A new overnight train now links Brussels with Milan and Como three times a week, and it promises the kind of journey budget flying can't match: board at Brussels Midi, doze through Germany, wake to breakfast as the Swiss Alps slide past your window, then roll into Italy by afternoon.
The service is the latest from European Sleeper, the crowd-funded Belgian-Dutch operator that already runs Brussels-Berlin-Prague and a Paris-Brussels-Berlin route launched in March. Getting it running was a feat. Sleeper trains are notoriously hard to make pay: a 26-metre sleeping carriage carries around 20 berths but could seat 70 people by day, the carriages only complete one loaded trip per 24 hours, and staff and bedding costs pile up. Spain's Renfe has given up on sleepers entirely, though Austria's ÖBB and European Sleeper still back the niche. Rolling stock is scarce too — most national operators stopped building sleeper cars in the mid-1990s, so operators lease old stock. On this route, the stainless-steel sleeper shells date from the mid-1950s, rebuilt inside during the '90s.
So how was the inaugural run on September 10? The good: tickets sold strongly, the Comfort Standard compartments (rebuilt couchettes with proper mattresses and duvets, sold for single, double or triple use) are genuinely comfortable, and the scenery south of Aarau over the historic Gotthard mountain route is the star. The train spirals around the village of Wassen, pauses ten minutes at Goschenen in cool mountain air, then crosses the Alps through the original 1882 Gotthard Tunnel at 1,150 metres — a route most trains now skip in favour of the faster 57-kilometre base tunnel. Best of all, the old carriages have windows that actually open.
The bad: the inaugural departure slipped from 7.06pm to 9.50pm after a shunting mishap and "cleaning and provisioning logistics", and the train reached Milan Porta Garibaldi roughly four hours behind schedule. The Rhine Valley was passed in the small hours rather than by moonlight. Teething problems, to be fair — but worth factoring slack into any tight connections.
Prices are reasonable. On a four-days-in-one-month Interrail pass (€283 for adults, €212 under 28, €255 over 60, kids under 12 free), the Brussels-Milan leg costs a €52 reservation in a shared six-berth couchette or €169 for a private single in Comfort Standard. Add a €35 Eurostar passholder fare from London and one travel day covers the whole UK-to-Milan run.
It's not perfect yet, but it's a characterful, lower-carbon alternative to a budget flight — and if the debut is anything to go by, popular. Book the Alps-facing side and stay up for the Lorelei.
