When I brought my senior citizen parents to Europe, they wanted to travel by train as much as possible. But when we needed to get from Paris to Copenhagen, I wasn’t sure if it would be practical to make the journey by train.
But after some research, I learned that, yes, it is possible to go from Paris to Copenhagen by train. Is the Paris-Copenhagen rail journey easy? No. But it’s not that hard either. And you can get to Copenhagen from Paris with one day’s train journey.
Paris to Copenhagen by train
Since domestic European flights are quick and affordable, most people would fly this route. But there are also compelling reasons to use rail to travel to Denmark from France. In this post I’ll go over why you would travel from Paris to Copenhagen by train, and share what I learned in case you, too, want to book this all-day train odyssey.
Why would you take the train to Copenhagen from Paris?
I gotta be honest: It would have been a whole lot easier to fly from Paris to Copenhagen. There are many 2-hour direct flights available. And with budget flights on Norwegian and Easy Jet (and Ryan Air if you dare) the train is not necessarily less expensive.
The reason my parents wanted to take the train from France to Denmark: My senior citizen dad doesn’t like flying. It felt more relaxing to roll up to a train station than to deal with the stress of Charles de Gaulle airport. And with limited mobility, my dad knew he would enjoy sitting down all day, looking out the window at scenery.
Besides: Train travel is better for the earth. If feeling virtuous isn’t enough of a reward, you can also get rewarded by the City of Copenhagen for arriving by train. In summer, through the CopenPay Rewards program, showing your train ticket can get you a free bike rental and maybe other rewards.
How to book a train trip from Paris to Copenhagen
You can use one of a few websites/apps to book train tickets in Europe. I used both Rail Europe and Trainline when various stages of my big European adventure. I think it’s easier to search for the schedule options on Rail Europe.
Because we were going to be taking more trains during our two-week trip, I ended up buying Eurail passes instead of booking our tickets for the Paris-Copenhagen journey individually. I then also had to make seat reservations through the Eurail site.
How much does a Paris-Copenhagen train journey cost?
Just like airfares, the ticket prices for European trains vary day by day. One thing I like about the TrainLine site is that they have a fare calendar where you can figure out what your journey would cost on any day of the next month or so. Currently, it looks like the price for the Paris-Copenhagen train journey ranges from $114 to over $600. Book a month in advance to get the cheapest prices.
As of October 2025, you can earn airline miles by booking European trains via Trainline! You can even get a discount. Go through the Southwest Rapid Rewards shop to earn 2 miles per dollar spent, or the AAdvantage eShopping portal to earn 2.5 miles. Then use the coupon code EUTRIPTIME to get 10% off your fare, up to $15.
How long does it take to take the train from Paris to Copenhagen?
It takes at least a full day of travel to get from Paris to Copenhagen by train. By all day, I mean you will leave Paris on a morning train, and not arrive in Copenhagen until late at night. If you leave later in the day, you’ll end up on the train overnight — but there are no sleeper compartments available on this route, at least the route as I mapped it out.
If you have limited travel time, it’s worth thinking hard about whether you want to use a full day of your European vacation to ride the train. Think about what else you could do that day. See some of Paris’ lesser-known museums? Visit Disneyland Paris?
When we took the Paris-Copenhagen rail journey, we boarded our first train at 7:50 a.m. and arrived in Copenhagen at around 11 p.m.
What is the itinerary of a Paris to Copenhagen rail journey?
There are many train itineraries between Paris and Copenhagen, depending on what time you start out. You have to change trains at least two times, with most itineraries requiring three or more changes. I chose this route in order to keep the trip to only two changes:
7:50 a.m. Depart Paris Gare du Nord on Eurostar #9411
11:16 a.m. Arrive in Cologne (Köln), Germany
12:11 p.m. Depart Cologne on ICE 612
4:14 p.m. Arrive Hamburg, Germany
4:55 p.m. Depart Hamburg on EC 390
10:02 p.m. Arrive Copenhagen (Koebenhavn)
So this was a 3.5-hour train ride followed by a 1-hour break, a 4-hour ride followed by a 40-minute break, and a 5-hour ride.
What are the trains like between Paris and Copenhagen?
Because we were traveling with older people with limited mobility, I booked first class seats on the whole journey. Frankly, I was disappointed by our experience on all three trains, the Eurostar, the Deutsche Bahn ICE train and Deutsche Bahn DB Fernverkehr EC train. None of them had dining cars or especially comfortable seating.
