When we returned from our 10-day campervan trip across Western Europe last year, myself and the crew all shared 1 common thought – we’ve got to do this again! These sorts of adventures stay with you for life, so why not do as many of them as possible?

Of course it’s good to mix things up and try new destinations and pushing the geographical boundaries of our last trip and venturing into Eastern territory seemed like a logical suggestion.

Although life can be unpredictable, and subsequently we would be 2 members down compared to last time. I’m sure we’ll all convene in the future to undertake the road trip as planned – but for now it was just me and Ryan opting for a different sort of trip via the expansive European rail network and the almighty Interrail pass!

“And what is that exactly?” I hear you ask – for a “smallish” fee (£250 in our case) you get 10 days of free rail travel across nearly all European countries within a 3-month period. We were only away for 10 days, so that worked out perfectly. (You select your “travel days” when you need them within the give period)

It worked really well – simply select your required journey using the mobile app and choose from the available schedules and add it to your pass! No physical tickets required.

Some journeys (usually international ones) require seat reservations for a small fee but it’s almost always reasonable. We had to pay roughly £25 for a night train bed each but that was it throughout the whole trip.

We flew over to Prague on our first day, essentially picking up from the most easterly point we had travelled to last year (how poetic) and wandered around the old town markets before catching our first train to Bratislava via Vienna.

Having spent the previous night on the not-so comfortable floors of Stansted airport, sleep was very much needed. Add in a leaky aircon unit in the hostel and that would still be the case the next day as we began the lengthy journey to Brasov in Romania via Budapest.

I didn’t know what to expect on an Eastern European night train. Single rooms? Shared dorms with 10 other people? A proper bed or just a reclining seat? In the end we had a small room with a triple bunk for ourselves and a fellow traveller from Sweden in a very cosy room. Some cupboard space, a sink and a window. That’s what you get for being a cheapskate. “Premium” rooms had a double bunk and toilet included… oh – and power sockets. The peasants weren’t allowed such luxury.

If there’s space available then you can go and sit in a standard compartment if you don’t fancy lying down for 12 hours. Were we not regularly interrupted by the conductor asking to see passports and tickets – as well as Hungarian/Romanian border forces making a few appearances – then we may well have been blessed with a solid 10 hours of sleepy time. Oh well. We were free to rest by midnight and the train arrived at about 8am the next day.

Brasov lies in Central Romania and holds a very traditional feel to it. La Birou Bistro was our first stop and also the first sign that Eastern Europe would become a surprisingly amazing destination for food. Bran Castle (or “Dracula’s Castle”) lies just a few miles outside and was the next stop once we’d dropped off our bags at an air b&b (which are definitely worth considering over hostels if you’re travelling with someone and want to keep costs as low as possible). The 14th century fortress lies on top of a small hill, and in more recent times, has been used as a royal residence for Queen Maria of Romania and her family.

A short but interesting look around the castle and the numerous historical artifacts in its displays was followed by a walk around the town’s market stalls. If you ever need to stock up on a range of weapons from batons and blades to old style pistols – this might be good stop for you. More great food, and the most uncomfortable bus journey ever back to the city.

We wanted to take a cable car up to the top of Tâmpa mountain (Mount Tâmpa?) the next day – except it was a Monday. And the cable car is closed on Mondays. A shame as that would have offered some amazing views no doubt. So we settled with some further above-standard breakfast before another long train trip to Bucharest.

You’ll have plenty of opportunity to appreciate the stunning Eastern European countryside if you ever take such journeys, whilst concurrently wondering how such run-down looking train stations and other buildings can still be in use (and they are). It’s an interesting blend that I imagine stems to some extent from the area’s time under Soviet influence.

Despite being the most populous city in Eastern Europe, the capital of Romania still possessed that quieter vibe that I was beginning to expect from everywhere we went. It’s just strange when coming from the familiarity of London where you’re lucky to even get a standing spot on the tube or in the middle of Oxford Street. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though and it was nice to walk around at your own pace without rush-hour commuters barging past you everywhere. We took a walk around the city’s Old Town area which is where you’ll find the nightlife gatherings. Plenty of bars of every kind can be sought out, with our pick being the Linea/Closer to the Moon sky bar which provided a further dose of excellent food.

Tuesday’s destination was one of the few that had been planned from the start – Therme Spa and Waterpark just north of the city. Now I don’t want to sound too melodramatic here, but this place genuinely was amazing. That’s assuming you’d enjoy cheap drinks served from an in-pool bar, a variety of jacuzzies in the heated pool both inside and out, great food from an intercontinental restaurant, 6 different “themed” saunas – did I mention the slides as well?

