couchette

Some travelers sit upright all night just to save a few bucks, but I prefer booking a bunk in a dormlike sleeping car called a “couchette” for the cost of a cheap hotel room.

So we had selected two bunks in a couchette.

France is set to say au revoir to the couchette, as the country’s department of transport prepares to withdraw overnight train routes from Paris.

My next night was spent in a chestnut-colored couchette — mildewy, threadbare, vaporous — from Belgrade to Sofia.

I boarded my final couchette car, a whitewashed capsule with “Istanbul” stenciled in blue.