From 19th-century beauties to 20th-century marvels, everyone’s got their favorite.  I tried to rank them from best (“First Place”) to worst (“Sixth Place”) and highlighted the glowing qualities in each one, whether it be history, beauty, or destinations serviced.

First Place: Gare de Lyon
Best Overall Station

Built for the 1900 World Fair (just like the then-station-now-museum Orsay), the Gare de Lyon maintains its functions as one of the busiest stations in Paris.  Recent renovations have spruced the place up, but the soaring halls and sizable clock tower are features that make this place feel downright romantic.

The restaurant “Le Train Bleu” is one of the classier places to eat inside any Parisian train station.  Also, the TGV to the south leaves from here, meaning that people are often cheerful, having either returning from a sunny vacation or eagerly anticipating arriving on the Cote d’Azur.

Click, click, clack goes the departures board in the Gare du Nord. Photo: EuroCheapo

Second Place: Gare du Nord
Notable for: Old-School Charm

This impressive piece of architecture is a beauty in an otherwise not-so-charming part of town.  Still, the Gare du Nord will send you, as the name implies, north to destinations like London, Brussels, and Amsterdam, making it a lively international hub.  The main hall and the clicking split-flap departure board ooze old-world France, making it one of the most visually appealing ways to enter Paris – at least until you head downstairs to take the Metro or outside to be greeted by less-than-charming sex shops.

Still, you can’t help being enchanted by the Gare du Nord while waiting for the board to change, the letters and numbers whirling until your platform is posted and your next adventure begins.

Third Place: Gare de l’Est
Notable for: Secrets and Mystery

The little sister of the Gare du Nord, the Gare de l’Est is just down the street, is equally as striking, if just a bit smaller.  We’re still always confused as to why these two stations are practically next to each other, but with services to the east of France, like Strasbourg, it’s a bit calmer and slightly more imposing than its more international counterpart.  The underground shopping mall takes away a bit of the allure, but that doesn’t stop this writer from cutting through the station’s hall from time to time en route to the nearby Canal Saint Martin.

Also below the station are abandoned Nazi bunkers from the 1940s that are off limits to the public, but add a bit of mystery to the station.

Fourth Place: Gare Saint Lazare
Notable for: Artsy Throwback

Located not far from the busy Opera district, the Gare Saint Lazare is the second busiest station in the city, largely servicing areas around Paris to the north including Normandy and Monet’s gardens at Giverny.

Monet, as well as Manet and other artists, famously immortalized the hub in paintings, and even Emile Zola wrote about it.  A beauty on the outside, it’s a bit less romantic on the inside with an extensive shopping mall and other amenities housed in the 19th-century building, but it’s a fun way to watch locals during their daily routine (if you don’t get whisked away with the 450,000 daily commuters that ride these rails).

Fifth Place: Gare Montparnasse
Notable for: Wine lovers

The Gare Montparnasse is the Paris’ equivalent of New York’s Penn Station – a modern hub built on the remains of a beautiful old station that just “needed” to be torn down.  The monolithic Montparnasse tower on top at least makes it the easiest station in Paris to find, as it’s one of the only skyscrapers in town.

While not a favorite in any capacity for the structure, the station does win points for housing services to Bordeaux and the Loire Valley, meaning wine aficionados will be familiar with the locale. It was also the station featured in that iconic photo of a derailed steam engine protruding through the original building’s wall, so it’s paid its dues to history, right?

Sixth Place: Gare d’Austerlitz
Notable for: Still existing

While its name evokes one of Napoleon’s biggest conquests, this 19th-century artifact is anything but triumphant.  With local trains that run to places like Tours and Orléans, there’s not much interest for tourists at the Gare d’Austerlitz, but a renovation set to end in 2020 could change all of that.  A new high-speed TGV service will be set in place and the area around the station is being revamped, including the part overlooking the adjacent Seine river.  Hopefully the facelift will help revitalize this otherwise characterless corner of the Latin Quarter.

Your favorite stations in Paris?

It’s time for you to have your say! What are your favorite (and least favorite) train stations in Paris? Rank them for us in our comments section!

Related article: Planning your trip to Paris and confused about which train station you’ll be using to get out of town? Check out our handy article on Paris train stations by destinations.

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Change trains in Cologne and, even with just a dozen minutes between trains, you have a strong sense of having experienced something of Cologne. The German city’s landmark cathedral towers over the station platforms. And the chances are that, whether upon arriving or leaving Cologne, you’ll cross the River Rhine which flows just east of the station. The trains edge slowly over the Hohenzollern Bridge, a place where a thousand couples have sealed their love by fastening padlocks to the railings. Below is the Rhine, and there are views of Cologne’s handsome Old Town on the west bank.

Changing trains in Cologne thus makes for a perfect interlude in a long journey. And that cathedral is so close to the station that, even with just 20 minutes between trains, you’ll still have time to pack in a quick visit and gaze up into the Gothic recesses of this magnificent building.

Related:

• 11 best cheap hotels in Cologne, Germany

Rational, not Renaissance, dominates Florence’s SMN station. Photo © EuroCheapo

Venetian variety

While changing trains in Cologne can be a happy occasion, the opposite is true for Venezia Mestre station. It is a natural point to change trains on many European itineraries. Believe us, it can be a dispiriting experience and you’ll not have any sense of having been anywhere near Venice.

Far better, if time allows, to change instead at Venezia Santa Lucia station. That way you’ll cross the Ponte della Libertà (not just once, but twice) and while at Santa Lucia you can pop out to the front of the station and see Venice’s famous Grand Canal.

Architectural surprises

Other cities have perfectly fine stations, but they somehow fail to capture the spirit of the city they serve. We happen to be great fans of Santa Maria Novella (SMN) station in Florence. It is a first-class piece of Italian Rationalist architecture, but if you arrive in Florence with your mind full of heady images from the Florentine Renaissance, then SMN comes as a mighty shock.

Heidelberg packs a similar surprise. New arrivals are on the lookout for castles and all the insignia of Romanticism. But what do they get? Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof is an assertive piece of 1950s architecture — very graceful, and very fit-for-purpose. It is a lovely space, and boasts some very fine details — like the modern sgraffito in the Haupthalle. But it’s not what new arrivals expect of Heidelberg. And it’s inconvenient for the city centre, so anyone changing trains there will hardly catch the spirit of Heidelberg.

The good, the bad and the ugly

There are however other railway stations in the Cologne league. Antwerp Centraal, Madrid Atocha, Limoges and Valencía Nord all boast wonderful architecture (with nothing whatsoever in common), and the location of each is such that you can get a sense of the surrounding city.

As to the worst places in Europe to change trains, well there the choice is endless. Calais-Fréthun and Warsaw Wschodnia compete for a prime place on “the bad list.” And we have not even mentioned Birmingham New Street. It is just plain ugly.

Your favorite stations?

Have a beloved (or not not-so-loved) train station to add to our list? Tell us about it in the comments section below.

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