Bucharest Gara de Nord. Time for another train trip across the country!
I'm on the 6.45pm overnight train to Satu Mare in the north-west of Romania in a private sleeper. The train hasn't even departed yet and the starion board already shows a 15 minute delay - quite typical for CFR in the summer and I expect more delays on the long way north!
And we have departed!
Scenery on the way to Ploieşti - the first stop on our way north.
Time for a snack! A private sleeper ticket on CFR does include the possibility to bring along your own food and drinks. Couchette tickets also have this perk, although you may have to share your charcuterie board and Moldovan bubbly with your fellow passengers in that case.
The windows are enormously dirty so proper photography is quite hard. We have now arrived at Sinaia, Romania's most famous mountain resort.
In the Carpathian Mountains between Sinaia and Busteni..
And a video of the stretch between these two stations.
Departing Busteni. Due to the cloud cover not all the Carpathian mountain peaks are visible.. still a gorgeous railway line!
Some last images before night falls as we ride through the Carpathians towards Braşov, passing by an old double deck train going into the opposite direction.
Braşov's North Korean style station. And my last update for today as I'm off to sleep soon after this glass. Next travel update tomorrow morning from Transylvania/Crișana depending on the time I wake up.
After a great night of sleep: Goodmorning from the Romanian-Hungarian borderlands! Although this train goes to Satu Mare, I will get off one stop before at Carei station in about 30 minutes from now. We seemed to have caught up our initial 20 minute delay so it's on time again!
Departing Valea lui Mihai. Next stop: Carei.
Carei station. The train continues to Satu Mare - where I will go to as well later today. But first time to explore Carei a bit. And to find some coffee!
Walking into town..
Carei and the surrounding area has always been multi-ethnic. The Hungarians (a majority here) call the city Nagykároly, the Germans Großkarol. There used to be a thriving Jewish community too. You can see it back in the great variety in the places of worship.
Of course the communists also left their legacy in Carei.
In a nice park in the centre you can find Carei's main sight, Károlyi Castle. Named after the noble and mighty Károlyi family, it was originally a baroque castle. When it got damaged by invading Ottomans, it was rebuilt in a predominently eclectic style.
Inside, there is a museum detailing the history of the castle, of Carei in general, and of the Károlyi family. There is currently also a small temporary Salvador Dalí exhibit.
Some impressions of the castle and museum. In some rooms old furniture and decorations can be seen, in others there are certain items showcased telling about the town's history (in this case of the last picture for example about local pharmacists/medicine making).
A bit out of place in the otherwise very nice museum is this smug dude (Panczel Zoltan Tibor) who felt the need to kill half of Africa's wildlife and to showcase it here in order to overcompensate for his micropenis or whatever. Classless.
If you are in a majority Hungarian area, there is of course some yummy gulash for lunch!
Some more impressions from Carei. Bit rainy weather today, unfortunately.
Definitely a Hungarian vibe and some lovely old architecture in town, although many buildings sadly abandoned or in a bad state.
Carei's railway station, in time for the 1.26pm regional train to Satu Mare.
Waiting on the platform. Note the bilingual station sign!
And there it is! R4335 to Satu Mare. Not too bad a train, quite comfortable and spacious!
5.30 RON (1.08 EUR) for the 36km ride.
Not the most exciting part of Romania when it comes to scenery. Flat, fields and farmland - that's basically it.
Arrival at Satu Mare. The river at the midway point of the video is the Someş which bisects the city.
Satu Mare station isn't bad, but lool at the communist mosaic at the abandoned bus station nextdoors!
The leafy neighbourhood around my hotel. Should I try the "porc, vin & bere" restaurant? Sounds like a good combo! Satu Mare actually has a top-rated Filipino restaurant (my Twitter/website name is Tagalog!) which would be my first choice but it's closed as they're on holiday :(
Some Satu Mare impressions. Like so many other Romanian cities a mishmash of buildings from different historical periods and styles. So basically Habsburg pretiness next to communist ugliness.
As I'm a bit tired I'll explore the city tmrw and just have dinner now. Garlic cream soup with homemade salty pita bread, and an absolutely massive pork knuckle (not visible: the mountain of fried onions behind it). Bit expensive for 🇷🇴 provincial town but huge portion and tasty!
A bit unrelated to the trip - but how awesome is this 1950s Hungarian radio in my hotel room! I want one too!
A day of sightseeing in Satu Mare! First up the Județean Museum (county museum). It may not look much from outside or even inside the foyer, but it's surprisingly large and nice! Multilingual signs and interesting historical and ethnological exhibits. Well-worth a visit!
PS. @dmdebruijn - bit of background history of Jewish life in Satu Mare.
The brutalist side of town..
Some Satu Mare impressions. It's a surprisingly pleasant city which reminds me of Cluj about a decade ago. Lots of nice cafés, restaurants, laidback vibe etc.
