The beginning of the END

Or should that be the end of the beginning? Anyway my journey was coming to an end. I had to leave Istanbul with my return train ticket on 22 June 2009 and make my way to Budapest to catch my flight back to Ireland on 25 June 2009. Well the good news is I made it. It was a bit of an adventure like the rest of the trip but thoroughly enjoyable at the same time.


The train would bring me through Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia and then through Hungary. I boarded the train at the Sirkeci train station in Istanbul at 22.05 on 22 June. It wasn't a long train and wasn't very full either. I was sharing a compartment with an Australian guy who was also going to Budapest. Everything started out ok, until the train arrived late into Sofia, capital of Bulgaria. There we found out that the Serbian train workers were on strike and that we would not be able to go through Serbia until it was resolved. So we were stuck in Sofia. I was starting to get worried because I hadn't planned for this and was afraid I would miss my flight! The lady at the information desk said to check with her later in the day to see if the train was actually going to run or not. So that meant I had some time to look around Sofia. Wow.

The above video clip shows how the terrain looks on the way into Sofia. As you can see, it's mainly just flat fields with mountains in the distance. It's very different from the train journey through Serbia - where you can see so much more and are so close to the towns and villages that you feel as if you are a part of them.