Blog

The old Moldovan train might be old, it is still very comfrotable. My best sleep in a night train so far!

We arrived in the small hours in București [Bucharest]. I said my farewells to Ludmila and Tammer, and headed to the ticket booth. One issue with interrail in Romania, is that you can’t book seat reservation online. Those exists only as paper ticket. However, the awesome counterpart of this is that buying an Interrail seat at the booth will only cost you one euro! Amazing!

Within half an hour, I was already in another train, heading North towards Brașov. At this point, I had no clear plan in mind (which is great!), so once I woke up a bit, I booked an hostel for the night in Brașov, and then decided to do a small side-trip to Sinaia, where my train stop.

It was a recommendation from Ludmila, to see the Peleș Castle, the most beautiful in Europe according to her. It’s a very bold claim and I think I’ve seen some more gorgeous castles, but indeed, it is a magnificent castle, of the Princess and Prince Charming tale-type, on the foot of the Carpathians mountains. I kept walking in the quiet upper part of town for a couple hours, and headed back to the station.

This time, direction Brașov. I thought being in the Carpathians mountains, weather will be colder, so I made the dubious decision to walk nearly an hour, 10 kg backpack on the shoulders, wearing my thick sweater and my coat for part of it, under 25 °C. I had to make a long pizza break in the middle.

I checked in at the recommended JugendStube Hostel, and quickly was off in the streets again, walking through the nice old center towards the cablecar. Indeed, Brașov is a flat city, but it’s located at the very foot of the mountains. The overlooking peak is adorned with a large flag and an Holywood-style sign. The cable-car gets you to that point and oh boy, what a view! You get to see the entirety of the city, and much much more behind. With this weather it was fantastic.

After a night in the train and a lot of walk today, I was quite exhausted, and went to bed very early. It’s only then that I started to look for trains and hostels for tomorrow. Let go…