Category: Holidays

13 February 2026

London to Istanbul – Epic Rail Journey : Day 6

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, […]

12 February 2026

London to Istanbul – Epic Rail Journey : Day 5

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 […]

23 January 2026

London to Istanbul – Epic Rail Journey : Day 4

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 […]

22 October 2025

London to Istanbul – Epic Rail Journey : Day 3

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 […]

7 September 2025

London to Istanbul – Epic Rail Journey : Day 2

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 […]

26 August 2025

London to Istanbul – Epic Rail Journey : Day 1

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 […]

23 August 2025

London to Istanbul – Epic Rail Journey : Introduction

With myself and Mrs MusingAnorak celebrating our Silver Wedding Anniversary in August we were determined to find a holiday to remember. After considering, and rejecting, a lot of options I came across the website of a company called Tailor Made Rail who specialise in holidays by rail. One itinerary particularly caught our eye, London to Istanbul with multiple city stops en route. We got in […]

29 May 2023

There’s No Place Like Gnome

For the past couple of years the Hospital where I am employed has been working towards the implementation of a new Patient Administration System, just about the largest IT project a Trust can undertake. As an employee within the IT Department this obviously meant a lot of work and stress, and an understanding that the possibility of taking time off around Go-Live was out of […]

30 May 2022

Czeching It Out.

As February half term approached more and more countries were relaxing their COVID releated entry rules making travel easier. Unfortunately we had tickets for the Eurostar to Brussels and Belgium was one of the countries that was still insisting on a period of quarantine upon entry, and that effectively meant that the majority of our trip would be spent within our hotel room. Luckily Eurostar […]

31 January 2022

Where’s The Chicken? II

So I didn’t get much sleep, my leg really hurt and I wasn’t able to get comfortable at all. I guess there is a lesson to be learned here, but I doubt I’ll learn it. Anyway, the first task for today was to locate a craft supplies shop in order to procure a gift for Mrs MusingAnorak so I spent a bit of time on […]