On board the maiden sleeper from Brussels to Venice: we got there in the end
Affordable couchettes, wonderful scenery and good company make up for the teething problems en route
At 6.45pm on Wednesday, the Good Night Train trundled out of platform 3 at Brussel-Zuid station. It departed 40 minutes late due to trespassers on the tracks, but the train soon picked up pace, the golden lights of the Belgian capital sweeping through the carriages where groups were stashing skis, families were settling young children and solo travellers stood at the open windows swapping names and stories amid the clamour and confusion on board. This was the inaugural European Sleeper service from Brussels to Venice … only the train wasn’t going to Venice.
Two days earlier, passengers had received an email explaining that the train would be running only as far as Verona, and that a regular Trenitalia service would take us on to Venice. Then, on the evening of departure, we learned that owing to unspecified Italian bureaucracy, the train wouldn’t enter Italy at all, but would be terminating at Innsbruck, with two connections taking us to Verona and then on to Venice.
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