This is superb! A very impressive bit of timetable juggling in the first place to link up all those dining car services, and a lovely video. Thank you for the shout-out too. Prost!
It is astonishing how many inter city connections there are and especially from Vienna! Everytime I see videos like this I am comfirmed in my feeling that I love train travel!
This makes me glad to see how dining cars are still good in Europe. In a few days I'm setting off towards Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Czechia and I will make sure to visit the dining car on every train that has it.
Really fun video! It kinda shows the character of Europe doesn't it? Wasn't surprised at all that the railways of Poland, Slovakia and Czechia had the best dining experience, food is really important there. The Italians were on strike of course. And the Swiss did not fail to deliver, as always. lol!
After a ride in the night train from Bari to Milano we had no cash left (it was 1992, banks closed in the weekends) and only a cheese sandwich and a can of orange to share. In Basel we saw on the famous yellow boards, that an express train for Amsterdam was due in 4 minutes. We were lucky! But also hungry. We settled and I went to see if there was a dining car and if yes, if I could pay with credit card. I didn't look very fresh after such a long journey and when I asked if paying by credit card would be possible, the manager looked at me from top to feet and back, saying: "Only if you spend at least 25 DM" That was no problem and in no time we were having our best meal of the vacation: freshly prepared steak, baked potatoes, vegetables and a salad, speeding north with 180 km/h!
@@samtrak1204 No, not in 1992. With Dutch debit cards we could get money from the ATP within The Netherlands only. For cash withdrawal abroad we had payment cards (up to 200 guilders, now € 90) and so called cashier's checks (up to 500 guilders). But to withdraw money with those, you needed a bank of a post office.
@@alexisarteev-salazar9247 Well Swiss dining cars also run on some of my favorite train journeys from Zürich and Interlaken to Hamburg via the Ruhr area. These trips take 11 hours and more. I always love the views going right next to the Rhine river between Koblenz and Mainz, which is even better with some Swiss hot chocolate and something to eat. Unfortunately the Swiss dining car also charges Swiss prices which makes it hard to afford to people without Swiss salaries. 😅
I love these Dining Car Videos. Personally, I have only been traveling in the Dining Car on longer Journeys for 30 Years, provided there is one attached.
German Railway worker here My personal rating of dining cars ive been with is #4 SCNF #3 ÖBB #2 DB #1 SBB (they let me eat in one of their first class panorama coaches even though i had no first class ticket, plus they made my meal freshly, pretty rare these days)
Dann musst du unbedingt mit einem Freifahrschein nach Polen, Tschechien, Slowakei usw. das ist frisch gekocht, einfach herrlich, selbst verglichen zur SBB.
I cannot imagine how much planning this took. And really an exellent video! You must have been tired - and full - after this challenge! Central/East Europe is definitely superior to any other part of the continent regarding dining cars.
Thanks for the kind words! Indeed it was quite straining, but worthwhile in any way. And I admire my friends talent for this unique journey. Sadly, even if this was only recorded a few weeks ago, it's not possible to replicate it - as the Polonia doesn't have a dining car and trenitalia ETR 610 don't go to Germany anymore.
@@felixonrails of course! Dining cars sadly slowly seem to be a more and more rare occurance or at least not as restaurant-ish as they used to be; with the new timetable IC1 coaches no longer have dining cars and the international connection between Copenhagen and Hamburg is now considered EC instead of IC, apparently now accepting a guy walking around the train with drinks and very small snacks (and only within Denmark) as "food and beverages available onboard" which is a criteria for EC trains - just to mention even more to back up your point. I also didn't now that the EC between Italy and Germany is (well, were) sometimes actually Trenitalia ETR 610, I thought it was solely it's Swiss counterpart, but let's hope the rumours about a future ETR 1000 connection into Munich and beyond can give Italian high speed trains a comeback into Germany:)
Yeah, sorry about the taxi. As I tell everyone, avoid take]ing taxis waiting in front of the station if you can (bus costs like 1,5 Eur) Great video, Viel Glück für die nächsten Reisen!
Thank you! As we took the train back to Vienna after ending in Bratislava again, we went to Petrzalka by bus this time. It was actually convenient but I’m not 100% we could have made the transfer in time.
@@felixonrailsand missing the connection at Petrzalka would have cost us both the Slovak and Polish dining cars, at least for dining. I accept it was a ripoff but the challenge was worth 20 €.
it is pretty cheap even for a Czech person, I still don't understand how is it possible that they still have normal prices in train when it cost like 2-3 times more at train station
@@Pidalin the čd restaurant is about 10-30% more expensive than some normal priced restaurants elsewhere. i don't know why but all the prices in Czechia have gone up like crazy. I don't think it's all caused by the economic crisis, but also businesses being hungry for money. But you can still find restaurants with normal prices, including the ČD restaurant, which I really appreciate.
