Travelling to Germany

[Passenger John]

We are planning our first Continental rail trip for later on in the year to Bavaria.

Does anyone know the best website or place for getting fares and tickets for such a journey. Should we split tickets maybe to and from Brussels for example. Our final destination will be Wurtzburg or Nuremberg.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

 

[button_boxer]

You can get a through ticket from London St Pancras to anywhere in Germany from the DB website. The ticket is called "London Spezial" and covers Eurostar to Brussels, ICE from Brussels to Aachen/Köln and then any necessary DB connections from there to your destination, all on one print-at-home ticket.

The trick is that they're only available on itineraries where you cross the Belgium/Germany border on an ICE, not Thalys, but you can manipulate the via points and connection times to get stopovers (including overnight stops) along the way. An overnight in Brussels is often a good way to get the cheapest fares.

I did a London Spezial a couple of years back starting on a late Eurostar, overnight in Brussels, then ICE to Frankfurt Flughafen, IC to Weimar, RE to Jena and a local connection on the end, all on one ticket for less than a hundred euros.

 

[ainsworth74]

The Man in Seat 61 has an excellent page on travelling from London to Germany (and many other places in the world). He has also helpfully set up a number of links which set up everything for you so all you do is select the date and the DB booking engine will automatically show you the Spezial tickets.

 

[Hophead]

Aha! I have just posted some information on the DB London Spezial thread. To recap, though - yes you can certainly get some good deals via DB, but it's also worth looking at a Eurostar single to/from Brussels or Paris, with DB connections from there, not least for the bargain 1st class supplements that come into play (€10 is pretty common I found, when researching just a few days ago).

 

[Passenger John]

Thanks for that, replies have been really helpful.