All abroad: Find your holiday home - by train

With the boom in low-cost airlines came a boom in Brits buying abroad. In the age before easyJet and Ryanair, there were few locations for the budget-minded holiday-home hunter. Now practically every town, coastline, forest and idyll in Europe is accessible for less than the price of an airport parking fee. However, it can create a dilemma for green devotees. Sure, the low-cost airlines fill their planes, so the carbon footprint is lower per person than with traditional flights. But many people, blame the budget operators for the flight boom in the first place.

Yet you don't have to depend on air travel to reach some of Europe's best holiday-home hunting grounds. Travelling by rail is often more relaxing than by air or road. And with European rail expansion and investment into the network, we're about to enter a golden age of rail travel not seen since the Victorian era.

This summer, an alliance of nine European train companies was established under the Railteam banner, with the aim of establishing better, faster, more far-reaching connections across western Europe. In addition to Eurostar and the French SNCF services, the Deutsche Bahn and operators in Austria, Holland, Switzerland and Belgium are forging connections between at least 100 major cities.

From London, you can be in Berlin in 11 hours, southern France in six or Paris in under three. Gareth Headon of Eurostar says all of these journeys will be 20 minutes quicker once the service starts operating from St Pancras on 14 November. "If you live in the UK, many destinations will become more accessible," he says. "The new high-speed network will make rail travel a more realistic option."

Headon says that anyone owning property in France is especially well catered for, with Eurostar services connecting via Paris or Lille to over 60 major destinations. "You can leave London at 8.40am and be in Marseilles by 5pm."

North-east France and Germany are also well served. "Second-home owners generally haven't thought about this region before, as it wasn't so easy to get to," he says. Faster connections to Limoges, Toulouse and Dijon may also tempt buyers to look at these areas with fresh eyes.

Margaret Pearce of London regularly takes the train to her home in Montpellier. "It's so easy by train. I leave Waterloo at 11am, and am in Montpellier by 8pm – that includes an hour's stop in Lille where I have lunch in the station café."

Mark Smith, who runs the train travel portal The Man in Seat Sixty-One says the choice between air and rail travel in Europe is easy, when you factor in the time and cost of getting to airports, parking and security queues. "You can be in France, Holland or Germany in hours, and trains take you right into the city centre. You'll need to take a sleeper service if you want to go down to Italy or Spain, but that's part of the experience," he says.

It might take one or two days to reach a holiday home, he says, but you get to visit places on the way. "Trains also have a simple pricing structure and there are lots of discounted fares available if you plan in advance," says Smith.

In the first three months of 2007 departures on Eurostar rose by 39 per cent over the previous year. Headon says that this is because people appreciate the green credentials of rail travel. "The average flight from London to Paris releases 122kg of CO2 per passenger into the atmosphere, while the same journey by train releases 11kg," he says. "Customers are starting to see the bigger picture."

www.seat61.com (0870 518 6186); www.eurostar.com; www.railteam.eu

The destinations

Approximate journey times and return prices from London to some European destinations.

London to:

* Paris: two hours 45 minutes, from £59

* Montreux: five hours, from £113

* Marseilles: six hours, from £109

* Barcelona: 15 hours, from £162

* Rome: 17 hours, from £111

* Florence: 15 hours, from £111

* Malaga: 21 hours, from £230

* Lisbon: 21 hours, from £226

From 14 November Eurostar services will be 20 mins quicker. Information supplied courtesy of www.seat61.com

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