Satu Mare in food and drinks. Excellent brunch at ZION (Turkish style eggs in yoghurt), beer at The Line, and the typical Hungarian snack langős with sour cream, cheese and lots of garlic (pic 3-4).
View over Satu Mare from the old firemen's tower.
Catholic Satu Mare, with the main Cathedral (1-3) and the smaller Calvaria church (4).
The main Orthodox church (1) and the synagogue (2-4), which was unfortunately closed with not a soul to be seen around. Fyi @dmdebruijn.
The county art museum, which focuses on the works of Aurel Popp & his students, is also well worth a visit. If a museum seems closed, ask the guard to call the caretaker to open it for you! They often see so few visitors that the caretakers are just chilling somewhere outside!
The "Satan" communist apartment block (1), Al Bundy's shoe store (2).. you encounter funny things when walking through Satu Mare.
Satu Mare is nonetheless a pleasant city to walk through. Too bad the main hotel, the gorgeous art deco Dacia Hotel (previously known as the Pannonia) is still being renovated with its beautiful facade hidden behind a covering sheet.
Time to head back to Bucharest. No train (sleepers are unfortunately quite sold out in summer if you don't book 1-2 weeks out) but a domestic flight. At least my cats will appreciate me being back half a day earlier & the extra XP to shore up my Flying Blue status are welcomed.
Satu Mare Airport isn't much to write home about but they do have a bar selling some craft beer and lots of old-school Fishbed fighter jet pictures on the walls.
On the ATR 72-600 back to Bucharest.
Taking off from Satu Mare..
And after a short flight, Bucharest Otopeni Airport. One advantage of arriving at the domestic terminal is how quick the arrival process is at this airport. Deplaning to the 783 bus for the city centre in just 5 minutes!
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
In Putin's Russia, you don't travel to the border, but the Russian border travels to you. I'm on the Curonian Spit at the Lithuanian-Russian border, one of Europe's most geographically unusual and beautiful border regions, and I'll be exploring the Lithuanian half of the spit..
If you missed the previous updates detailing my overland trip by train from Romania to Lithuanian, as well as visits to Kaunas, Vilnius, Trakai, and Klaipeda, then check the thread below 👇
First a little map to actually show where I am. The Curonian Spit is a 98-kilometre (61 miles) long, thin sand-dune spit that separates the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. The northern half is Lithuanian, the southern half is part of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad..
High-speed trains, Saudi Arabia style! Today I'll be travelling on the Mecca-Jeddah-Medina Haraiman High Speed Railway, a 453-kilometre-long line linking the two holiest cities in Islam.
The railway is operated by a Saudi-Spanish consortium, which includes Spanish rail company Renfe and infrastructure company Adif. Unsurprisingly, Spanish Talgo trains are used on this high-speed line. In my Uber on the way to Jeddah's station I get my first glimpses of the line..
Jeddah Al-Sulaymaniyah Station, located quite a distance out of the city centre, looks impressive from the outside..
Back at Bucharest Gara de Nord for my second travel adventure this summer month. I'm heading to Bratislava, Slovakia. By train on the outbound journey, flying on the way back. So let's do a comparison in price, comfort and travel time!
Gorgeous sunset colours on this hot day..
I'm booked on the IRN 78 'Muntenia' night train to Budapest. Its advantage over the 2 other night trains from Bucharest to Hungary (Ister to Budapest, Dacia to Budapest & Vienna) is the late departure at 9.46pm, which still allowed me a full day of work and dinner at home.
Time for the first trip with my brand new passport! Bit of planespotting and tracking of the inbound flight on Flightradar while I quietly sip my gin tonic.. You need some booze to make Bucharest Otopeni Airport bearable!
On an Air France Airbus A319 towards Paris CDG..
Neat little upgrade to business class for today's flights. Good meal, friendly service. Wanted to keep it to only 2 glasses of champagne but the FA insisted I had 2 more glasses of Joseph Perrier. Who am I to say no?!
With 2 weeks validity left on my 3-month Interrail pass it's time for one last trip this summer: From Romania to Scotland by train! Am a bit sad kissing the kitties goodbye, but here we go for the first leg, which can only be the Dacia night train to Vienna..
There she is! Naturally, I managed to get one of the few en-suite compartments in this sleeper wagon..
As I travel this route frequently (and Tweeted quite a lot about it in the past) I will take a short Twitter break and just enjoy the ride. Check the thread below for my previous experience on the Dacia train if you want to learn more about the route..
The main reason why I bought my Interrail pass is that I had 2 trips planned this summer (wedding and family visit) and I wanted to do them all the way by train. Today is the first! Sad to kiss the cats goodbye, but they are in good hands and this will be a fun trip hopefully..
So let's travel from the Danubian lands to the Rhineland! Train number one on this trip is of course the Dacia sleeper train from Bucharest Gara de Nord to Vienna.. Here you can see the train being shunted into the terminus station, also having some through cars to Cluj added..
I'm booked in a private sleeper for the ride to Vienna - one of the few in this carriage which also features an en-suite bathroom with shower!