Discover Europe with affordable first-class Eurail adventures

The duck-like beak of the sleek AVE high-speed train points the way south out of Madrid as it trundles sedately along a tangle of tracks before picking up speed and turning east towards Valencia, on Spain’s Mediterranean coast.

First class consists of great armchairs – single seats on either side of the aisle with vast amounts of leg room. My tray table is down to hold a novel, and to receive a snack and a coffee in due course. But despite the carriage’s pleasantly woody interior, the adequate Wi-fi and the book to hand, there’s every reason to look out rather than in. A banquet of scenery is brought to the window at up to 300km/h (186mph) – broad valleys with castle-topped promontories, looking as if borrowed from Renaissance paintings.

I arrive in Valencia two hours later with not a page turned, and with five more weeks of comfortable travel around Europe still ahead.

These days, there’s no shortage of manufactured luxury train trips that promise a revival of some historic golden age of railways, even if no such service ever existed quite as suggested. Carriages of supposedly colonial-era magnificence are sometimes brand new creations, and services named for famous trains of the past may run on routes that only approximate those of the originals, or are of entirely new invention.

There’s certainly much to be said for having a smartly liveried attendant slide back your state compartment door mid-afternoon to spread out snowy table linen, gleaming cutlery and a heavily laden cake stand, even if the motion of the train sometimes causes them to miss the cup when pouring the tea. But such journeys are artificial, and no more resemble “real” rail travel than a cruise liner resembles a ferry. No passengers board or alight at intermediate stops, and the nearest you’ll have to a conversation with a local is when asked whether you would prefer first or second sitting for dinner, and whether you’d like the lamb or the lobster.

There is, however, a much more “authentic” and cost-effective way to experience the best of Europe by rail. Eurail and Interrail passes offer access to first-class comfort at reasonable prices and the scenery out of the window is exactly the same. Furthermore, instead of a brief fixed itinerary, there’s the possibility of a flexible or even entirely impulse-driven journey around your choice of 33 countries – from Austria to Turkey – spending several weeks on the move if you wish. In Europe, the golden age of railways is right now.

The time when Eurail passes (or those of Interrail, the identical arrangement for residents of the system’s member countries) were sold solely to youthful backpackers is long past. They are now available for all travellers from age 12 up, although they are still cheaper for under-28s. There are also discounts for those aged 60 and over as well as passes for younger children who accompany an adult. Better still, regular sales offer a further 20 per cent discount to those willing to travel off-peak – from September onwards, when there’s plenty of seat availability on all but a handful of routes.