Berlin to Prague
The EuroCity Valley Route

Berlin Hauptbahnhof opened in 2006 and is the largest through-station in Europe - a five-storey glass cathedral of movement where 300,000 passengers pass each day. The architecture is deliberately transparent: you can see every level from the atrium, and natural light fills the concourse from the curved glass roof above. It sits at the bend of the River Spree, equidistant from the Reichstag and the government quarter.

The Prague-bound EuroCity departs from the lower-level platforms, heading south through the former East Germany. The train picks up speed through the Brandenburg flatlands - an open, sandy landscape of birch forest and small lakes - before the first hints of Saxony begin to appear: red-brick industrial towns, denser agriculture, the land rising almost imperceptibly towards the south.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof is the most dramatic station in Europe - five storeys of glass above the River Spree.

Two hours south of Berlin, the train crosses into Saxony and arrives at Dresden Hauptbahnhof - the station for one of Europe's most beautiful Baroque cities. Dresden was famously firebombed in 1945 and subsequently rebuilt, and the result is a city that contains both a meticulously restored 18th-century skyline and a distinct layer of post-war architecture. The Frauenkirche, rebuilt from the rubble and reopened in 2005, dominates the view from the Elbe bridges.

South of Dresden, the landscape transforms. The Elbe enters its sandstone gorge - the Saxon Switzerland National Park - and the railway follows the river exactly. The rock formations here are genuinely extraordinary: pillars of sandstone rising 100 to 300 metres from the valley floor, eroded into overhangs, arches, and stacked plates. The light on the stone in late afternoon turns it the colour of dark honey.

Through the Elbe Sandstone gorge, the landscape achieves something close to the sublime - and your window seat is the best view in the valley.

The railway passes through Bad Schandau, the last German town before the Czech border, where the Elbe narrows and the cliffs press closer to the water. Then the border crossing into Bohemia - no passport control for EU and Schengen citizens, barely noticeable - and the town names begin to change. Děčín, on the Czech side, sits in a tight gorge below a castle. The valley widens north of Ústí nad Labem, and the approach to Prague begins across the Bohemian plain.

Prague Hlavní nádraží - "Main Station" - is one of the great railway terminals of Central Europe. The original Art Nouveau building, opened in 1909, is preserved as the station's formal entrance hall: a domed vault of tile, ironwork, and coloured glass that could pass for a Viennese Secessionist exhibition space. The functional platform areas are a later addition, but the original hall rewards the detour.

From the station, Wenceslas Square is a five-minute walk. The Old Town and Charles Bridge are 15 minutes on foot through the New Town - down Wenceslas Square and along Na Příkopě into the historic centre. The metro runs directly from the station (Line C, Hlavní nádraží stop) if the weather is poor. There is no airport transfer, no €12 bus, no 45-minute taxi queue.

Prague is among the most intact medieval cities in Europe - it escaped the aerial bombing that levelled Dresden, Warsaw, and Frankfurt, and the communist era preserved it from speculative redevelopment. The result is a city that still looks, in places, as it did in 1400: narrow lanes, Gothic churches, Renaissance arcades, and the Charles Bridge's thirty Baroque saints watching over the Vltava.