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Balkan Flexipass

 

1. "Other - Eurail pass"

Benita
(Melbourne, VIC)

Recommend: Recommend
Overall rating:

Value for money: 5/5
Ease of use: 5/5
Suitability: 5/5

After spending the last 6 months living in the UK I decided it was time for the next adventure. So, I got my rail pass, packed my life into my tiny backpack and away I went. My most interesting train experience was travelling on my eurail pass from Istanbul to Athens, arriving at the train station at some ungodly hour to spend the next 24 hours travelling (which I had done to get there without incident). So, I jumped on, had my tuna sandwich for dinner (I was on a budget) and relaxed to the slow trundle of the Turkish trains. After many hours of stopping and starting I realised that we had gotten so delayed that I missed my connection on the border back to Athens. This meant an 8 hour hold up in a border town, which I was actually just a shack with a couple of sandwiches and a turkish coffee machine, blah! I was stuck there with a two american men which where the odd couple at best (one 70, the other 40 and arguing like an old married couple), a few backpackers and the train attendant Starborough. At the end of the 8 hours and after eating numberous interesting looking sandwiches, long chats and warming ourselves by the potbellied stove our train finally arrived and we set off for our journey back to Athens. It was a lot of fun and and a trip I will never forget!

 

2. "Athens to Istanbul - economy ticket"

Sharon
(Mullumbimby, NSW)

Recommend: Recommend
Overall rating:

Value for money: 3/5
Ease of use: 3/5
Suitability: 5/5

Just buying the tickets was an experience in Athens, but finding 2 New Zealanders and another 2 Australians were trying to do the same trip helped and we managed despite the surly ticket seller to secure our tickets all the way to Istanbul. On boarding the train we discovered we were all booked in the same cabin in extremely cramped conditons, and not looking forward to the long 24 hour trip ahead of us. During the afternoon we got to know our travelling companions and lucky for us everyone had a great sense of humor and I have memories of lots of laugh's and to this day life long friends. Eventually one us explored the carriage to find we were the only ones on board so later in the night we were able to have a cabin to stretch out worried the Greek conductors were going to evict us, we tied stockings to the door to try to stop people coming in, as of course there were no locks. After an uneventful night we woke to find we were in the hands of the Turkish conductors who when we explained how we had been treated just trying to buy the tickets they wanted to make the experience of the trip so much nicer for us and I remember they made us turkish tea in the cabin and to this day I remember how wonderful it tasted even though we were all concered about hygiene, none of us suffered any ill effects. To this day I have made some great friends from the trip, and even though this was 13 years ago, still have many great memories of a fantastic experience, that could only have been from taking the train instead of flying.

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