Planning

My starting point for almost any trip is The Man in Seat 61 as a one-stop-shop for train travel advice.

Rome2rio shows how to get from somewhere to anywhere, such as Rome to Rio...

Google Maps is also pretty good. Just bear in mind that not all trains may not be shown.

If you want the set of European timetables, you could use this https://www.europeanrailtimetable.eu/

The direct.bahn.guru site below is also a nice tool for seeing where you can go and how long it takes from any station.

Approximate travel times

How long does it take to get from one place to another?

Here's a table of (approximate) journey times between places. Click on the links to see more details.

Buying tickets

In the past, I've happily used Rail Europe and DB App for buying tickets, which have both been good but not perfect - it isn't their fault as not all train timetables and fares are available to them so they might miss out some of the options.

For the last couple of trips I've just used the following:

Eurostar for getting to Paris - easy to use but there isn't much to go wrong...

sncf-connect for train travel in France (including journeys to Figueres and Girona). It hasn't been pain-free, but still functional.

Renfe for travel in Spain. You can't buy tickets for local trains which in itself isn't a big problem as you can get them at the station. You can however find the details of what is running when and how much it costs here.

Things I've learned