Shulahoover
Traveller
1 comments
Posted 9 months ago
Hi
Can anyone point me in the right direction. I will be travelling from Croatia to Plovdiv ( October 23) and then onto Edirne so far so good. Just can't find a way to get to Istanbul from Edirne. Would prefer to travel by day.
Thank you
MisterSteve
Traveller
914 comments
This route holds the record as being the most difficult to arrange in Europe - and is also one of the most frequent questions on this forum.
To start, if you do not consider yourself to be an expert traveller you shouldn't consider it. Information even in Turkish is very poor.
Seat61 has a basic guide to the route but do not expect it to be 100% accurate for any day, especially one more than a 2 weeks away.
https://www.seat61.com/Turkey.htm#london-to-istanbul-via-bucharest
Even Bulgarian Railways, who operate the train on their side of the borde rcan given no guarantee of IF it will run, and the times are a lottery.
https://www.bdz.bg/en/a/sofia-istanbul-sofia
Turkish Railwasy give no info in any langauge other than Turkish and none at all for cross border travel, so they say there is only one train pe day from Edirne, at around 0820. If you are coming from Plovdiv you should be on the international train and not need to change at Edirne, assuming it actually runs on your day - if it doesn't you need a bus! The trains that do run do not go into Istanbul, they end at Halkali and you have to change to a suburban train there to get into the city.
Shulahoover
Traveller
1 comments
Thank you for your quick response. I have spent much of today trying to decipher the final part of the journey. I fancied stopping over in Edirne as it looks interesting. Well at least I have a few months to decide!