We spent a solid 12 hours here for a pretty reasonable £30 (ish). That gives you access to all 3 areas (Spa, pools and slides) although you can opt for an even cheaper ticket if you don’t need everything. As I explain to the camera on the walk back at the end of the day – if you can get a cheap flight to Bucharest then I would go there solely for this!

A solid day of train-ing on Wednesday, taking us across to the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. This further reinforced our experience of the lower-end rail infrastructure that Eastern Europe had to offer; paper cut-outs in the window for travel information and lavatories that weren’t designed to go anywhere other than onto the tracks directly below. We did end the day on a high in a (traditional?) Bulgarian pub with live music and an absolute beast of a meal to share between us.

The Cyrillic alphabet used here did seem daunting at first (especially when you’ve never been anywhere that uses it) but you quickly work around it. There’s enough normal Latin/English embedded into the culture that it doesn’t become a problem.
Exploring Sofia itself would have to wait for a bit. Thursday’s plan involved a rental a car and a drive into the mountains in the search for Rila Monastery – a 10th century Eastern Orthodox monastery located in the valley of the Rilska river.

A sizeable complex with a main church building in the centre, you’ll find very colourful frescoes painted all around the walls and ceilings, radiating a similar feel you might find in the Sistine Chapel. Scriptures accompany the works, detailing stories that unfortunately I was unable to read in the native language. The interior of the main church carries an equal level of awe, with artworks and golden structures decorating the entire place. Religion in this part of the continent (east vs west) seems much more prominent to the local person – on public transport we would often see a noticeable number of people making the sign of the cross whenever we went past a church.

Many people entering the monastery were like us – just tourists – but there were also many coming to receive a blessing from the resident priests (are they called priests in Eastern Orthodox?) and pay their respects to a deceased person by kissing the coffin that was at one point opened up for display (an interesting sight indeed…)

The scenery was amazing, very much persuading me to return one day on a more out-of-the-city sort of trip. We were planning on also visiting the Seven Lakes which lie in the same area, however the remnants of winter stopped our poor little Chevrolet towards the top of the mountains.

Thursday evening’s activities lead us to an Irish karaoke pub in the middle of Sofia. As entertaining as it was, it did kill off Ryan for the majority of Friday so I was left to explore the city on my own.

It doesn’t feel like a huge place (as was becoming the theme by this point). Plenty of hop-on / hop-off public transport means you can do a loop of the city centre in half an hour or so. Vitosha Street is probably considered the heart of Sofia and has no shortage of cafes, restaurants and odd shops.

The gardens of the National Palace of Culture were very pretty so I stopped to take some obligatory snaps before heading out towards the Paradise shopping centre (I really don’t know why I like shopping centres so much, I never buy anything).

Ryan was just about alive when I returned, so we added another stop to the still-growing “amazing food venues” list in the form of Happy Bar & Grill before boarding the dreaded night bus that would take us back to Bucharest. If we were able to sleep on the bus, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad. The reality was that the temperature was set to about 70 degrees C and we had to endure the lengthy Romanian border crossing once more.

Fast forward a few hours (i.e. when we were able to sleep in the next air b&b) and we found ourselves in Herăstrău Park, a large green space in the northern section of the city that surround Lake Herăstrău. Hundreds of small market stalls aligned the central paths as we made our way through. Food and drink stall of all kinds and lots of art and crafts. I’m not sure if this was a special occasional thing for the Easter weekend at this point or a permanent setup, but it was nice to walk around either way.

Within the southern section you’ll find the Japanese Gardens, a haven of pink flora and mild Japanese architecture (then again, I haven’t been to Japan – so I don’t really know what that looks like). This is a wonderful, scenic spot to chill out in the warm weather which was gracefully starting to make an appearance towards the end of the trip.

Plenty of food stops can be found around the park, including a Hard Rock Café. It was nice to just sit around and relax by the lake with a very talented musician playing away on a keyboard nearby.

We spent our final evening around the Old Town, at this point challenging ourselves to find a food venue that would be ultimately disappointing for us. We failed of course, with another rooftop bar offering a further great experience to end the trip on a high.

This was one of those trips where we really didn’t know what to expect. Besides it being a new part of the world, (for me at least, I’d never visited any Eastern European countries…[That might be a lie – I guess Greece and the European side of Turkey technically count…]) we took it one spontaneous step at a time without much planning or thought as to where we’d end up.

Which is a great way to do it!