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A rich tapestry of experiences unimaginable by plane
By | September 18, 2007
John Stewart of Airport Watch describes his trip to Istanbul
It wasn’t any easy choice to make. I was asked to go to Istanbul to speak at a conference. To take the train or the plane from London? I plumped for the train. Despite some difficulties along the way, which I’ll tell you about, I’m sure it proved to be the right choice. This is the story of my trip, warts and all.
I set off Friday lunchtime on the Eurostar. By evening, after a simple change in Paris, I was boarding the night train at Strasbourg (a surprisingly attractive city). We glided into Vienna at 8.30 the following morning in good time to allow me to grab a quick breakfast before getting on the train to Belgrade. It took us via Budapest and then at a pretty leisurely pace across the Hungarian plains. The flatness of the terrain became monotonous after a while but it was off-set by the ever-changing cast of characters sharing the coach as people get on and off at the numerous stations along the route.
The train is running very late. And I am getting worried. Will I be able to find to find a currency exchange still open? Will my hotel still have kept my reservation? By 9.30pm we trundle into Belgrade. The guidebooks say that even its residents regard it as an ugly city. And they are right! We approach the station between a maze of highways and high rise flats. The place has no style.
But it can party! This was Saturday night and, safely booked into my hotel and with Serbian currency in my pocket, I mixed with the exuberant crowds on the streets where the late evening temperature was still I excess of 28C. The older people were wining and dining, the younger generation, perhaps more scantily clad than just about anywhere else in Europe, were busily chasing each other. I felt much less exhausted than when crossing the Hungarian plain!
By 9 o’clock the next morning I was trundling out of Belgrade Station on my way to Sofia. The station is a strange place – not really a station at all; more a collection of open-air platforms surrounding by somewhat sad looking buildings. But this was my kind of train: old, atmospheric carriages; proper windows you can lean out of; plenty of space for legs and luggage; and not an air-conditioning system in sight.
And this was my kind of train journey. The train crawled through the most atmospheric countryside – wooded, undulating terrain, dotted with small Serbian villages slowly come to a sleepy life this burning hot Sunday morning. Any doubts I had about taking the train rather than the plane disappeared amongst these Serbian hills.
I got hungry, though. The train didn’t do food. A man selling crisps on the platform at Nis, the one sizeable town we went through, came to my rescue. Just as well he did as the train crawled into Sofia 3 hours late! I began to learn that no effort is made to make up time if the trains are running late. The only gear is the one marked leisurely.
I stumbled into a dark Sofia (it has no streets lights) well after 8pm. My little hotel consisted of 3 rooms around a rather run-down courtyard. But I instantly relaxed. The owner was friendly, English-speaking and as laid-back as the train I had just left.
I spent the next day exploring Sofia. The centre of the Bulgarian capital is attractive: parks, fine old churches, street markets, alleyways. It is pedestrian-friendly and not totally overrun by traffic. But you are definitely in Eastern Europe. 90% of the shops are small specialist stores, slightly down-at-heel though elegant boutiques and, of course, the inevitable MacDonalds, are springing up. And once you leave the centre you face block upon block of high-rise flats, more crumbling than in either Budapest or Belgrade.
During my leisurely train journey to Bulgaria, I spotted in by guide book that fast coaches are becoming the alternative to slow rail travel. I therefore booked a seat on the coach to Istanbul – a 10 hour journey during the day compared with a 14 hour overnight trip by train.
The coach was a revelation. Modern (though excessively air-conditioned), the English-speaking stewardess came round with free coffee, cakes and water. There must be a danger that the slow trains will continue to lose out to the modern coach. That would be a pity.
The trip on the highway through Bulgaria revealed everything about a country trying to enter the consumer age: billboards advertising brand new homes competed with the sight of Romany boys guiding their horses and carts on the edge of the motorway; new roads being built with EU grants just yards from villages served by dusty tracks. You can’t help but think that Bulgaria is losing something of its soul in the rush to embrace consumerism.
And so to Istanbul. Nothing could have prepared me for the entrance to the city. Forget the romantic picture of waking up on the Orient Express to the sight of the boats criss-crossing the Bosphorus. Think motorways, highways, under-passes, over-passes and the rush and roar of traffic. This is the Istanbul where most of its people live. I was to discover the other Istanbul: old buildings, thriving markets, cobbled streets. And I came to feel at home amongst the hustle and bustle of the city, but nothing will erase the memory of entering Istanbul on highway E80.
I did leave Turkey by the Orient Express. The romance of rail couldn’t have been more real as the ancient train, with its period compartments, edged its way out of Istanbul’s Sirecki Station. The scene of a thousand films flashed before my eyes. The overnight trip into Romania was comfortable if uneventful.
We rolled into Bucharest only about an hour late. Bucharest, the city Ceausescu tried to rebuild on a grand scale. Some of it works: the parks are spacious; a few of the buildings are spectacular. And they fit in well with the tree-lined boulevards which pre-dated the Romanian dictator. But what hit me most about Bucharest is the way it its recent history is so evident. The guidebooks direct you to squares where the uprising against Ceausescu took place. The church bells are ringing out on a Sunday morning in seeming defiance of the dead dictator who tried to silence them. And the people are flocking to the new shopping malls which are springing up. If Belgrade parties, Bucharest shops.
The overnight train to Vienna took us through the spectacular scenery of the wooded mountains of Romania. I shared my compartment with five others: an Italian couple going home having visited Moldavia; an English lad touring Europe; and two Romanian guys who got on in the mountains – one worldly-wise who serviced Grand Prix cars across the circuits of the world; the other leaving his home country for the very first time to study German in Vienna. We all sort of slept. It would have been easier if the air-conditioning had been switched off.
After a day exploring the stately city of Vienna, I got the night train to Strasbourg. Never have I been so cold in my life! The air-conditioning blasted out cold air all night. My right leg wouldn’t move as I tried to alight at Strasbourg. The high-speed journey to Paris was spent thawing out!
I arrived at the Gare du Nord only to find that my Eurostar had been cancelled. Ironically, to allow the new high-speed Paris to St Pancras train to make its maiden trip. I eventually arrived back at Waterloo about an hour late. Not bad considering I had been right across Europe by train….and coach. And had enjoyed a rich tapestry of experiences unimaginable by plane. I’ll do it again……just so long as they turn that air-conditioning off.
Topics: Alternatives to Air Travel, European Destinations, Holiday by Train, Rail Travel, Your Experiences |