It was midnight somewhere on the roads between Amsterdam and Basel as I resisted nightmare-inducing thoughts of dentist’s chairs. Activating the “bed” function on my seat caused my legs to rise and my back to lower. I slipped my feet into the safety net and wondered whether I could get comfortable enough to doze off ready to wake up in a new country around seven hours later.

Europe’s first lie-flat sleeper buses were launched last month by  Twiliner , a Swiss startup, and I was among the first clutch of people to test them out. I had joined the Amsterdam–Zurich route, which departs three times a week with stops in Rotterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg and Basel.

Another itinerary, between Zurich and Barcelona, stopping in Berne and Girona, started on 4 December. Twiliner also has ambitio

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