Europe by train
introduction

How to buy
European
train tickets

London to Paris
or Brussels
by Eurostar

The Danube Express at Cerkezköy...

Above, a deluxe compartment in daytime setup...

...After dinner, you'll return to your room to find it converted to a cosy bedroom.  No upper bunks here, all rooms have two lower beds, with a chocolate liqueur on each pillow.  The beds are very comfortable, you'll sleep well, and your sleeper attendant will wake you with a cup of tea or coffee at the time you asked for.  Breakfast is usually served in the restaurant car around 07:15-08:30.  Above right, the Danube Express at Brasov in Romania...

Each compartment has a compact shower & toilet, with soap, fresh towels, shower gel/shampoo and hair dryer...

...There's a small safe, mineral water, and a complimentary map of the train's route...

The elegant restaurant car, an older vehicle beautifully appointed inside.  The Danube Express's chef is reputed to have served a Hungarian archbishop, one that almost became pope.  The archbishop's loss is our gain...

Dinner...

A cooked breakfast...

...and another dinner.

The lounge car comes complete with piano and pianist.  Welcome aboard drinks are served here on departure, and after dinner it's the social centre of the train, when everyone gets to know each other.  The staff will remain up until the last passenger turns in...

Before departure, enjoy a cold beer at the Orient Express restaurant inside Istanbul's historic Sirkeci station...

Passengers check in and assemble in the Station Master's VIP waiting room at Sirkeci station...

Istanbul Sirkeci is closed to mainline trains for the duration of the Marmaray Tunnel project, and on this occasion, a transfer coach took passengers to join the Danube Express at Cerkezköy, 115km from Istanbul.  Cerkezköy is where the Orient Express was notoriously snowed in for several days in 5m high snowdrifts in 1929, the incident which gave Agatha Christie the idea for her 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express.  Cerkezköy station hasn't changed much, compare the building in the photo above right with that in this 1929 photograph!  Dinner is served an hour or so after departure, and passengers start getting to know each other.

When you wake, you find the train at Kazanlak station, and after breakfast a coach takes passengers to visit the pretty Russian church at Shipka on the edge of the hills, built to commemorate the battle at Shipka in 1878 where the Russians helped the Bulgarians free themselves from the shackles of the Turkish Ottoman empire.  Afterwards, you visit the underground tomb of a 5th century BC king, Seuthes III.

Like something Gerry Anderson created for Thunderbirds, an elderly Bulgarian locomotive waits at Kazanlak with the Danube Express...

After visiting Kazanlak and Shipka, lunch is served in the restaurant car as the Danube Express slowly ascends the beautiful green Shipka Pass...

After lunch, the train arrives at Veliko Tarnovo's pretty station, with a tour coach waiting outside.  Danube Express passengers are taken right around the Royal Hill (above left), then visit a picturesque church with 12th century frescos (above centre) and spend some free time in Veliko Tarnovo town (above right).  Returning to the train, it leaves Veliko Tarnovo an hour before dinner...

You wake to find the train at Predeal station in Transylvania (Romania), with snow-capped Alpine crags close behind the futuristic station building.  Shortly after 8am, the brakes hiss off and the train descends from the Carpathian mountains to the Transylvanian city of Brasov, arriving around 08:40.  A coach is waiting to take passengers to nearby Bran for a guided tour of Bran Castle.  Billed as Dracula's castle, the connection with Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Dracul, the model for Bram Stoker's Dracula) is tenuous at best.  True, it's a defensive castle thought to be built Vlad the Impaler but it's not clear if he spent much time there.  The surprise is the British connection.  A British princess, grand-daughter of Queen Victoria, married the King of Romania and made the castle her villa, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_of_Romania.  Much of the rustic interior design is hers, rather than that of any Transylvanian vampire.  For information on the castle, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bran_Castle.

After visiting Castle Bran, you return to Brasov for a guided walking tour.    Above left, Brasov's main city square.  It's no accident that it looks decidedly Germanic, it was once largely German and known as Kronstadt.  Above right, Brasov's Black Church.

My own favourite stop!  After lunch, the stop at Sighisoara gives plenty of time for a guided walking tour and some free time as well.  Taxis take passengers up the hill to the town, where the tour includes an ascent of Sighisoara's iconic clock tower dating from 1556, and climbing the town's covered steps to the church on the citadel, visible in the photo above right taken from the gallery of the clock tower.  Oh yes, and the big yellow building in the photo above left just happens to be the birthplace of Vlad Dracul, known as Vlad the Impaler, role model for Dracula...  You walk back down the hill to the station.

You wake to find the train at Kecskemet station, and after breakfast there's free time to walk out of the station and visit that historic Hungarian city.  After lunch, the Danube Express stops at a halt, little more than an open field.  There are gasps in the lounge car as the train is met by whip-cracking Hungarian horsemen.  And gasps of delight as it's clear that horse-drawn carriages are waiting to take passengers to the horsemanship show...

In the afternoon, the Danube Express arrives at Budapest Nyugati station, and there's a drinks reception in the Royal Waiting Room (as used by the Empress Sisi) to say goodbye, with passengers expressing many favourable comments about the Danube Express.  A lucky few were glad to be rejoining the train in a few days' time for the Central European tour to Vienna, Prague and Krakow, completing both Danube Express routes back-to-back...

My favourite hotel search: www.booking.com

Booking.com is my favourite hotel booking site and I generally use it to book all my hotels in one place.  I've come to trust booking.com's review scores, you won't be disappointed with any hotel that scores 8.0 or more.  Crucially, booking.com usually lets you book with free cancellation, which means you can confirm accommodation risk-free before train booking opens and/or you can hold accommodation while you finalise your itinerary and alter your plans as they evolve - a feature I use all the time when planning a trip.  I never book hotels non-refundably!

The Pera Palas hotel, after its 2010 refurbishment.

Pera Palace Hotel, lobby...

The main lounge...

The old lift...

Bedrooms have been elegantly refurbished.  This is a corner suite, with sitting room next door, and balcony...

Agatha Christie's room 411, where she wrote Murder on the Orient Express (before refurbishment)