> Like every year, I decided to travel to FOSDEM by car. It is not the most relaxed option, but it comes with one very important advantage: arriving early enough to secure a parking spot directly on campus. That also means the journey starts very early in the morning, long before the city fully wakes up.

Curiously backwards. That's one way of reframing a disadvantage as an advantage. The train connection seems to be 3h15m to 3h30m from Neuss train station to FOSDEM. A single connection for the long-distance train in Cologne, the rest is local public transport within Brussels.

(The OP may been /s without me realizing.)

▲

0ct4via 15 hours ago | parent [-]

The OP goes on to genuinely talk about the advantage of being able to leave when they desire (usually only attending day 1), and the observation that their leaving early was worthwhile, as they were first in line to access the car parking area —- so it would seem very much to not be /s.

▲

ongy 15 hours ago | parent [-]

Which probably also relates to DB pricing.

Being flexible with DB is expensive. Getting somewhere at all is generally cheap. Getting somewhere at a reasonable time is usually ok~ish priced. But being able to just take any train? €€€

	▲	lucb1e 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		And reliable. This is why I (near the border) drive across the border and take the train through Belgium. https://belgiantrain.be for finding trains and tickets to/from the nearest station, Etterbeek (or use another station if you want to take the tram, where you just swipe a bank card). The ticket is valid for any train going to your destination. For those <26yo, the price is discounted. Welkenraedt is an intercity station with free parking that goes directly to Brussels, in case that happens to be near to someone reading this Same with the Netherlands. Sadly no intercity stations have free parking but Nuth is on the path north and the highway exit basically ends in its parking lot. After a few stops you can switch to an intercity to Amsterdam