Eurostar 9411 from Paris to Cologne
This is high-speed rail, going up to 186 miles per hour. Covering 500 miles in 3.5 hours was cool for us Americans. Other than that, meh.
In addition to buying first class Eurail passes, we paid $40 each for “first class” seat reservations on this relatively short train ride. Unfortunately, the train didn’t the expectations raised by that extra cost. The windows were dirty and scratched, so with the morning sun shining in, we couldn’t see much.
We thought the $40 reservation fee might include refreshments, but it didn’t. (One thing I didn’t realize until later is that we would have had to pay almost as much — about $37 — for a seat reservation in Standard class.) There was a cafe car staffed by a really nice young man, but we did have to pay for our coffee and croissants. In fact, the train doesn’t even have potable tap water. The cafe attendant was nice enough to fill one of our water bottles with bottled water for free, since my dad had to take medication. But after that, he would have to charge us for any additional water.
When I expressed surprise that we had to pay for coffee in “first class,” the attendant explained that our first-class Eurail pass only got us into the middle Eurostar class, “plus.” If we had purchased “premier” tickets, we would have enjoyed included meals that sound pretty gourmet. (Eurostar Plus does serve meals between Paris and London.)
We had relatively comfortable four seats, facing each other, with a table between us.
As far the views through northern France and Belgium to Germany, well … what we did see through the dirty windows was mostly just fields and small towns. Pleasant, but not hugely scenic.
The train departed and arrived on time.
Deutsche Bahn ICE 612 from Cologne to Hamburg
While the seats were again acceptable, we again received nothing extra for being in “first class,” not even water. But the reservation fee only cost about $6.50 per person this time, so we didn’t feel as ripped off as we had with the Eurostar.
I don’t actually remember if there was a cafe car or dining car on this train. We had bought ourselves lunch in the Cologne station so we didn’t go looking for one. We used the flip-down tray tables to eat on.
The main thing I remember about our four-hour ride through Germany was that other passengers — local people — were surprisingly rude. I specifically remember a woman listening to full-volume videos and having loud speakerphone conversations. And here I thought only Americans did stuff like that.
As we pulled out of Cologne, we got a glimpse of the Gothic Cologne Cathedral, which was pretty cool.
This train departed and arrived on time.
DB Fernverkehr EC 390 Hamburg to Copenhagen
This train’s departure was delayed by about an hour. Fortunately it was our last train, so it didn’t put us in danger of missing a connection. Still, it pushed our arrival in Copenhagen back from the expected 10 pm to 11 pm, which meant we were pretty exhausted upon arrival.
The first-class seat reservations on this train were again about $6.50 per person. I thought I had reserved open seating, but we arrived to find we were in a closed compartment along with one stranger. I worried that this would be awkward but it turned out to be great. The one passenger in our compartment was a young Norwegian man who was quite into train travel. He told us a lot about train travel in Europe, and he seemed to enjoy hearing about our planned journey in Norway. He told us that by the time we were done with our two-week trip, we would have taken every single train line in Norway.
Europe was experiencing a heat wave when we traveled, and this last train was unfrotunately very uncomfortably hot. I think there was a problem with the air conditioning in the first class car in particular. The hallway felt like cool air was coming in, but the compartment was so hot that we were soon sweating excessively.
After an hour or so of this, I walked around a bit and discovered that the Standard class car was much cooler. We moved to another private compartment, this one in Standard class. The seats didn’t recline like the ones in First, but it was worth it to finally be in a comfortable temperature.
The scenery got a bit better when we entered Denmark, with flat green fields and attractive rivers. Becuase it was close to midsummer in Scandinavia, it never got dark out even after 10 p.m.
In Germany, this train didn’t give us any refreshments. However, our companion had told us that once we crossed the border to Denmark, first class passengers would be given a bottle of water and a snack bag. Unfortunately, because we had left our assigned seats for the coach compartment, we weren’t given these. So I went looking for the staff and told them we were first class passengers. They gave me the goods: four tiny water bottles and four paper bags containing snacks. One snack that made us smile: a Wasa wafer sandwich with a spread in the middle. This was simply called Paprika Sandwich.
What are the stations like on the Paris-Copenhagen train?
Since I picked the itinerary with the least train changes, we only experienced four stations on this daylong trip: Paris Gare du Nord, Cologne (Köln Hbf), Hamburg Hbf and Copenhagen (Koebenhavn H).
