Finding North

From The Man in Seat 61. . .How to travel by train from London to Sofia and Bulgaria

Day 4, travel from Bucharest to Sofia by daytime train, leaving Bucharest Nord at 12:30 and arriving Veliko Tarnovo at 19:16 and Sofia central station at 22:00. . . .There is no catering as this is just one Romanian Railways through carriage with 2nd class seating only in 6-seater compartments, so bring your own supplies of food, water, and beer or wine. However, it’s a scenic and interesting trip, so enjoy the ride. Expect an arrival an hour or so late.

The train to Sofia is about as far away as you can get from the Eurostar we took out of London just a few days ago. There is no air conditioning so we move from our assigned seats to a cabin with a window that can open. There are few other passengers and we have the cabin to ourselves. We will spend 10 hours on this train to travel 400 kilometers (roughly 250 miles) on tickets that cost a total of $41.00. A 16 mile cab ride from our house in Baltimore to the airport costs more.

The northern part of Bulgaria is beautiful. There are enormous fields of farmland under cultivation, probaly stretching hundreds of square miles. Soon the geography changes and we are riding above the Yantra River valley. We descend and follow it into Veliko Tarnova. As the sun begins to set we pass by and then under amazing rock formations that rise on both sides of the tracks.

It is nearly 10:00 PM and our train trip is just about over. It has gone according to plan and I have enjoyed every minute of it.

As we pull into Sofia, I recall that when I was in high school I thought I would spend a summer travelling through Europe on a Eurail Pass after finishing college. Law school and the Army got in the way and it never happened. Until now.

Sometimes in life you are given a second chance. When you are you should take it.

From The Man in Seat 61. . .How to travel by train from London to Sofia and Bulgaria

Day 2, travel from Munich to Budapest by air-conditioned Austrian RailJet train, leaving Munich at 09:27 and arriving in Budapest Keleti at 16:49. A bar-bistro car is available, so treat yourself to lunch!

Travel from Budapest to Bucharest overnight on the EuroNight sleeper train Ister, leaving Budapest Keleti at 19:10 and arriving in Bucharest Nord at 12:10 next morning (day 3). The Ister has a modern air-conditioned sleeping car (1, 2 or 3-bed standard sleepers with washbasin, 1, 2 or 3 bed deluxe sleepers with toilet & shower) and 4 & 6-berth couchettes. A bed in the sleeper is the recommended option, see the photos below. The Ister should have a restaurant car for dinner & breakfast (euros, lei & forints accepted), but the restaurant isn’t always attached, so take some provisions yourself. Enjoy the descent through the wonderful Alpine scenery of the Carpathian mountains between Brasov and Bucharest. Ister is the ancient name for the River Danube.

We arrive on time in Budapest, have a quick dinner, and head for our next train at 6:30 PM. I misread the departure board and we walk to Track 9. An immaculate overnight train is on that track. It is pristine and even has a full dining car, complete with table linens. We look for our carriage number but never find it because this train is heading to Zurich, not Bucharest.

We find the right track and come upon a train made up of mismatched and heavily worn rail cars.There is no dining car and some of the carriages even lack air conditioning. Abby and I are given separate cabins and many of the lights and handles and drains don't work. The night is cool so I leave my window open. It is peaceful and quiet and I don't care one bit that I'm not on the train to Zurich.

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After finishing my last blog post, I returned to the cafe car to grab another Beck’s. I made it back to our compartment three hours and four friends later.

The WiFi signal was strong so I stayed in the cafe awhile catching up on emails. A short time later I met Ryan and Joey, childhood friends from Springfield, Mass. who were spending two weeks traveling from Barcelona to Paris and Munich. They are big soccer fans and were trying to get the score of the match between Chelsea and Bayern Munich. We followed the game on my iPad, which Chelsea lost on a penalty kick shootout.

Joey has spent his trip through Europe asking people he meets to pose for pictures holding a sign congratulating his sister on her recent engagement. His plan is to make a large collage to present to her when he returns from this trip.

Like me, Ryan had planned this leg of their journey using Mark Smith’s website. Ryan made a minor mistake in the booking and he and Joey have ended up in one of the six seat compartments of which I wrote yesterday. Their efforts to make a last minute upgrade were not successful which is what has led them to the cafe car.

They told me of meeting the Libyan family staying in the next compartment. The father, Saldick, soon joined us. His best English is limited to three phrases, “Libya Good.” “Obama Good.” “Fucking Shit.” We managed to communicate with gestures and a little help from Google Translate.

