For Bavaria you also travel via Paris, except that on arrival at Paris Gare du Nord, there is no need for a taxi or metro to make your onward connection; a 7-minute stroll is all it takes to reach the
Gare de l'Est. We provide directions. The direct TGVs to Stuttgart and Munich leave Paris Gare de l’Est in the afternoon and reach speeds of 200mph on France's fastest high-speed line across flat plains and wheat fields dotted with wind turbines
...Bavaria, with an overnight stay in Munich
The direct TGV to Munich leaves Paris in the late afternoon and takes just over 5-and-a-half hours. You travel at an impressive 200mph almost all the way to the German border, slowing down just before crossing the Rhine into Germany. The railway briefly follows the Rhine Valley, with views towards the Black Forest, before speeding up again towards Stuttgart. After Stuttgart, you slow down to take in the pretty scenery of the Fils Valley before arriving in Munich at around 9.30pm.
Munich comes highly recommended for an overnight stay. The family-run Hotel Torbrau is one of the most historic inns and is ideally located close to Munich's oldest and largest public square, which brims with character and is lined with cafés and traditional beerhalls serving hearty Bavarian specialities.
Not only does an overnight stay in Munich make an ideal introduction to our holidays in Bavaria, but it also ensures that the most spectacular Bavarian scenery is revealed by daylight. A direct train the following day takes you due south past onion-domed churches and through green pastures and bottle-green forests, towards Füssen for our
Bavarian Castles & Villages cycling holiday. The journey takes 2 hours and for this holiday you can also vary your departure time from Munich to suit you because, once you step off the train in Füssen, you have just a 5-minute stroll to your hotel.
To reach the splendid Alpine scenery that our
Where Eagles Soar walking holiday explores, take a local train eastwards, changing to the Berchtesgadener Railway at Freilassing. Less than 2 hours after leaving Munich, you step off into the walker’s paradise of Berchtesgadener Land. In winter, you can take the same route to reach the idyllic
Berghotel Rehlegg.
...the Harz Mountains, East Germany & the Baltic Coast
For the next leg of your journey, you take your reserved seat on a German high-speed
ICE train, which run at up to 186mph.
Just 10 hours from London, after a change to a local regional train, you reach the spiritual heart of Germany, the
Harz Mountains.
Berlin, the starting point of our
Beyond the Iron Curtain touring holiday, is also just over 10 hours from London, with a direct ICE train between Cologne and Berlin. Travelling home from Dresden takes a little longer (12hrs 30mins).
To reach our cycling holiday on the island of
Rügen, you will also need to travel via
Berlin. In fact, you’ll need to stay overnight in the capital, before taking a direct train northwards to the Baltic Coast (3hrs). You can either choose to travel by regional train, which gives you the option to do some sightseeing before leaving Berlin (the tickets we provide are valid on any regional train), or on a less-frequent ICE train, which has the convenience of reserved seating and an on-board buffet car.