When I went to Berlin to chair an event last year, I looked into travelling from London by rail. Trains are more comfortable, easier to work on and far greener than planes. A Eurostar hop to Paris, I thought, and then a longer, relaxed journey to Berlin. How hard could it be?
Very hard, as it turned out. I would have to take the Eurostar from London to Brussels, a Deutsche Bahn train to Cologne and then another to Berlin. Total journey time: nine hours. I clicked through the booking sites. Was it really the case that there was no direct rail link between Paris and Berlin, the capitals of the two most important EU countries?
Yes, it was the case. There used to be an overnight train between Paris and Berlin, but it was scrapped in 2014. The only way to make the trip today is on the Russian rail service that passes through Berlin on its way from Paris to Moscow. That train leaves Paris once a week.