20 Hours on a Romanian Train...

Now nearing the end of my journey, I investigated the best way of getting to Istanbul from Romania, and found two options. The bus would take about 10 hours, or the train up to 20. The choice seemed obvious, except for one problem...there are no buses. I couldn't find evidence of them anywhere in Bucharest and nobody knew about them, despite being features in most travel guides. There are flights costing just 40EUR and taking only an hour or so, but if I've made it through 23 countries so far without flying, I'm not giving in now!

Crossing over the Danube, from Romania back into Bulgaria

Waiting on the platform at Bucharest, I expected a standard lengthy sleeper train, and was surprised when it pulled into the station - just three carriages long. There was a mad rush to get on, and I had to evict some unfortunate person from my cabin, which was already full. No way I was going to let somebody take my bed on a 20 hour trip! I settled in for the long trip ahead, equipped with charged ipod and several books ready to pass the time.

There was a real party atmosphere on the train

In the event, I didn't need any of them. The long journey, which I had been dreading, turned out to be fantastic. Within minutes of pulling out of the station an American in my cabin cracked open a bottle of wine and we got talking, and gradually as the journey continued I met several people down the carriage, including a couple of English guys from the hostel in Bucharest and even an MIT-graduate.

Winding through Bulgaria

After passing away the hours talking, night fell and it was time for sleep. The beds weren't particularly comfortable but eventually I drifted off, only to be woken by the Turkish border guards at about 2 in the morning. Everybody was marched off the train and forced to queue up and buy a visa from the most fantastically rude lady I have ever encountered, who literally threw your passport back at you.

Sunset on the longest train journey of my life

After an overly-long and bureaucratic process, we re-boarded the train and went back to sleep, waking up to watch the sunrise as the towns and villages of European Turkey rolled past the window. Onwards to the end of my journey and one of the great cities of the world...Istanbul!

Romania - Bucharest

I took an express train from Brasov, back down South to my penultimate destination, Romania's capital city of Bucharest. The train was a nice contrast from that which I took a couple of days ago in Transylvania, this one being the fastest and most expensive class. Strangely the design bared more than a passing resemblance to a New York subway car, complete with shiny aluminium exterior - a weird experience.

The site of the secret police's former HQ, put to innovative use

I met an Australian couple on the train and together we walked to the hostel, avoiding the unusually aggressive taxi drivers touting for business outside the station, which are apparently a notorious rip-off. Upon checking in at the hostel, the nice girl in charge became strangely excited upon noticing we shared the same birthday and insisted I come back later in the evening for a big drinking game she was organising, complete with free drinks. Needless to say I made a mental note.

The Palace of the People - one man's grotesquely egotistical creation

In the meantime I headed into the city and straight for the number one tourist attraction - the Palace of the People. It really is a spectacular and imposing sight, being the single largest building in the whole of Europe and second largest in the entire world (beaten only by the Pentagon). Unfortunately, the directions given to me at the hostel were wrong and I ended up walking around the outside of the entire building looking for the entrance, which gave an exhausting but lasting impression of its sheer size.

Inside the palace

Eventually I found my way in and after making my way through the somewhat chaotic entrance hall, managed to join an English-language tour. Built by the command of Nicolae Ceauşescu, the communist dictator of Romania, with much of it designed by his wife, it was supposed to be a symbol of power and wealth. However, it was deeply unpopular, with a staggering one-fifth of the city being demolished to make way for it (needless to say the unfortunate residents had no say in the matter), including many historic churches.

One of 500 extravagantly ornate chandeliers

Built at fantastic cost in one of Europe's poorest countries, the building is sickeningly ornate. The sheer statistics are mind boggling - over 1000 rooms, 12 floors, 1 million cubic metres of marble and 200,000 square metres of luxury carpet. The place was so big that many of the rooms were never used. The worst part of the story is that this enormous monstrosity was never put to good use - still only nearing completion by the time of Ceauşescu's removal from power and subsequent execution, it still hasn't been finished. Upkeep alone costs a fortune and with all the lights on it would rival the entire city for power consumption.

On the palace's balcony, overlooking the impressive main avenue

The rest of Bucharest is testament to Ceauşescu's delusions of grandeur. Much of the historic and older neighbourhoods were razed, with the city rebuilt in French style, earning it the nickname "the Paris of the East". It's hard when wandering around to get a real sense of where in the world you are - there's a full-size copy of the Arc de Triomphe and an enormous main boulevard based on the Champs-Élysées cutting through the centre, sneakily built a handful of metres longer and wider on Ceauşescu's orders. It really doesn't feel like being in deepest Eastern Europe.

Parisian architecture on the streets of Romania

I took a walk around an area marked the 'old quarter', and found nothing particular old. It seems the history of the city was erased and rewritten on the whim of just one man. Having said that, despite the dark history of much of this place, and the loss of the old, it really is an impressive sight and holds its weight amongst many of the great cities of the world. It seems Ceauşescu really did achieve his dream.

Revolution Square

However, no visit to Bucharest would be complete without seeing where his dream ended. Revolution Square is the site where, in 1989, Ceauşescu delivered what would be his his final speech and had to be rescued by helicopter as an angry crowd booed and chanted slogans against him. He didn't escape for long and was eventually caught and executed, bringing Romania's difficult period of communist dictatorship to an end. It is nice to know that there's a happy ending to the story, with the country having joined the European Union at the start of this year, a fitting reward for Romania's journey to democracy.

