Storyline: Vidin to Ruse Bulgaria via Romania by train Jul – Aug, 2017
Getting off the train in Craiova I ventured to discover the toilets. It is always a good idea to have some local currency coins upon arrival in a new country as we’ve found that attempting to use a public convenience without the required change can be inconvenient or embarrassing. Being a planner, I had anticipated this one. We had asked around in Toronto and a colleague of Alex gave us a few lei (Romanian currency). It wasn’t much of anything but enough to avoid the inconvenience at our first stop in Romania, before we could secure some local currency. After checking in the hotel and exchanging some cash we went back to the train station to buy our tickets for the next day.
Before boarding the train for Sibiu, the next day, we took some photos at the station. We noticed some military tanks loaded on a freight train. Locals didn’t know what it was, but it brought me back in time, thinking of Russian tanks. No, these are not Russian, the locals would say. Perhaps American, perhaps some NATO operation. We figured we’d leave this to the journalists. We didn’t have the local language to talk to more people, just the one that understood a bit of English.
The Craiova train station was really nice and clean. Probably the best of all that we experienced on this trip. So were the toilets. This was probably the only public toilet where paying the 1 leu (about 30 cents Canadian) was justified. But there wasn’t much in terms of food or coffee at the station or nearby. Eh, there were two teeny-tiny booths, selling something resembling food. We got some heavy pastry from there for our longish trip. Nothing like a fast food or a café in the vicinity of the train station.
We tried to snap some photos from the train, but most were trash in the end. The windows were too dirty and although I wanted a shot from every station, we chatted away this opportunity. Talking to the locals was a better activity at that point. The scenery changed from vast, peaceful sunflower fields in the distance and rubbish by the trackside, through some industrial plants, to majestic views of the Carpathians mountains.
The railway headed east to Pielesti and then Bals stations. Shortly after we turned north towards the mountains, following the gorge of River Olt. We could now see why our friends told us not to drive long distance. There was no infrastructure, they told us. The narrow one-lane each way road could not take the summer traffic and often it was at a full stop. It would have taken us much longer to drive and it would have been a lot more stressful, not to mention the cost. Instead we were enjoying the scenery from our train, chatting with people and attempting some photos. We were glad we had our pastry for lunch, since there was no food service on board the train. In fact, not on this nor any other Romanian train as far as we could tell. It is definitely a “bring your own” experience.
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