anonymous
Traveller
2469 comments
Posted 10 years ago
Hello, i am looking to take the trip i stated in the subject. My plan is to fly from Munich to Istanbul and then make my way back in the space of 9 days. I have never done a trip like this before so i am looking for tips and the best possible way to do this. I want to spend 2/3 days in each location. The main places being Istanbul and Budapest to really explore these cities, however any recommendations for somewhere to visit in Bulgaria whilst travelling would be great, i have just read about Varna so maybe it would be nice to use the chance to visit the coast or would people recommend maybe travelling to Bucharest in Romania instead.
Any recommendations or links would be really helpful and does this seem like an achievable route in 9 days
Thanks
Jordan
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Hi Jordan!
If you want to travel by train only, I would recommend to travel the following route:
Istanbul - night train to Sofia - night train to Belgrade - day train to Budapest; for all these trips buy the tickets locally at the stations.
From Budapest to Munich/Nuremberg have a look at the Europa Spezial tickets of Deutsche Bahn which you can book online through our partner link at [ux]https://rail.shop/bahn[/ux]
On the way from Istanbul to Sofia you might want to visit Plovdiv which is a really nice city, more charming than Sofia in my opinion.
An alternative route would be to take the night train from Istabul to Bucharest, then take either a direct train to Budapest or go to Brasov first and then to Budapest. Beware that there is currently bus replacement on this route in Bulgaria.
I have described this route in the blog:
[u]https://rail.cc/blog/bucharest-sofia-istanbul-train/[/u]
[u]https://rail.cc/blog/to-istanbul-by-train-part-2/[/u]
If you want to go to the Black Sea coast (Burgas/Varna) you can either take the night train to Bucharest and get off at Stara Zagora to get a train to Burgas or at Gorna Orjahovitsa for a train to Varna; it might be more comfortable though to just get a direct bus from Istanbul.
The route is definitely possible; personally I would prefer to go via Plovdiv - Belgrade but that's of course up to you. ;)
Flo 8)