A memorial to the Romanian Revolution of 1989

After a hard day's sightseeing I made my way back to the hostel, where once again I bumped into the Irish guys I had previously met in Macedonia and then again in Greece. How on earth can you bump into the same group of people three times in locations hundreds of miles apart?! I may have by now established that they are legendary drinkers, and altogether about twenty of us from the hostel took part in without doubt the funniest and craziest drinking game I've ever experienced. The game involved the creation of rules that everybody had to follow - my favourite being that the Irish and English had to 'swap' accents for the rest of the night...

We had so much fun a jealous neighbour kicked us out of the garden

And so with Bucharest done, my trip is nearly over. Twenty one countries down, one to go. Onwards to the end of my epic trip and a well earned rest - Turkey is awaiting!

Romania - Brasov & Translyvania

The six hour journey to Bucharest was more fun than I imagined, as I shared a compartment with an Australian and Dutch couple and ended up chatting all the way. After arriving in the Romanian capital at 7pm, I headed toward the 7.30pm train and asked a conductor-looking person if it was the train to Brasov. He responded by grabbing my bags from my hands, running along the platform and jumping on the train. He then put the bags in a cabin, gestured for me to sit, kissed me on the cheek and stuck his hand out for money.

A church opposite my hostel in Brasov

I was utterly bewildered, having seconds earlier been standing rather tired on the platform, but it turned out this was a fitting introduction to the rather strange world of Romania. The train eventually departed, beginning a somewhat-creepy journey onward to Transylvania, with me on my own in the poorly lit cabin and the train winding its way in the darkness through the mountains. Traders regularly came to my cabin, trying to sell me everything from pens to toys, but I relented.

Brasov town centre

I arrived in Brasov, a major town in Transylvania, at about 11pm and took a taxi (with a female driver, the only one I have seen in eastern europe so far) to the hostel at the other end of town. I was greeted by a woman, who stuck her head out of the window above and yelled that I was late. What a nice welcome! Once inside, she was actually really nice and clearly just having a bad day. She even lent me money to eat and insisted I go to a local Romanian restaurant, called Casa Romanesque.

Not quite as glamorous as Hollywood, but probably nicer

I spent the rest of that evening chatting with people on the hostel's terrace, which had a great atmosphere. I talked with a funny Swede, a Mexican living in Cuba about all kinds of things, from life there to Castro, politics and communism and even spotted two Americans I had met previously in Macedonia and two Brits from London I had shared a taxi with in Bulgaria.

Walking through the backstreets

The next day I set off into town with the intention of getting to Sighisoara to see 'Dracula's castle'. The train times were inconvenient, so I waited for a minibus with another girl from the hostel for two hours, but for some reason none of the drivers seemed willing to take us there, despite it being marked on the route. I gave up and visited the Black Church and the old town, which was much more charming than I expected.

Behind the sign

I walked to the foot of the hill featuring the Brasov Hollywood-style sign and while deciding whether to walk up or take the cable car, the two Brits I had met in Bulgaria, brother and sister Em and Daniel, turned up. We decided to walk up the hill together. It was a pleasant climb as it was entirely in shade and at the top were met by a spectacular view. Just before the summit we passed a guy carrying a big jar of gherkins and a bottle of wine which seem, at least to me, strange things to have on a mountain.

Throwing a gherkin off a mountain. Somehow, strangely symbolic.

After a drink in the hilltop cafe, we descended back to the town and I headed off to the station to buy my next ticket. On the way I ran into the Dutch couple from the train the day before and was invited to dinner, so instead ended up back at Casa Romanesque where we had a great meal.

I think I'll skip on that one

Upon leaving I met with Daniel, Em and Taka, a Japanese traveller from the hostel, who it turned out had also been eating there but sitting outside. Together we went on a quest into town to use an ATM, then back to a kiosk for beer and sat on the terrace until the middle of the night.

With Em and Taka, triumphantly clutching our beer

The next day I once again set off to go to Sighisoara and waited for a bus to the station, but it took ages to come and I managed to miss the only reasonably timed train by a minute. Frustrating! After two days of trying, I gave up on going there and instead, determined to go somewhere for the day, caught a train to Sibiu, a town a couple of hours away.

Self-promotion in Sibiu

Sibiu is this year's European Capital of Culture, whatever that means, and is a nice place to spend a day. I didn't see anything specifically amazing, but it has a charming atmosphere and plenty of old buildings, with an impressively large main square.

Yet another nice old-town

Romania has five different type of trains, ranging from the fast and clean 'Express', to the cheap and agonisingly slow 'Personal'. Annoyingly, I was forced to take a 'Personal' train back to Brasov, which is something I was told to avoid. The journey took more than twice as long going back, the train was dark and full of very strange, mostly drunk people, who threw all their empty cans and bottles straight out the windows. The train stopped regularly, sometimes even in the middle of fields for a farmer to get off. Not particularly enjoyable, but it was interesting to experience things as the locals do.

Hiding off the main square

I made it back to Brasov after 11pm and spent a final night relaxing on the terrace and chatting with all kinds of travellers. There's just one final stop before the end of my trip, so tomorrow it's back to the capital Bucharest, for a penultimate bout of sightseeing.