@@czechmatebro That's why I said ČD rastaurants in trains have still normal prices, because prices of everything else are completely crazy. And ofcourse it's not only because of inflation, it's because of we are still wild east with no laws against these cheaters and thieves, especially that german supermarket Mafia (Lidl, Kaufland and others) is doing things which are illegal in Germany, but totaly normal here, that's why we have the highest prices in Europe, it's everything mafia, bad laws and mentality that who is not stealing, steals from his family as people were saying during communism. And today government (I also voted them) is completely useless. Instead of doing something with energy crisis, they say that electricity will go up +10% again in time when we already have the most expensive electricity in Europe, it's really unbelievable.
There is inflation and it becomes harder to find staff as lot's of people retire now. So you can either reduce service or pay your staff better not to lose it. Further some business seems to take the current situation as an excuse to increase prices additionally.
Thanks and good job! Central European restaurant cars carry the Austro-Hungarian heritage and it is no wonder that Vienna was your hotspot. Before spending more time abroad I always thought that the service of our national operator, ČD, is a normal service, but now I really enjoy and appreciate how good they actually are in the international comparison. Btw, it is a bit funny how you pronounced some Slavic words like Košice and železnice, with softening those consonants that shouldn't be softened (c) and not softening those that should (š, ž)
My favourite dining is with the Czech Railways (Cesky Drahy). Quality is high, they have good beer (draught even) and with very reasonable prices. PKP (Poland) is also good.
Ich hab den innerdeutschen Anteil bei der DB geholt, waren um die 40 €. Und für den zweiten Tag hatte ich einen Tag auf meinem Interrail Pass übrig, der 250 € für 4 Tage kostete. Also Zugtickets etwa 100 € und das Essen ungefähr nochmal so viel… vielleicht etwas mehr. Und das Taxi in Bratislava um die Tour zu retten 😅
so much train, so little switzerland, my swiss heart is surprised haha. Our restaurants on the second floor (on the IC2000 / IC202 and the new Bombardier IC Trains) are also something special
Actually there was a variant with Trenitalia and SNCF dining cars in the Lausanne/Geneva region, then Swiss dining car and over to Vienna by EuroNight Zurich-Budapest. Sadly it didn’t work out on the weekend we had planned because of works on the Arlberg route making said EuroNight too slow for our trip.
Well done - what a marathon! Now, pop over to the UK and travel on Great Western from London Paddington to Plymouth by the 13:05 train. It has Pullman Dining with (in my opinion) the best on-board food in Europe. Exquisite wine list too. I also travel regularly between Dresden and Praha and the dining car on that service is usually A1. Thanks again for an unusual but fascinating 24-hour culinary adventure.
This is one of the best train journey videos I've seen in a while. My favorite restaurants in Europe are both the MAV one and the CD one, though I have to say that there are a lot of good ones! I had some great Pierogies in the PKP restaurant that was carried with our night train to Przemysl. Seeing dining cars on night trains has become really rare so this was a great thing. DB does a pretty good job in my opinion. They have a good offer in acceptably-priced dishes, but most importantly, they have real, comfortable and dedicated dining cars on all of their high-speed trains. Also, DB serves everything on real glass and porcelain tableware, even if you take it with you to your seat! The SNCF serve good food but it is overshadowed by their abysmal presentation. The French serve their dishes on plastic plates and even in Business Premiere you have to eat with wooden silverware which is kind of disappointing. One other thing I was thinking about while watching is this song: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dlv-4CHcNC8.html
Vienna is the hub of dining car and obviously night trains. Think I had the following in September. Breakfast from Prague to Berlin, very late lunch on DB from Berlin to Duesseldorf, something on SBB from Duesseldorf to Zurich (though it got cancelled in Basel).
Brilliant video. I agree that the Budapest-Prague-Berlin diner is the best that you featured there and probably the best overall, but I had a meal on the Kosice-Bratislava train last year and it was outstanding.
I love that the first dining car was no food due to industrial action 🤣 The Czech and MAV dining cars make my holiday travels a joy. You were in the MAV blue one, there is a purple one too. France should be ashamed.
Ach, schön, habe schon auf Bluesky von Lenny von eurem Abenteuer gelesen, aber ich wusste nicht, dass es auch Videos gibt. Bin jetzt nur durch Zufall hierauf gestoßen. Super gemacht!
