Ljubljana to Bucharest

Monday (24 April) we checked out of our Ljubljana AirBnB and were able to leave our bags, so we could have another wander around Ljubljana, including a look around the Cathedral. It was a rainy day, so there were brunch, and coffee stops regularly until the time of the train departure. It was due to depart at 14.45hrs, in the end we left 25 minutes later.

We arrived in Zagreb, a short walk to our AirBnB, slightly rough and ready looking on the outside, it was in the middle of a large city block, three locked doors to deal with, however inside it was a lovely apartment.

Tuesday, we walked towards the old town, as you may remember we have been to Zagreb before (the Ryanair refund week!), it was nice to be back in a familiar city and lovely to walk around, slightly less aimlessly, and show our friend some of the sights we remembered.

We headed for the funicular to go up to the old town, but it was not working, and will “start again next week” according to the worker in high vis.

We noticed this time that there is lots of building work going on in Zagreb, tricky to find an outdoor cafe without the sounds of drilling or hammering…. We know…. first world problems! Nice to see them working on improvements though.

We took it easy up the steps toward St Mark’s church, which was, predictably, surrounded by scaffolding, luckily the roof, which is the impressive sight was not covered.

Headed back down the hill towards the Cathedral, more scaffolding, which was being put in place by a huge crane, and a gang of workers with a head for heights.

Wednesday, we headed to the Botanical Gardens, which are very close to the apartment, we are a month later in the year than our last visit, and the gardens are a lot further along, more flowers out, especially the Irises which Nic last time had requested to visit a month later to see them all in bloom! Still lots more to come out on this visit, so maybe another trip in May will happen at some point ?!

Thursday, check out day again! There was no luggage storage at the train station as all the lockers were out of action, they are in the process of changing them over to accept Euros (Croatia joined the Euro zone on 1 January). Instead, via the “Stasher” app, we found a local hostel that will store luggage, for a fee.

More wandering around Zagreb until our train at 16:45, including a super lunch spot for some local cevapici for Nic, and burgers for the other. Cevapici is a Bosnian specialty, (the chef was Bosnian!) it was very tasty and much too big to finish!

At the station our train was their early, so we managed to get another 6 seater compartment to ourselves for most of the journey to Budapest.

The Budapest AirBnB was a little disappointing, it was very reasonably priced and ok for a couple of nights, but it is the first negative AirBnB review we have had to leave.

Friday, we had not realised before but the Pope is in Budapest, so we got a “Bolt”, another app like Uber for taxis, over to Buda Castle, we managed to get most of the way there before the roads were closed. We waited for the Papal convoy to pass, after lots of different security conveys there was the Pope in a white Fiat 500.

We were then able to walk up to Buda Castle, but parts of it were closed for the visit, still a beautiful view over the Danube river and the rest of the city.

We planned to walk over the chain bridge back to the Pest side of the river, but more building work meant it was closed to pedestrians, but still open to cars so we got another Bolt to the parliament building. A huge building. The square in front of it was being prepared for the Papal mass on Sunday, Nic spoke to one of the security Guard to ask how many seats there were? He didn’t answer that question, but did say they were expecting 1 million to be in the city for the Mass!! But not us as we are on a night train to Bucherest on Saturday night.

Saturday, we had a lovely breakfast at a cafe on the ground floor of the AirBnB building, then checked out, we took our bags to a luggage storage spot near the train station. Then walked across the city, everywhere we turned it looked like we had just missed the Pope again! We walked through the Jewish quarter to the Synagogue, the largest in Europe, being Saturday it was closed to visitors. We then walked to the covered market, another impressive building, where we bought ham and cheese for tomorrow’s lunch.

As we were again near the river, with time to kill before our night train, we did a river cruise to see all the sights from the water. Whilst cruising the boat was stopped from going under one of the bridges, until the Pope’s convoy had crossed over.

Dinner in a Hungarian restaurant, a bit touristy, but the food was surprisingly good. Excellent Goulash soup, Beef Stew and Chicken with Mushroom sauce, and they had very professional live music.

Then back to pick up the bags and do a bit of shopping for supplies for the train journey, our longest (time) yet, 15 1/2 hours. The train was a little delayed but no problem really. The main problem, thankfully not for us, was that one of the sleeper carriages was out of service, and they had attached a normal carriage instead, luckily our compartment was in the carriage behind.

Sunday, we arrived in Bucherest (Bucuresti) at 3pm after another time zone change, and a Bolt to our AirBnB, the Bolt was definitely a different experience compared with the new bright yellow Bolt taxis in Budapest. This one arrived and it was a battered old thing, but the 15 mins journey across the city cost 16 lei (£2.89) we might try the “comfort Bolt” next time, for £4!

The AirBnB is nicer than the last one, but was a little tricky to get into with automatic key entry, which is a little bit temperamental, but at least they warned us, so if you don’t succeed try and try again!

The neighbourhood looks a little colourful again, the building at the end of the road is falling down, but we’ll explore that tomorrow.

This week

Only 3 trains

1,181 Kms

In total

33 trains

6,635kms