Balkans day 25: Into Romania

Time, today, to leave Sofia and head north. Romania as a state isn’t straightforwardly in the Balkans: the usual definition is what’s south of the Danube and Sava, and that’s only a tiny proportion of the country, which I’m not visiting this time. But I’ve never been to the capital, Bucharest, so will spend a couple of days there before heading back home.

Countryside doing a good impression of the default XP desktop

That meant that today was a transit day. Another very early start, possibly the last of this trip, made more painful by Daylight Savings Time doing its thing. All told, it’s a ten-hour train trip from Sofia to Bucharest, split across two trains. The first is a grubby Bulgarian compartment train, which starts by winding north along the Iskar valley through the Balkan Mountains.

Goodbye Sofia

Crags north of Svoge

I share my compartment with two loud and smelly Bulgarian men who spend the journey watching videos on their phones with the sound on, laughing uproariously and scratching their crotches. Once through the mountains, the train bears right and crosses some peaceful countryside, dotted with a few villages. At Gorna Oryahovitsa the train splits, with my part turning north again towards Ruse, on the Danube. Gorna Oryahovitsa is within spitting distance of Veliko Tarnovo, the old capital of Bulgaria, but I don’t have any time to spare, as there’s only one Sofia-Bucharest itinerary per day, unfortunately. Similarly I’ve heard that Ruse is a nice town but I barely have time to spend my last few Bulgarian lev on supplies before hopping onto a Romanian DMU bound for Bucharest.

Ruse’s grand station frontage

Green Danube inlet north of Ruse

The train crosses the Danube on Europe’s longest steel bridge (2.5km) before stopping at Giurgiu for a passport check. Beyond here is nothing but empty fields for miles and miles, which the train slithers through at a snail’s pace, initially northwest, then swerving right onto the main line at Videse. Eventually we reach Bucharest’s bustling Gara de Nord, where this instalment draws to a close.