Saldick wanted to smoke and put a cigarette to his lips only to realize that he had forgotten his matches, which is how we met Derik.

Derick is a surfer from Cape Town who captains a 75 foot catamaran charter boat sailing out of Guadalupe. Finished for the season, he is meeting a friend in Hamburg to deliver a boat to the Mediterranean. He offered Saldick his lighter and joined us.

Five guys met in a bar car while stopped at the German border and shared beers and stories until the cafe closed. Life is good. Libya good. Obama good. Fucking shit.

From Mark Smith’s The Man in Seat 61. . .How to travel by train from London to Sofia and Bulgaria

Day 1, travel from London to Paris by Eurostar, leaving London St Pancras at 15:31, arriving Paris Gare du Nord at 18:47. On Fridays, there’s also a 16:01 Eurostar arriving 19:17. In Paris, it’s a 10 minute walk from the Gare du Nord to the Gare de l’Est. By all means take an earlier Eurostar if you’d like to spend some time in Paris, or if it has cheaper seats available. Also on Day 1, travel from Paris to Munich overnight by the City Night Line sleeper train Cassiopeia, leaving Paris Gare de l’Est daily at 20:05 (20:25 at weekends) and arriving in Munich at 07:10 next morning. It has sleeping-cars (1, 2 & 3 bed compartments, economy with washbasin or deluxe with shower), 4 & 6-berth couchettes & ordinary seats, see the photos & information below or click for more pictures & information about this City Night Line train. Always check exact times for your date of travel at http://www.bahn.de as they sometimes vary due to work on the line, sometimes with an earlier departure from Paris requiring an earlier Eurostar connection from London.

We followed the suggestion of taking an earlier Eurostar and left from the St. Pancras international rail terminal at 7:01 AM this morning. The Eurostar is everything you wish the Acela could be. The ride is very fast and incredibly smooth, there is little rocking and swaying. The ceilings are high and the racks large enough to actually fit your luggage. Freshly baked pastries are sold from a basket, not unwrapped from celophane and served on cardboard.

The trip starts underground and after ten minutes we burst into the English countryside. Heading south, sunrise shines through the large windows lining the left side of the carraige. Within thirty-five minutes we are travelling under the Channel towards France. The train is surprisingly quiet this morning, full of English tourists heading out early for a long weekend and napping while they have the chance. For me, there’s too much history flying by the train windows to risk closing my eyes for a second. Fortunately, the coffee being served this morning is strong.

The train seems to go even faster when we reach France. Just as I catch a glimpse of the ruins of a Chateau, they are gone. As we near Paris, we pass a windmill farm that frames the background of the stone church steeple in the nearby village.

Our first stop in Paris is Gare de L’Est, the station we will depart from later this evening. We store our luggage in a locker and take the 4 Metro to the Left Bank. Paris Metro cars are modern, with large glass walls rising from knee level to the ceiling. They are very bright, illuminated by white lighted subway maps along the edge of the ceilings. The tunnel walls are covered with graffiti that is spotlighted as the well-lit glass covered subway cars pass by.

During our short stay in Paris we visit the Mussee d’Orsay and then cross the Seine and walk through the Tuileries Garden and to the Louvre before catching the 7 Metro back to the train station.

From Paris we head to Munich on the City Night Line 40451, which has turned out to be the most unique part of our trip so far. We start the journey with two trains joined together. At 3:00 AM, we will split with half heading to Berlin and the rest of us heading to Munich. Within each section there are four types of cars. First is a car full of compartments with three seats facing three and a large bike storage area. There are jump seats in the aisle so people can sit outside and read without disturbing their compartment mates. This carriage is filled with the very young trying to get across Europe by, no doubt, spending as little as possible. The next level up is the Couchette, the only difference being that instead of three seats facing each other, there are two rows of triple bunk beds lined up across the small aisle. The window curtains are down so many passengers in these cars also congregate in the narrow hallway, but they stand because there are no jump seats. Next is a economy sleeper cabin, each with its own sink and two to three bunk beds depending on the size of the traveling party. Finally, there is the “deluxe” sleeper, each with a shower and toilet in a separate room across from the bunk beds.

We start our ride with the shade open and watch the countryside coast past our feet. The upper bunk is not quite long enough, but the ladder railing does a nice job holding my beer. It will get a lot of use tonight. . .