We thought that traveling first class might allow us access to special lounges in the stations. In the end, we did not see the inside of a single lounge. I’m still not sure if we would have been allowed to. In Paris, the Eurostar lounges are only for Premier passengers, not Plus. Cologne or Hamburg apparently have first class lounges, but I didn’t see them when walking around. At any rate, according to online sources we might not have been allowed to enter these lounges with Eurail passes, even first-class ones.
Paris Gare du Nord
This is a large, modern train station. Taking the Eurostar from Paris to London here requires you to go through immigration and security. But because we were traveling within the European Union, we just walked right to the track.
When we first arrived and didn’t know where to go, I flagged down a couple of police officers, who very helpfully explained that our track number would be displayed about 15 minutes before boarding. So really, there’s no point arriving at Gare du Nord much earlier than that.
Apparently, Gare du Nord has assistance service for disabled passengers, near tracks 7 and 8. If we’d needed it, they could have pushed my dad right up to our train car in a wheelchair.
Gare du Nord has a few food stands and a newspaper shop. It’s a crowded station, but doesn’t feel chaotic.
Cologne (Köln Hbf)
When we disembarked from our train, it was difficult to figure out which track our next train would be on. It turned out that it was too early to find out. Eventually, the screens displayed the track — the same track we’d arrived on. This meant my disabled father didn’t have to leave the platform. On the downside, there’s very little seating for waiting on the platform.
I had enough time to explore the station, which was crowded and had a lot of nice-looking shops and restaurants. While I was exploring, a woman came up and aked me for money. This surprised me because it had never happened to us in Paris, but apparently begging is common at this station.
I couldn’t find anywhere to fill my water bottle, so I asked at the counter of a pastry shop. The young woman working there kindly filled my bottle for me at her sink, even though I didn’t buy anything.
I had thought I would go to Meister Bock, since I was in Germany, but I didn’t feel like a sausage. Instead I bought a really good grain and salad bowl at a cute place called Dean&David, to eat on the train.
Hamburg Hbf
We had to change platforms this time, so we took the opportunity to stop at a bar/restaurant. We stood at a table and had a beer. Toth wanted to eat a hamburger in Hamburg. I saw a photo on the menu board that looked like a hamburger, so we ordered that. The man behind the counter, who was Middle Eastern, was very friendly and had limited English. He tried to explain to me that the photo was not a hamburger, but I ordered it anyway. Well, he was right. It was a sausage patty on a bun. Still, Toth enjoyed it.
We appreciated the elevator for getting from the platform area to the shop/restaurant area and back.
My tips for taking the train from Paris to Copenhagen
- Don’t bother buying first class tickets. I’m glad we paid a little extra for first class, since we were traveling with a walker and I think the aisles are a little wider. But other than that, first class woudlnt’ be worth it on these trains. In fact, on the Hamburg-Copenhagen segment, we were more comfortable when we moved to the Standard class car.
- Sundays have fewer trains. The 7:50 train we took from Paris is apparently not available on Sundays. We ended up re-arranging our Europe itinerary so we could depart on Saturday. If not, we would have had to leave Paris at 6:54 a.m. while not getting to Copenhagen any earlier.
- Buy food in the stations. Any food and drink offerings on the trains between Paris and Copenhagen was limited at best.
- Carry multiple bottles of water. I hate buying drinks in disposable bottles. But from Paris to Copenhagen, I found almost nowhere to refill a reusable water bottle. Not on the trains and not in the stations. Next time, I’d buy an extra liter or two of water at a Paris grocery store before leaving.
- Use the restroom on the train, not the station. European train stations charge money to use the bathrooms. Not only that, but the one bathroom we tried to use had a long, slow line.
Where to stay in Paris and Copenhagen if you do this rail journey
Since you’re departing Paris from Gare du Nord, you might consider spending the night before in the 10th arrondissement, especially if you’re departing early in the morning. Of course, Gare du Nord is also well served by transit, so if you’re staying elsewhere in Paris, it’s easy to take the Metro or the RER there.
Because we were doing a low-walking Paris trip, we took Uber. We left our lodging in the 7th at about 7 a.m. by Uber and were still at Gare du Nord earlier than needed for our 7:50 train.
In Copenhagen there are plenty of hotels a short walk from the central train station. Even though we arrived at 11 p.m., we had no trouble walking over to the Four Points Flex by Sheraton. It’s only two blocks away.