Day 6 of the trip and the first day that we wouldn’t spend any of it on a train. The original itinerary suggested by Tailor Made Rail had listed a single night in both Bucharest and Sofia, but we decided that as these were our first visits to both cities we would add an extra night in each. So we had a rail free day, […]

We arrived pretty much on time in to a hot, very hot Bucharest after an uneventful journey. Sleep was sporadic as the beds weren’t the most comfortable but thankfully Romania’s entry in to Schengen at the start of the journey had removed the need for middle of the night border formalities. We jumped in to a taxi to the hotel where, as we expected, we […]

Today would see us taking the first of our 2 sleeper trains which meant another day to enjoy Budapest. Given Mrs MA’s mobility problems we decided to take a very, very leisurely stroll along the river before crossing over to the Pest side. It was slow progress, especially with the wind, but eventually we made it to the first of potentially two bars in this […]

It was an early start for our second three country day of the trip as we took the Railjet service through southeast Germany, across Austria and in to the northwest of Hungary before arriving in Budapest. This was the first service of the trip that didn’t seem to require compulsory seat reservations and as a consequence was very busy with the vestibules packed full. We […]

A more leisurely start to our second day with a mid-morning DB ICE departure to carry us across Germany to Munich. The vagaries of the seat reservation selection managed to put us opposite the mid carriage luggage rack, great for keeping an eye on our cases but removing any view. An uneventful 4½ hour journey, at least on our side of the train, saw us […]

From where we live it is a short bus ride to Heathrow Terminal 5 and so the logical route to St Pancras International is the Piccadilly Line and this was our plan, until three days before departure when I found out that it was closed all weekend. Plan B was the Elizabeth Line from T5 to central London and then a cab, more expensive but […]