When it comes to railway adventures, there are few things more exciting than falling asleep in one city and waking in the next, nudging up the blind to see what lies outside. Whether that reveals the golden haze of dawn or a moonlit night still holding on, the moment is one that’s always filled with magic.

For the last three years I’ve been journeying around Europe documenting the resurgence in sleeper trains, watching passengers drift back to the romance of the railways, eschewing budget flights and bullet trains for cosy couchettes and a slower mode of travel. For scenery, comfort, and camaraderie, these are the seven best night trains that Europe has to offer.

The Good Night Train: Brussels, Belgium to Berlin, Germany

Crowdfunded, and launched by a Belgian-Dutch collective named European Sleeper, The Good Night Train made its inaugural run from Brussels to Berlin in May 2023 and has since extended its route to Dresden and Prague, with a winter service to Venice. Set up by two night-train enthusiasts, European Sleeper offers a no-frills service whose hodgepodge of carriages date back to the 1950s—but no one on board is bothered, and raucous groups uncork wine and spread out slabs of pâté and cheese in what feels like a house party on wheels. With a mixture of sleeper and couchette compartments, the train departs Brussels three times a week, clattering out of the Belgian capital at 7.20 p.m. and pulling passengers through Flanders’ golden meadows and waterways that turn blush in the setting sun. Stopping at Amsterdam, where canals glimmer through the darkness, the train then runs smoothly through the night, with barely a jolt or jerk, giving passengers a chance to sleep deeply before a dawn arrival in Berlin.

The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, a Belmond train: Paris, France to Portofino, Italy

With its iconic blue carriages and gold trimming, Belmond’s legendary train is a familiar sight to lovers of luxury travel, but this route is a well-kept secret, and the most scenic of them all. Running only once a year in summer, the VSOE departs Paris Austerlitz at 3 p.m., taking passengers to the pastel-colored town of Portofino. To the pop of a bottle of Ruinart champagne served with Petrossian caviar and blinis, the train thumps and clacks south of the French capital, picking up pace through villages and vineyards, warm air billowing through the wind-down windows. Over a black-tie dinner, guests are serenaded before moving piano-side for an all-night singalong, the bar only closing when the last passenger has left. Wisely, Belmond ensures that the train stables at midnight at Avignon, granting passengers five hours of undisturbed sleep in damask bedding until the train departs at dawn. Nudge up the blind and bite into warm croissants as you watch the sun rise over the Mediterranean, paddle boarders on the waters, and purple bougainvillea blooming by the tracks. The rest of the journey is nothing but sparkling ocean, beaches and palms, ending with two nights at the newly renovated Hotel Splendido in Portofino, overlooking the bay.

Santa Claus Express: Helsinki to Rovaniemi, Finland

A regular passenger train that runs year-round, the Santa Claus Express is Finland’s flagship service carrying riders from Helsinki into Rovaniemi, on the edge of the Arctic Circle. Best ridden in winter, this green and white double-decker beast departs just before 7.30 p.m. and takes 12 hours to wind north through forests of fir sagging under the weight of snow. Filled with young families and tourists keen to meet the big man at Santa Claus Village, the train features some of Europe’s most comfortable compartments with wide berths, underfloor heating, and toilets that fold down into showers. Pro tip: Hop on, dump bags, and dash to the tinsel-covered dining car for smoked reindeer stew and steaming bowls of meatballs and mash before it fills up with drinkers who won’t shift until dawn. From the windows passengers can watch as nativity scenes twinkle through the woods, foxes dart through empty car parks, and Finland’s freshwater lakes gleam like pools of black ink.

I’ve been a movie fan all my life, and Jaws was, for me, the right film at the right moment in my life: It was fantastically suspenseful, and the sea story that makes up the last third of the film was incredibly exciting. But I think that even 12-year-old me recognized that there was more to it than just “who’s the monster going to eat next?” Or “how are we going to kill the monster?” As an adult, when I lived far from the Vineyard, watching Jaws was an easy way to “go home” without having to drive a thousand miles or buy a plane ticket.

What’s your greatest memory on set?

I was on the set for one day in late June, when they shot the “cardboard fin” scene on State Beach. When the assistant director announced through his bullhorn that “we need 100 brave people to get in the water and play the crowd,” a friend and I volunteered. My overwhelming memory of it was that the water was incredibly cold and—even far from the beach—extremely shallow, only waist deep. We had to pretend that we were splashing and having fun in water over our heads. When we got the signal to “panic” and swim for the beach, we acted like we were swimming in deep water; we couldn’t stand up until the last possible moment. It took 5 or 6 takes—which felt like 10 or 12—until the director—not Spielberg, probably first assistant director Tom Joyner—was satisfied.

Why do you think Martha’s Vineyard was such a great location for the film?

Martha’s Vineyard is bigger and more diverse (culturally, geographically, economically) than Amity Island, but it has many of the same qualities: a mixture of working-class locals and wealthy summer people, dependence on tourist dollars, arguments about whether or not to do something that might benefit the community in the long run, but might also hurt tourism in the short term. Filming on the Vineyard made Amity feel like a real place and its residents feel like real people.

What special locations around the Vineyard can people still visit to commemorate the film?

Downtown Edgartown, which “played” the village of Amity, still looks very much like it did in the movie. You can walk the same route that Chief Brody takes along Davis Lane, South Water Street, and Main Street as he strides from the police department to the hardware store, and stand on the same docks where the fishermen of Amity showed off their tiger shark.

Menemsha, where they temporarily built Quint’s shack, and filmed the scenes of the Orca loading and departing, still looks very much like it did. The ferry terminal in Vineyard Haven has two slips instead of one now, but Jaws fans disembarking there last weekend were overheard saying excitedly, “Oh my God! I feel like I’m walking through that scene in the film where people are arriving for the Fourth of July!”

State Beach between Oak Bluffs and Edgartown, where the two panic scenes—as well as Chrissie’s run into the water on her ill-fated nighttime swim—were filmed, still looks just like it did in 1974. There are no striped cabanas and hot dog stands in the dunes; those were built by the production crew for the film. You can stand on the bridge that the shark swam under to eat the man in the red rowboat (and almost eat Mike Brody). Hundreds of people jump off it every day, despite signs warning you not to. It’s now known especially to tourists as “Jaws bridge,” though some old-timers grumble about that not being the real name.