Part 1 - Bucharest to Sighetu Marmatiei by Romanian overnight train.
Departure: 18:00 - Arrival 07:15 (+1), in reality about an hour later. Price: 35 EUR/4-berth cabin
Springtime hasn’t yet really come to my hometown of Bucharest. The already massive, dreary looking facade of Gara de Nord and the gloomy neighbourhood around it, looked even worse in this dark weather than it normally already does. Bucharest is a mixed bag full of lovely old architecture (it’s nicknamed the Paris of the East) and a lot of (communist) ugliness. While there are a lot of hidden delights and positive surprises, darkened days like this reminded me that the city still has a long way to go to compete with cities like Budapest to increase its tourist numbers.
I arrived at the station about half an hour before departure. I bought my ticket online (for about €30 on cfrcalatori.ro) in a 4-bed compartment for the overnight journey to Sighetu Marmației. Booking online is very straightforward, and you get a 5% discount. Unfortunately, while any OTA can book your airline ticket all the way to Tahiti, the railway sector isn’t that integrated at all, and CFR only sells domestic Romanian journeys online. At the concourse of Gara de Nord, I bought a couple of cold beers and some snacks for the journey (unfortunately there is no catering on Romanian domestic trains) and boarded my train.
My train to Sighet. It shows as two separate trains on route planners, but in reality it’s one through carriage and no need to get off the train in Beclean pe Someş.
To my surprise, my assigned berth was in a shared 2-persons compartment instead of the promised 4-bed coupé. Given the much older-looking carriage, it’s either just a late equipment swap, or perhaps in general this train service uses a much older rolling stock. After all, my destination of Sighetu Marmației, right on the Ukrainian border, is about as faraway you can get in Romania, both mentally and in sheer distance, as opposed to taking an overnight to urban hubs like Timişoara or Cluj. Nonetheless, sharing with only one person beats sharing with three, and the wooden corridor of the carriage had a lovely smell of the grand ol’ days of rail travel.
The bed was already made when I boarded the train, a tad early at just 18:00 in my opinion! My compartment mate was an older man from Maramureş (the northernmost, most traditional province of Romania where I would be heading). And the horror: he had an unmarked plastic bottle with a clear substance with him. Those knowing Eastern Europe probably knows where this story goes to, but for the uninitiated: a clear substance in an unmarked/coca cola bottle isn’t water, it’s homemade alcohol. The Hungarians call it Palinka, the Serbians Rakija, the Romanians Țuică. Basically, it’s a distillate from plums/grapes whatever else people have at their homes, and the good stuff is at least 50% proof. So instead of sipping two beers at a relaxed pace while crossing the Carpathian mountains to Braşov, one of the bigger intermediary stops, before I knew it I was sipping the hard stuff while talking to my new friend. At least it made sleeping a lot easier! The bed was soft and comfy enough for sure, only the temperature was way to high!
That’s no water, but something of at least 50% higher in alcohol...!
Crossing the Carpathian mountains in between Ploieşti and Braşov
Somehow, even with the alcohol and balmy temperatures I still managed to get a decent 3-4 hours of sleep. I woke up with the rolling hills of Maramureş out of my train window. It’s the biggest reason why I love old-fashioned rail transport. You go to sleep, but wake up in completely different surroundings. And while I do love my view from an airplane window, you get a better grasp of your destination from the train. Half an hour before arrival, the train seemed to stop every five minutes so local school kids from rural areas could board the attached 2nd class carriages on their way to Sighet to high school! A lovely sight in the morning, and the contrast between the active kids and me and my hangover couldn’t be bigger. Mercifully, the fresh air from an open window and the lovely foggy landscapes, soon made me fully awake. With about an hour delay (the average for Romania, no surprise here!), our train rolled into the train station of Sighetu Marmației.
