Athens to Budapest

Flo
Traveller
10724 comments

Hi and welcome to railcc!

The 2019 schedule for Serbian Railways SV has not been released yet; however it is already known that the Belgrade - Skopje - Gevgelija - Thessaloniki night train will only operate during the summer season (approx mid June to mid September) although it is not clear whether the train will run all the way to Thessaloniki or if there will be a replacement bus operating between Gevgelija and Thessaloniki.
The much bigger problem is that the line between Subotica and Novi Sad will be completely closed from February 1 2019 onwards until further notice and there will be no trains Belgrade - Budapest at least in 2019. There is not much more information available regarding alternative forms of transport (replacement bus?) yet but as soon as I have more information I will update the blog post: [ux]https://rail.cc/blog/budapest-belgrade-train/[/ux]

Flo

FelixJ
Traveller
3 comments

Well damn, that scuppers some Interrail plans. Are there any alternatives for heading northwards from Greece to anywhere? I was particularly hoping for a night train/s.

Thanks!

Felix

Flo
Traveller
10724 comments

Not really...the night train (Thessaloniki -) Gevgelija - Belgrade certainly is your best option to make to Belgrade. This train should run during the summer months as I have mentioned before. How to continue from there...I dont know yet. Of course you can go to Zagreb, then to Budapest but that requires at least an additional overnight stop in Zagreb.

Going via Thessaloniki - Sofia would also be an option but then you are kind of stuck. Going from Sofia via Nis to Belgrade doesnt help you; so you would have to go to Vidin to cross the Danube to get to Calafat in Romania and onwards to Craoiva - Timisoara - Budapest.

There are quite a few secondary lines which would allow you to travel more or less by train only but all of these are not really straightforward and would require at least one, if not two additional travel days.
However, these are all quite interesting as you would travel off the "beaten path".

FelixJ
Traveller
3 comments

I do have plenty of travel days left over, but it may be more economic (due to layover costs) to fly :(

FelixJ
Traveller
3 comments

Do you know if there is more news on this?

Thanks,

Felix

Flo
Traveller
10724 comments

Hi Felix,

well kind of: the Thessaloniki - Belgrade night train will run during the summer months from June 15 to September 16.
There are no trains between Belgrade and Novi Sad but it is easy to cover this part by bus.
From Novi Sad there will be one daily connection to Budapest, leaving Novi Sad at 1057, change at Kelebia, then onwards to Budapest where you arrive at 1804.
I have updated the German blog at [ux]https://rail.cc/blog/de/budapest-belgrad-zug/[/ux] but interestingly forgot to do the same at the English version...(or it didnt save my changes, I dont know).

Flo