train or its platform, which was not displayed anywhere.

A Personal Train Attendant

Here, the Prague main train station resembles an airport, as an employee informed me, in response to my nervous inquiry, that the platform for my night train would only be announced 15 minutes before departure. So, anxious waiting, staring at the display board. This situation is further complicated by the fact that the local main station is divided into three sections: North, South, and Central. Depending on where you depart from, you may have to walk considerable distances, especially with heavy luggage. Even at the platform eventually indicated as my departure point, there was no digital information confirming it.

So, anxious waiting with many other uncertain passengers until our night train finally arrived with the obligatory delay. Then began the scramble, the jostling to be the first to board the train. A quirk that always puzzles me on planes, as no one has ever heard of starting faster because of it. Each car has its own conductor, who must remind the nervous, cattle-like waiting guests about 800 times per minute that he will soon come to each of them to explain the features and functions of their sleeping compartment. My train attendant seems to be a real pro, unfazed by anything.

No Air Conditioning or Cooling

Unlike me, because what I now enter in my night train is not a compartment but, strictly speaking, a walk-in shoe closet. Turning around with my backpack on is completely impossible. A bunk bed with three levels; thankfully, I have the bottom one. In my cubicle, indeed, in the whole train, it is infernally hot. So, first, a cool-down, I think, because there is actually a hand basin built into a cabinet in my cubicle. Plus, real fabric bedding, a reading light, the mattress width is okay, and it’s not too worn or uncomfortable. But the much-desired cool-down doesn’t happen, as the water from the tap is boiling hot.

Yes, that’s one of the problems with this old train, says my conductor when he finally makes his way to me. The air conditioning and cooling are out of order. A fellow traveler, who claims to have taken the night train route eight times this month alone, tells me these systems never actually work. So, unfortunately, a truly surprising feature for me is also out of order: the shower in the bathroom. But that’s not a big deal, as it already smells so bad at departure that you don’t want to stay there longer than necessary. Instead, I lie down, undress as decency allows, and enjoy the view out the window.

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The Snorer’s Axiom

The city lights fly by, and at the next station, a second fellow traveler enters my compartment. A small Vietnamese man who can only communicate via Google Translate, and whose luggage appears to weigh significantly more than he does. I help him hoist it into his bunk next to the top bed, then silence slowly falls over our compartment. Or rather, not really, as our night train seems to be from the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s collection and makes a considerable racket while moving. But I’m already so tired that my eyes eventually close on their own.

As I drift into a light sleep, the third passenger in our group arrives, enhancing the ten-hour journey from Prague to Warsaw with earth-shattering snoring. It’s an axiom that snorers always fall asleep before everyone else. In a room the size of a moving box, this crescendo echoes even more powerfully off the walls. Nevertheless, I eventually drift back into a fairly restful sleep until an automatic alarm wakes me in the morning. This is to ensure that night train guests don’t miss their station. And yes, I was able to choose a breakfast option from my conductor the night before.

Airplane-Like Dining

This is served to me and my two fellow sufferers in a kind of private room, as it would have been impossible for the three of us to eat in our compartment. Rolls, limp as papier-mâché, with various spreads, hunger drives it down. And yet the mood lifts; when do you ever get a meal included in the price on a train ride? And this meal certainly doesn’t need to hide from comparable food on any random flight. Plus, there’s the amazement of having covered almost 700 kilometers between the two capitals literally in my sleep. Needless to say, both the sink and shower still only dispense boiling water, but I’m almost there now.

I quickly abandon the idea of filing a claim against the train company for the lack of comfort and the sweaty hours in my night train. Especially since getting off in Warsaw marks the start of three weeks of summer vacation with my girlfriend, so my mood can’t be bad. And so I look back on my night train journey as what it ultimately was: another adventure for a traveler who has seen a lot but still finds himself amazed at times.