Sitting on the other side of our compartment, our three-year-old daughter cocks her head and twists her face into a Picasso of skepticism as the Dutch countryside roars past our window.
I told him that I am about to convert our seats into a bed and that we are going to sleep here on the train we just took in Brussels after a Eurostar journey from St Pancras International in London.
“No, we’re not,” he says in disbelief. “There are no beds here.” Unperturbed, I lower our three beds with a Debbie McGee gesture and watch her eyes widen.
Within moments, she is making an argument for being allowed to occupy the top bunk.
We’re on the train to Prague, a trip much easier thanks to the bohemian expanse of European sleeperIt’s a successful overnight service to Berlin via Amsterdam and is shaping up to be a lot of fun.
Jules Cooper and family board the European Sleeper in Brussels for an overnight trip to Prague
Our daughter wants to explore the train, so we take a walk through the cars. As we pass the row of open compartments, I catch a glimpse of a boy’s legs spinning as he climbs into his bunk. In another, two families chat while drinking a bottle of wine, packed around the table like sardines.
We have a five-person sofa compartment to ourselves, the middle tier of three room options, which also include a seated class and a sleeper class.
The folding beds are quite comfortable, although a little short for my 5ft 11in height, and we share a communal sink. The more expensive rooms in the sleeping cars have private sinks and extra bed inches.
The adventurer takes me to the back of the train, where she watches through the rear door window as the track near Antwerp moves steadily away. As she traverses the hallway railings on the way back, a chorus of ‘Bravo!’ They applaud him from one of the rooms.
When kids in pajamas start showing up in the hallways with toothbrushes, our daughter reaches peak excitement. “Mom and Dad…this is getting more and more fun for me,” she raves as she climbs onto the top bunk.
It’s like he’s at his first rave.
While we wait for him to fall asleep, we sit in the dark under his bunk, drink wine, and even relax enough to share a kiss, interrupted when an upside-down head appears and demands we go to bed.
Jules and her family occupy a five-person sofa compartment (as shown above)
The next morning we spent the last few hours having breakfast on the train and playing games as the black sandstone mountains of the Elbe Valley passed us south of Dresden.
Arriving punctually in the heart of Prague, at 10:56 am, feels incredibly civilized. No need to wait at a baggage carousel or take a bus. We quickly passed through passport control and crossed the square to our hotel.
The great Hotel NH Collection Prague Carlo IV, A former 19th-century bank with a neo-Renaissance facade and a friendly guy who answers the front door, it has a spa with a sauna and pool, to relax after carrying a child all day. It’s a bargain with rooms from £180 ($224) per night, including spa access and a posh breakfast.
The train arrives in the heart of Prague (above) on time, without waiting at the baggage carousel
The lobby, upper part and a bedroom of one of the hotels Jules stays in: the NH Collection Prague Carlo IV, which was formerly a 19th-century bank.
An alternative near the station is falkensteinera boutique hotel that attracts a younger crowd with DJ sets in its velvet-seated cocktail bar (double £138/$171).
After a quick shower, we took a 1960s tram into the city and were impressed by all the baroque architecture (the city wasn’t significantly bombed during World War II), but keeping our daughter entertained is exhausting.
A guided tour of the city with virtual reality headsets is a good solution. While taking in five sites such as the Old Town Square, Wenceslas Square and the Dancing House, his son will be distracted by lively panoramas of the sites at the historic crossroads.
The Falkensteiner boutique hotel: “where a DJ attracts a younger audience to his cocktail bar”
At Prague Castle, Jules’ daughter “loved the little houses in Golden Alley” (above)
Jules discovers that a guided city tour with VR headsets offers a tour of the city’s most historic places
Speed up your exploration: Prague’s “fast” trams, dating back to the 1960s
These include the Soviet tanks that rolled into St. Wenceslas Square to crush the Prague Spring in 1968 and the people who fell from the windows of the New Town Hall during the defenestration of 1419.
The tour ends well south of the busy streets of the old town, near the spacious Alma restaurant, located in a former cinema. The ubiquitous tattooed staff serves us oysters followed by a Czech sturgeon dish with trout caviar in dill sauce.
Prague Castle, flooded with the grandeur of the Holy Roman Empire, is the city’s great cultural success. My advice: don’t go with a small child. Our daughter loved the suits of armor and the little houses on Golden Lane, but she was so big and she was so busy that her parents couldn’t wait to leave.
Much more manageable are smaller attractions like the Mucha Museumdedicated to the illustrator Alphonse Mucha, famous for his art nouveau absinthe posters, and the Kafka Museumconfigured as a confusing bureaucratic labyrinth similar to one of the author’s novels.
A short walk away we finally found a great place to please everyone: Kampa Park Restaurant It has an excellent fish menu, a stunning view of the Charles Bridge… and a children’s playground.
When it’s time to take the train home, our daughter confidently trots onto the car and places her stuffed animal firmly on the top bunk.
I suppose you can barely remember our last flight, but I suspect this trip will remain in your memory for a long time.