Door-to-door time · June 2026
4 cities. 2 ways.
The flight saves 3 hours.
The train saves everything else.
London → Geneva → Paris → Amsterdam → Berlin, leg by leg. We timed both from an average London address to your hotel in each city — airport queues, transit, passport control, and all.
Leg by leg
All times door-to-door: London Zone 2 average, then city-centre to city-centre thereafter. Flight times use recommended airport arrival windows, not minimum.
London → Geneva
- Home → Heathrow (Tube, avg Zone 2)50min
- Airport buffer (recommended 2h)120min
- Flight LHR → GVA120min
- Disembark + passport control35min
- GVA → city centre (train)10min
- Home → St Pancras (central London)20min
- Eurostar check-in buffer30min
- Eurostar London → Paris Gare du Nord135min
- Cross-Paris (Gare du Nord → Gare de Lyon)45min
- TGV Lyria Paris → Geneva185min
- Geneva station → hotel (city centre)15min
Geneva → Paris
- Hotel → GVA (train)10min
- Airport buffer (1h 30min intra-Schengen)90min
- Flight GVA → CDG75min
- Disembark + transfer to terminal exit15min
- CDG → Paris centre (RER B)35min
- Hotel → Geneva Cornavin (city centre)10min
- TGV Lyria Geneva → Paris Gare de Lyon185min
- Gare de Lyon → hotel (city centre)15min
Paris → Amsterdam
- Hotel → CDG (RER B)35min
- Airport buffer (1h 30min)90min
- Flight CDG → AMS80min
- Disembark + exit airport15min
- AMS → Amsterdam Centraal (train)15min
- Hotel → Paris Gare du Nord20min
- Thalys / Eurostar check-in buffer20min
- Thalys Paris → Amsterdam200min
Amsterdam → Berlin
- Hotel → Schiphol (train)15min
- Airport buffer (1h 30min)90min
- Flight AMS → BER95min
- Disembark + exit BER terminal15min
- BER → Berlin centre (S-Bahn)45min
- Hotel → Amsterdam Centraal10min
- ICE Amsterdam → Berlin Hbf360min
- Berlin Hauptbahnhof → hotel (central)20min
Summary
| Leg | ✈ Flight | 🚆 Train | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| London → Geneva | 5h 35min | 7h 10min | ✈ faster |
| Geneva → Paris | 3h 45min | 3h 30min | 🚆 faster |
| Paris → Amsterdam | 3h 55min | 4h | ≈ tie |
| Amsterdam → Berlin | 4h 20min | 6h 30min | ✈ faster |
| Total | 17h 35min | 21h 10min | ✈ by 3h 35min |
| With avg. flight delays | 18h 20min | 21h 10min | ✈ by 2h 50min |
What the clock doesn't show
You can work on a train
21 hours on trains is 21 productive hours. Wi-Fi, table, power socket. On a plane you get 90 minutes of tray table between takeoff and landing — with your laptop at 30°.
4 chances for delays to cascade
Miss a connection on a train? Next one in an hour. Miss a connecting flight? Your whole itinerary can unravel. We added 45min average delay — in practice, a single bad leg can ruin a day.
No baggage roulette
Trains let you take whatever fits in the overhead rack. No checked bag fees, no weight drama, no waiting at the carousel four times.
Amsterdam → Berlin could be a night train
The Amsterdam → Berlin ICE is 6h of daytime. An overnight option — if you're happy to sleep on board — turns that leg into a free hotel night. That changes the maths entirely.
The costs are roughly equal
Advance flights on these 4 legs run ~£230–270. Advance Eurostar + TGV + Thalys + ICE is ~£200–250. But add checked bags to 4 flights and the train wins on cost too.
1193× the CO₂
Flying emits ~1193 kg CO₂e per person. The train emits ~19 kg — a 98% reduction. Over 4 cities, that's the equivalent of driving from London to Barcelona and back.
Our take
Flying wins this trip by about 3 hours — and that's a real number, not something we're going to pretend doesn't matter. If you have a short window and every hour counts, the flight is the rational choice.
But notice where the time goes: the whole gap comes from two legs — London → Geneva (the annoying cross-Paris transfer) and Amsterdam → Berlin (a genuinely long ICE ride). Geneva → Paris and Paris → Amsterdam? The train wins or ties. These are the two most popular city-pairs in Europe, and on both of them you're faster by rail than by air — city centre to city centre.
The flexible compromise: train the short legs, fly or overnight-train the long ones. London → Paris → Geneva → Paris → Amsterdam by Eurostar and TGV. Then fly or take the night train to Berlin. You capture most of the train benefits — no airports for 3 of 4 legs, far lower CO₂, easy rebooking — and only accept one flight for the leg where it genuinely wins.
Methodology
Starting point: An average home in London Zone 2 (assumed ~50min to LHR by Tube; 20min to St Pancras by Tube for the train). Subsequent legs start from a city-centre hotel (within 15min of the main station or airport).
Flight buffers: 2 hours recommended for LHR (UK departing into Schengen, post-Brexit passport control). 1h 30min for intra-Schengen legs (Geneva, Paris, Amsterdam). Consistent with official airport guidance.
Flight delays: +45 minutes total across 4 legs. Based on Eurocontrol 2023 data: ~25% of European flights delayed; average delay ~30min on delayed flights → ~7–10min expected per flight; we used 11min per flight (conservative).
CO₂: Aviation figures use 510 gCO₂e/pkm (EEA TERM 2023, including radiative forcing ×2 per Lee et al. 2021). Train figures use per-country grid intensity from Eurostat nrg_bal_c and 33 Wh/pkm rail energy intensity (EEA Technical Report 13/2020).