Varna - Bucharest - Transylvania

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Varna to Bucharest was an absolute mission!!

I went to the train station in the day to get a seat reservation for the 10pm train. I was told by two people this wasn't necessary so went on my merry way to the beach.

However, when I came back at 9 I tried to get on and was told I did in fact need a reservation... However, as it is during high season, all of these had gone as Romanians and Bulgarians headed home from their holidays.

I was told by the conductor, who said he didnt know was interrail was, was to buy a ticket from him for 80 US dollars! Seeing as the reservation should have been around a quid, i told him where to stick it.

So I found another train which was heading towards Sofia and found out I could change in some small town, wait an hour and get a train to the border at Ruse. From there I thought there would be plenty of trains going on to Bucharest. Wrong.

I arrived at 5am to be told that the next train was going to be at 315pm, but it was usually late by 1-2 hours so they didnt know exactly when it would be there. Ruse is a bit of a nothing town, so after 30 mins taking it in it was back to the train station to wait it out.

I tied my bags to a bench and tramped it up, getting what sleep I could. Eventually the train came, about 80 minutes late. I am putting that day down to experience.

Anyway, I got the train and had a chat with 3 american lads who were working in Bulgaria with the peace corps. in various school projects. Turned out they were staying at the same place I had planned on going to so we walked down together and they had beds for us all.

In the hostel I got chatting to a really funny Dutch guy who "because of bad karma" had recently lost his wallet and camera and had an infected wisdom tooth that meant he had to go home. Poor guy.

Bucharest itself is pretty crap. It still reeks on communism, all the buildings are grey and rundown and no one seems to happy...

Fortunatly I swiftly moved on to Brasov in Transylvania which is an amazing place! Its full of old gothic buildings, cobbled roads and churches. It was really scenic, surrounded by mountains and the streets were full of cafes and bars.

The next day I went on a day trip to an old castle in Bran (that dracula apparently lived in - the souvenir sellers would not let you forget that!) and an amazing citadel in Rasnov, complete with medieval music and knights in armor.

Back in Brasov I was walking down the main road when I heard someone call my name and looked over to see the 3 american guys from ruse - tobias, greg and someone i cant remember - at a table with a meter of beer. They invited me to join them which I happily did and we put down quite a few more of romania's finest discussing english and american sports.

It turned out they all like 'soccer' so we went to a scottish themed park to see man u beat arsenal 2-1.

We got pretty wasted and spent an hour watching hostel with a few other people who had stayed up.

This morning hurt as I had to be up at 7 to get the train back to Bucharest, its not like uni where you can lie in til the afternoon! Im back in Bucharest now and have reserved a train to Belgrade tonight.

I've realised time is running out so when putting a rough plan together I listed 7 of the next 11 or so nights as being on sleeper trains. A lot of distance to travel and not enough time...

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