Great idea and a good video! I had the pleasure of eating with CD (excellent!), MAV (good, just didn't pick a good dish) and DB (meh) this past trip. SBB's dining car on the Eurocity from Zurich to Hamburg is exquisite but really expensive. I hope to pick up one of ÖBB's Intercity dining cars that used to ply Munich-Verona but those might be going away soon. I'll need to try the Slovenian and Slovakian cars if I get the chance.
great vid. am a big fan of railroad dining cars. a fine point but at the beginning of the vid you talked about delays. this made me think of our national carrier (uh, the only one) amtrak. a major complaint is that the trains are always late. well. there is a reason beyond amtrak's abiity. passenger trains must give way to freight (goods) trains. as there are not that many double track lines, this means a train must pull of on a siding. there are not many sidings, do you often are delayed far longer than necessary.
Those videos saying that Rail travel between EU countries is difficult is due to the fact that only a handful of services are cross border. Or how services that COULD be cross border aren't. For example: Vilnius - Turmantas train.... Turmantas is a border town of Lithuania just meters away from the border with the population of 300, but if they extended the service just 23km into Latvia then they could end the service in Daugavpils. A city with 90k people and a combined metro population of over 120k.
Yes I agree, there are more potentials for better international services. Nevertheless there are already some existing great cross border services that travellers can benefit from, that's all I wanted to say 😊
Your results pretty much match my travel experiences. The buffet car in the TGVs is a major disappointment and can‘t really be called a dining car. Quite surprising for a nation so proud of its cuisine that their high speed trains only offer stuff like microwaved hamburgers which one would perhaps expect at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere. DB‘s ICE offerings have seriously declined over the last few years. Nothing is freshly prepared, merely reheated. They have gone done a vegan and organic rathole. It‘s hard to get a proper meal, their breakfast offerings are particularly sad. SBB is quite good but of course crazily expensive. So I guess the best chices indeed are the Eastern European old school dining cars with freshly cooked proper meals.
@@CalinFR this is the effect of declining number of dining cars avialble and unfortunate lack of new purchases. With new timetable a ding car was added to Krakow-Vilnus train at the cost of some Vienna connections. This is somewhat Ironic given that all new EMUs actually do have dining cars (I'm pretty sure PKP IC is the only operator with dining cars on Stadler FLIRTS) but these only serve domestic routes.
@@felixonrails agreed that the SNCF offer is extremely poor indeed. Yes I had a Slovenian Schnitzel and it was quite superb! I didn’t quite get as impressed as I should have been by a Polish PKP which almost concerns me. Go east and yes it gets very very much better!
fortunately you did not travel on RENFE because those offer only a pre-made baguettes / bocadillos or some industrial croissants. Worst cuisines on rails line SNCF or RENFE interestingly in countries with good cuisines!
Nein - am besten reist es sich bei den Strecken mit Interrail oder Eurail. Alternativ falls man bei einer Bahn arbeitet kann man mit Freifahrten fahren.
"European railways" and shows České Dráhy in that moment. Czechs: "oh no" 😀 They actually have pretty good high class trains, problem is that the vast majority of people never saw them because they use just commuter trains and massive delays are not cause by train company, but by owner of infrastructure, which was in the past the same company, but people are still used to put it everything on ČD even when they don't own it anymore. I would say that letting private companies ride on our railways was catastrophe and a good thing at onece. Catastrophe because of ticket mess, a lot of people don't use trains anymore becuase of that and good thing because of at least some competition. I know that quality of for example Regiojet trains is pretty bad, it's like museum on wheels, but without them, there wouldn't be any trains to Croatia to sea etc...so we have at least something thank them. Yeah, delayed train when you need to change to other train, but you know there is high chance that other train will be delayed too, that's not just a German thing, it's even Czech thing. The worst thing which can happen to you is when your second train is on time, which is really unexpected. 😀 When it's a high class train, it will definitely not wait for you, if it's commuter train, you have som possibility that they will delay it on purpose to wait for you, which is something actually good about our railway system, even when it can be annoying for people who are not rushing from other train and just want to use that second train. What can happen to you in a Czech hig class train is that restaurant is closed because of long delay because restaurant stuff already has their shift ended even when train is not in destination yet, but you can be sure they will close restraurant and they don't care about you. 🙂
thanks for your comment! Just to be clear, I explicitly do not consider České Dráhy bad in any way; moreover, my critique goes towards the people overexaggerating the flaws of European railways, especially concerning the international connections. The few times I could travel with CD I always appreciated their service 😊
Either via Lyon, Geneva and Brig or via Narbonne, Marseille, Nice and Ventimiglia. Either way it is about 13h30 and during the day with quite robust changing times at the mentioned stations. There sadly is no possibility to do it with a night train (anymore).
When the Mont-Cenis Tunnel will be reachable again next year, probably the fastest way would be Milan - Lyon and the Lyon - Barcelona AVE. But until then, the situation is pretty dire.
Hanba ten nás taxikár slovenský. 30 euro za takú krátku jazdu. Úplní somár, a tak nás potom budú vidieť turisti. English: Just me raging against that stupid Slovak taxi driver
