My Hovercraft is Full of Eels

9.00am Greek train book­ing office, Athens:

“No, I can­’t give you reser­va­tions on the train  Bucharest.  I have only 3 beds and I must sell them.  But you can buy in Thessaloniki.  The Romanians have more — it’s easy”

1.30pm Larissa train sta­tion, Athens.  Inernational book­ing office opens:

“No train to Bucharest”

“Why?”

“I don’t know!”

1.40pm at inter­na­tion­al book­ing office, Larissa again, armed with Thomas Cook timetable show­ing the 23.45 train fom Thessaloniki to Bucharest:

“Train full. No beds.  I have no beds until 4 August.  You can make reser­va­tion to Beograd in Thessaloniki”

(But we want to go to Bucharesti, not Beograd!)

20.50 Thessaloniki doem­st­ic tick­et office:

“International tick­et office opens at 10pm.  Ask there.”

21.50 Thessaloniki inter­na­tion­al book­ing office opens, Thessaloniki station:

“You get bed on train.  Just get on train and pay for bed.  Plenty of room.  Bulgarians take money on train, but Romanians don’t do that.  In Romania you have to make reservation.”

So we get a couchette to ourselves with some friendly Germans next door and a very friendly and help­ful Bulgarian guard the oth­er side.  The air con­di­tion­ing works and we’ve crois­sants in the bag for breakfast.

I’m so proud of Callum who’s been a mod­el of calm through­out all the uncertainty!

The train jour­ney from Athens to Thessaloniki goes down as one of the most stun­ning ever.  Past Mount Parnassus and then Mount Olympus from where Zeus is send­ing out dra­mat­ic streaks of sun­light from his home tucked up in some of the first clouds we have seen for weeks. A very swanky train and a win­dow facing back down the miles of straight track.

Woken twice by bor­der guards (Greek and then Bulgarian),  Stunnning scenery again from Sofia as we go through a lush river val­ley with moun­tains on either side.

We pass field upon field of drop­ping sun­flowers and people work­ing the fields by hand with horse and cart.

One of the train high­lights are the “wheeltap­pers” — people who tap each wheel of the train peri­od­ic­ally with a spe­cial ham­mer to make sure that the wheels give the right sort of chime and aren’t dam­aged.  And the depar­ture board at Bucharest staion was some­thing else…

We’re booked on a couchette tonight to Budapest, so it looks like we will make it home!  But in Romania you have to book at a spe­cial rail­way agency, rather than at the station…