JohnSeminew
Traveller
0 comments
Posted 7 years ago
I want to travel from Salzburg to Amsterdam. I am in no hurry and want to travel along the Rhine river.
I am looking at taking the IC118 from Salzburg to Koln . I will spend a night in Koln then take a train to Amsterdam the next day.
Is that a good plan?
Thanks
JMS
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Hi John and welcome to rail.cc!
Travelling along the Rhiner river is a great idea which I can only recommend. Do you want to travel in 2nd or 1st class? If you want to go in 1st class I would recommend to travel with EC 8. This train conveys a panoramic car of Swiss Railways SBB which provides the best views when travelling along the Rhine.
IC 118 runs on the route Innsbruck - Bregenz - Lindau - Ulm - Stuttgart - Mannheim - Rhine valley - Cologne so it doesnt stop at Munich. However you could catch it at a station between Ulm and Mannheim.
To get your desired ticket follow these steps. I recommend booking from DB (German Railways); please use our partner link to support our work, thank you: [ux]https://rail.shop/bahn[/ux]
1) Select your route (München to Köln; the central stations would be "Hbf" - Hauptbahnhof) and date you want to travel
2) "Add intermediate stops" and select Koblenz Hbf as intermediate stop and enter "11:00" as departure time.
3) The first result should be ICE 518 to Mannheim with immediate connection with EC 8 to Cologne.
4) To offer selection; you can choose between saver fare "Sparpreis" which is cheaper but has limited options for refund or exchange and full fare "Flexpreis".
1st class tickets include a seat reservation; unfortunately it is not possible to select the panoramic car of EC 8 (the system automatically assigns a seat). The panoramic car has coach number 263, while there are two other regular 1st class coaches with numbers 262 and 264.
If possible, I recommend booking a separate seat reservation in coach 263 at a ticket desk locally at a station. Of course, you could also enjoy the trip along river Rhine during a stay in the restaurant car of the train.
Another option to get your reservation in coach 263 would be to reserve online from Czech Railways (seat reservation only) at [ux]http://rail.shop/cd[/ux]
However the system there apparently also allocates reservations in coach 262 or 264. It would be possible to select the coach number and seat number manually but the system doesnt allow to make the reservation, I dont know why. Hence I would recommend to make the reservation for the panoramic car at a station if possible.
For your trip to Amsterdam on the following day you could book everything in one go if you want: Go to [ux]https://rail.shop/bahn[/ux] and enter "Munich" and Amsterdam; then add "Koblenz" and "Cologne" as intermediate stops. For Cologne you then have to set a specific stopover time. For instance, if you\'d arrive in Cologne at 17:05 you could enter a stopover time of 14 hours and continue to Amsterdam the next day at 08:44. Again, if you select a "Sparpreis", you have to use the long distance trains you have selected. If you want a flexible ticket you need to purchase a more expensive "Flexpreis".
Flo