Train to Romania: Goodbye Bulgaria...
Veliko Tarnovo and Gorna Oriyahovitsa
28.07.2015
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After last-minute cleaning and finishing off my packing, I somehow got all my stuff down all the steps (breaking the main handle of my massively heavy case in the process) and flagged down a taxi. The driver tried to rip me off, saying that it would be 15 leva for him to take me to the train station in Gorna Oriyahovitsa. I refused and just took a taxi from the usual place, outside Hotel Yantra, instead. It only came to about 8.50 and I gave him a 10 because he went faster for me when I said I had a train to catch.
Transporting my big broken-handled case and other bags down a large flight of steps and up another one was not easy, and nor was getting it all onto the train - the step up from the platform was much higher than in the UK. The train itself was quite different to ones in the UK; each carriage had four or five cabins, with a narrow corridor connecting them all on the left hand side. I had a cabin to myself, even after the ticket inspector came round and told me that I needed to move to a different carriage because the one I was currently in (not the one on my ticket, to be fair) was going to be disconnected at the Romanian border and sent to a different destination to the one I want (Bucharest)!
It was extremely hot and sticky on the train while I waited for it to depart. I started to read the book I had chosen specially for this journey - Paul Theroux's 'The Great Railway Bazaar'.
Goodbye Bulgaria...
Posted by 3Traveller 09:44 Archived in Bulgaria Tagged trains bulgaria veliko_tarnovo gorna_oriyahovitsa Comments (0)