This is our last journey east before we start working our way home.
The day started quite early as we woke up to have a coffee with my friend before she went to work, then took Mr Friend and baby out for breakfast near the national bank building. He then kindly deposited us at the station.
When I was planning this trip, I made a conscious effort to get as far as possible on the travel days of our seven-day pass, and then back again. Originally, I considered staying on the train from Zürich to Belgrade – if you board a train before midnight you only need to use one travel day for as long as you remain on it, and at Zagreb the train converts into a normal train with seats – and then on to Sofia. Then, it was intended that we’d go on to Oradea via Bucharest, probably on the sleeper, so we could look at mountains.
When I checked the route it seemed that there are currently no trains between Serbia and Romania, and that the tunnel – from memory – between Niš and Dimitrovgrad is closed for repair which means taking a replacement bus service, and that the Belgrade-Budapest line is also closed for upgrades, which essentially turned any journey in that part of the world into a monumental faff. So, that didn’t happen.
Another time.
We weren’t sure at first if we were going to make the journey from Oradea to Cluj-Napoca, but it seemed somewhat churlish not to take an opportunity to visit the capital of Transylvania given its proximity and the price of the one-way ticket, which is about 12€ in first. And I’m so glad we did; the journey did not disappoint.
Ours was the 13:32 IR 367 from Budapest to Braṣov which left Oradea about ten minutes late, but made up a little time on the way. Somehow.
The route is approximately 150km and takes two hours and thirty-six minutes; the few times I looked at the GPS on my phone, we were travelling at roughly 64kph. Lorries were overtaking us on the road that runs parallel, but really this was not a problem because we had plenty to look at. You can get from Bordeaux to Paris in that time, but at 380kph the trip is a much more utilitarian affair.
The train follows the Criṣul Repede and the main highway between the two cities and at times you feel as if you’re taking a train through someone’s garden. When you look out of a TGV you often see wire fencing alongside the track, presumably to keep either depressed wildlife or citizens from hurling themselves to their doom, but there’s no such nanny-stating here. In a couple of places, people looked up from tending their cows or, in fact, quite literally sitting in their back gardens, to wish us well and wave us on our way.
Or perhaps they were chastising us for ruining the tranquility of a 37°C afternoon with our fabulous diesel locomotive and/or scaring their livestock, as our driver seemed to have discovered the button that sounds the horn and tootled it with abandon. However, given the rustic nature of some of the level crossings – some little more than a stop sign between two fields – it is possible this was more necessity than announcing “I’m driving a train” like a ten-year-old living the dream.
What is certain though, is that at every station we passed through, there was a man standing in CFR Calatori uniform waving us through. One had flags. It was tremendous.
I am surprised by the number of long-distance trains around here that don’t have any form of catering – so heaven help you if you turn up with nothing to drink, particularly on a day like today! We had water, but only sufficient quantities to keep us from dying as we are now laden down with what must be near-criminal quantities of Pálenka given to us by our hosts. I am assured that it’s good for a bad stomach; I think it’s nuked anything that was giving me gyp.
We are in Cluj-Napoca until Friday. The Airbnb is splendid, and just round the corner from a Carrefour, which is not.
