Heather's travel notes: June 9 leaving Istanbul and moving on

A skyline we will miss

A farewell dinner looking out to the beautiful Saint Sophia

We left Istanbul like you should leave the dinner table - wanting just a little more!

We spent a rather bittersweet last day in hypnotic Istanbul and wrapped it up with drinks and dinner on the hotel's rooftop watching the gold on the Blue Mosque flare in the last slanting rays. Sipping a last shot of Raki we watched as the sky become a deeper blue, subtle colours became more vivid and sounds sharpen in the cooling air. Big sigh!

Then we were taxied off to the Sirkeci train station to catch a shuttlebus out to Halkali station from where the overnight train departed for Bucharest. We were well cared for by our Turkish conductor - in fact there was only us and one other person in our carriage, again! He supplied us with biscuits, boxes of cherry juice and water and settled us for a few hours telling us that we’d have to get off the train at the Turkish-Bulgarian Border sometime after midnight. Ugh in fact double ugh!! Balmy as the night may have been, 1:30am is not the time to stand around passport control! And sacre bleu ... not long after we’d got back to sleep, Bulgarian police got on the train checking passports and couchettes carefully - there is a real problem with refugees and people smuggling. Everything was as it should be so we fell back in to an uneasy sleep. Take home message - if you’re going to travel be prepared to endure often lengthy border and passport control etc - whether you're flying or training or ...

I was dragged into wakefulness in full daylight by the sound of ‘things’ scraping the side of the carriage. We were going through a long narrow cutting with trees and bushes overhanging the tracks.

The scenery as we barrelled along was gorgeous - lush green woods, densely forested mountains and valleys, thick vines and shrubs, herbs and wildflowers - white, purple, yellow, vivid red poppies, blue daisies. Plunging into tunnels and exploding out into steep valleys dotted with tiny hamlets balanced along fast flowing streams. Out on the flat, wheatfields were ready for harvest and fat sheep were grazing with shepherd and dog on dozy alert.

Stopping from time to time at small, almost-deserted stations, bike riders unloading from the train probably to tackle the hills - Tour de Bulgaria. Through tunnels and ravines dripping water, flashes of whitewater glimpsed between trees, rushing through little villages. Lining our track were masses of trees many hard to identify - spruce on higher slopes, beech, walnut, chestnut, birch, willow, sycamore, wild cherry, plum and apple and other bright fruit-bearing trees. Blackberry bushes here and there and the occasional fig tree loaded with green fruit.

A wonderful journey with desolate patches here and there - abandoned buildings and factories, leftovers from the Soviet period no doubt.

We breakfasted on things we’d bought in Istanbul - ‘rye’ bread, cheese, pressed beef (our shopping expedition was a ‘what is it? looks OK’ kind of thing. It was yum!). Supplemented with walnuts, peaches and cherries.

Once over the mountains, the valleys were lush with sunflowers, wheat, cow parsley, corn, purple thistle, delicate pink wild hollyhocks - it was rather charming and tra la la .... Closer to Bucharest, all of a sudden we saw oil wells scattered across the fields pumping away. Hundreds of them - what a surprise! What an entree to Romania .....