The thread on slowest and fastest average speeds in the UK got me thinking about the situation with high speed rail in continental Europe. With different countries adopting different methods for constructing high speed rail, there must be quite a lot of disparity between services over a similar distance depending on the country. Paris to Marseille for example runs almost entirely on 186mph LGV lines and must surely be a contender for the service with the fastest average speed in Europe, taking just over 3 hours. Hamburg to Munich on the other hand is a similar distance, but the high speed track is slower, patchier and has several intermediate stops, making it a slower overall journey at 6.5 hours.