Transylvania Station

A bus, 10 miles walked in 80 degree Budapest sunshine, 16 hours on a train, three countries, and a total of 31 hours in transit.

Last summer we spent a month in Brasov, Romania and fell in love with this fairy tale land. So, when it came down to deciding where to spend a couple of months after Paris, there wasn't even a discussion. 

Now, the thing about Brasov is its charm comes mainly from it's being tucked in the center of the Carpathian mountains. This makes it a bit tricky to get to. Last year, .we started in Sarajevo, and had to go through Belgrade, to Timisoara, with a short layover in a small one track town called Aiud. The entire process took a few days, and the train which was meant to take eight hours ended up taking fifteen. We were also lucky enough to find ourselves on the train with a school trip of fifty very loud 12 year olds and still-drunk festival goers on their way home from an EDM festival. 

That all being said, we were not keen on repeating our route again this time. Instead we found an overnight train from Budapest for the reasonable price of 39,000 Forint (re: ~118 Euro). That just left getting to Budapest from Zagreb, which was an easy (but very early in the morning) task. 

So, we left Zagreb at 7AM, hopped on a six hour bus ride, entertained ourselves in my favourite city for 5 hours, and made ourselves comfortable in our private sleeper car bound for Brasov. 

There's something very cathartic about sitting in a cubicle-sized room with the only sounds being the train flying down the rails - watching the Hungarian countryside descend into darkness of sunset, only to wake up to the Romanian country-side flooding the small quarters with the morning sunlight. 

We are now in the Hollywood of Romania. A magical land where eggs are sold by the bag. 

Sights and sounds of a sleeper car.