Balkan Trains: Key learning: Take the Inter-city (IC) trains, and get into the first class car. It is still very difficult to climb up into the car, but once on board the seats are quite comfortable, and there is space to stow your luggage.

The washrooms are bad, but so it goes.

Wrote here on a crisp blue sky fall morning, trundling across farmed valleys and through wooded hills. Romania might be a bit down at the heels, but this is a pretty country. The villages we pass look interesting and it seems to me that a wander around road trip through the Balkans could be a pleasure.

Arad

Earlier I had changed my plans and shortened my stay in Arad, based on it being described to me as a “little county town”. But it was as interesting as anyplace I visited it Romania. You can guess its history: captured and belonged to everybody over the centuries.

Pictures around town.

 

What I liked best about Arad is that it is a living working city. Bustling in fact. And therefore plenty to see.  Sibiu as a contrasting example had a great old town, but after seeing it in one day not much else going on.   Arad street scenes:

 

 

Part of my stop here was to figure out how to cross into Hungary. The people at the ticket booth at the train station had never heard of the train I had researched for my plan and wanted to put me on an overnight trip with train changes.

However capable travel agent Cristina

 

Piggybacked me into a car taking two travelers to the Budapest Airport who dropped me in Szeged. Which proved to be a very easy trip on a brand new motorway. Across farmland as flat as Illinois.

 

 

I can truthfully say that I enjoyed this visit to Romania. And I do not always say that leaving a country.  Everyone I met was friendly, helpful and kind.  It is an interesting country and perhaps I can see more of it one day.

Hats off for the food and wine.

Some bonus photos around Arad.