What we learnt about train station names in Europe!
In the US, we don’t really have any concept of train travel. OK fine fine, except a small area in the northeast US where people do commute a lot in train. And that means, there is a lot to learn about train travel in Europe. One of them is an important bit about train station names!
When I started searching from train tickets from Vienna to Prague, imagine my frustration when search results didn’t make sense. Until I realized, Vienna is Wien and Prague is Praha. And this is true pretty much all across Europe. Yes, we use these gorgeous cities’ common English names but they use their cities’ proper names! So, first find out the actual names of the cities you are traveling between.
Next, remember that a given city will likely have more than one train station. For example, Wien (Vienna, Austria) has 4 or 5 I think. Obviously, you can’t just tell the Uber driver “to the train station”! I suppose you could since most tourists go to the main station but that would not be ideal, would it?
With more than one train station in a given city, it is obviously important to know which one is YOUR station for multiple reasons – proximity to hotel, connecting train etc etc.
My strategy was to search for “main train station in…” and start from there. I immediately discovered that Wien Hbf is the main train station in Vienna. And then I started seeing a pattern. In German speaking countries, main train station will have “Hbf” after the name. Hbf for Hauptbahnoff. For instance, Wien Hbf (Vienna, Austria) or Zurich Hbf (Zurich, Switzerland). In Praha (Prague), it was Hlavni. And in Bratislava, it was Hlavna.
The importance of knowing the relevant train station names was once more highlighted on our way to Warsaw from Prague (accurately speaking, to Warszawa from Praha). Take a look at the map below:
Our train was arriving into Warsaw from the left side in this map. This was an overnight train from Prague. Our ticket said Waszawa Gdanska which is about where the red arrow is but we went through the ones circled in red first. Confusion turned to concern when we crossed the river since I was certain that we were supposed to be on the west side of the river. We ended up getting off at Warszawa Wschodnia with a super long wait for Uber (or was it Bolt??) to bring us to our hotel in the center of the map above!
So yeah, know your station’s name well !!
