Bulgaria to Budapest

Hi all,

Well our very first overnight "sleeper" train ride from Istanbul to Sofia was somewhat of an adventure in itself. Crossing the border into Bulgaria involved a passport check at 2am, Turkish customs check, Bulgarian customs check, another passport check, and then a bribe to a Bulgarian official for an unknown violation that could only be solved by cash payment to him alone. Oh and it was 5 hours late too. We arrived in Sofia and were pleasantly surprised with how nice it was, a very underrated city with lots of Communist relics, pleasant shopping streets, good food, and perfect for a rest before our next sleeper train.

Sofia to Bucharest in Romania saw our train become slightly more comfortable than the last (but not by much) and the delay in arrival was reduced to just 2 hours so that was nice, then we got our connecting train to beautiful Brasov in the Transylvanian mountains arriving in the early afternoon. Very pretty little town close to some cool castles, fortresses and palaces which we visited the next day, and Dracula's Bran castle (although not the actual home of Dracula) which was fun to visit.

Our next and final sleeper train was from Brasov to Budapest which amazingly arrived dead on time! Our cabin which was a first class sleeper was unusually smaller than our previous second class couchettes, but we travelled through some amazing scenery on this leg. Our hotel in Budapest was excellent, and we enjoyed delicious breakfasts here in their Parisian style cafe (mmm super salted butter). We spent a few days here to enjoy the beautiful city which we both really liked and did a few walking tours, visited some impressive Communist era museums and statues (Memento Park), and enjoyed nice heavy Hungarian food and beer!

Next up Central Europe!

L + D