The station at Hrádek nad Nisou has seen better days. There’s a hint of former Habsburg style, but the ticket office is closed and the buffet is barred and shuttered. Breakfast must wait. Happily, I already have a ticket. A bargain ticket indeed, a rover valid for an entire month that allows second-class travel throughout Germany, and even to and from selected places in each of the nine countries bordering Germany. Including Hrádek nad Nisou. And the price? Just €9 for an entire month’s travel. It’s a time-limited summer offer, subsidised by the German government, which remains valid throughout July and August.
On the platform at that remote Czech station, I ponder the possibilities. Switzerland in a day? Luxembourg or Denmark perhaps? I opt for something tamer: a journey by train through a region known historically as Lusatia, following the Oder-Neisse line from Bohemia towards the Baltic. The Oder-Neisse line is not a railway, but rather an artefact of 20th-century politics. This line on the map, hammered out at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, defined Germany’s new postwar eastern border. It split communities straddling the new frontier and played havoc with the railways.
With the melting of borders and the free movement afforded by Schengen, the railways along the Oder-Neisse line have over the years been reconnected, a process that continues today. A new passenger train running east from the German town of Guben over the Neisse River into Poland started just last month.
I hop on a train in Hrádek, now intent on a breakfast stop in Zittau, just 10 minutes away. It is a fine ride on a near-empty train. Along the way, we have glorious views of the Neisse Valley water meadows with, away to the south, thundery showers and shafts of sunshine dancing over the Zittau mountains.
Frictionless frontiers
Few rail journeys in Europe offer such sublime opportunities for easy border-hopping as the Neisse Valley railway. I stop for scrambled eggs and coffee in Zittau, having already slipped from the Czech Republic into Germany, crossing a slither of Polish territory along the way. Britons may have ceded many rights with Brexit, but happily the freedom to roam without let or hindrance over frontiers within Schengen hasn’t been curbed.
It is a moment to ponder Germany’s summer gift to travellers. The bargain price catches the headlines. It’s not just trains, as the ticket is also valid on buses, trams, the metro and many ferries. As premium fast trains are excluded, this is a fine chance to try slower but scenic routes. It is certainly a boost to leisure travel, and the widespread overcrowding predicted by some pundits has not come to pass. But there have been pinch points, particularly on sunny weekends when crowds have flocked to the mountains and the coast. Suddenly, Germany’s benign attitude towards taking bikes on trains has morphed into a liability, with crowds of cyclists struggling to load their bikes into the limited space available.
What has been promoted as essentially a national ticket also offers a wealth of cross-border opportunities. With a €9 ticket to hand you can travel without additional charge to selected railway stations in each of the nine countries sharing a common border with Germany. So those with an appetite for slow travel can travel from Belgium to Austria, or from Poland’s Baltic coast to Lorraine in France.
A glass of Sekt, madam?
Encouraged by breakfast and a brisk walk around beautiful Zittau, I return to the town’s grand station to ponder the departure boards. It’s a geographical curiosity that trains from Zittau to anywhere else in Germany always have to cross Polish or Czech territory along the way. I stick to the Neisse Valley railway, which tracks north along a deeply incised valley, sliding…
Read More: Rail route of the month: from Bohemia towards the Baltic coast | Germany