Classic Oriënt Express 2009: Day 12

I recently found my old travel diary again and started reading it.  Seems that I made 2 very nice trips in the past, which I think may be very interesting for my blog.  Thus I decided to copy what I wrote about these train journeys through Europe on my blog.

This is the twelfth day of my Oriënt Express Journey.

It starts to become frustrating, but every time I have to leave a city, the weather gets better.  Although this morning Ruse was still hidden in a mysterious Danube fog, when I took the train later in the afternoon the sun was shining and the temperature was very enjoyable.

Today I made the big city tour of Ruse, with a detour via the National Transport Museum.  The Pantheon of Revivalists was my first stop on this tour.  This pantheon, with golden dome, was built in the park which used to be the burial ground for the Bulgarian revolutionary fighters and contains the new graves for these revolutionaries.  As so the legendary Baba Tonka Obretenova is resting here for eternity.  This mother of 6 is a very important historical person in Bulgaria.  Together with het family she smuggled weapons, mail and other equipment over the border, to support the revolutionary movement against Turkish occupation.

In the middle of the pantheon there is an eternal flame... which was not burning.  Apparently there's no more money for it since communism fell.  The pantheon itself has been built by the Communist Party in 1975-1978.  To build the pantheon, they demolished the orthodox All Saints church, which is now being rebuilt at the other side of the park.

After walking through the park, I arrived at the National Transport Museum.  The museum building itself is of huge historical importance, as it is the very first station in Bulgaria at the very first railroad in Bulgaria (Ruse-Varna) and it contains the very first locomotive of the Bulgarian Railways, built in 1866.

The station building is not in use as a station anymore and now contains this beautiful small transport museum.  It was founded in 1966 to celebrate 100 years of railways in Bulgaria.  Locomotive 148, built in Newcastle and delivered in 1866 was the very first locomotive that ran for the Bulgarian Railways, even the very first German coaches are still attached to this locomotive, which make this the very first train(consist) that ever ran in Bulgaria.

Next to it there was a diesel locomotive with old infrastructure cars of the Bulgarian Railways.  These cars were used to repair and measure the railroad infrastructure.  The most important possessions of the museum are the royal coaches.

The first royal coach rather looks like a horse carriage, in the middle it has an open terrace and at each end there was a compartment, one for sleeping, the other one for sitting.  In the sleeping compartment there was also a loo and wash basin.  This wagon was used for official transports and is called the 'saloon-coach' of Sultan Abdul Azis.  Most importantly: the coach was built in Brussels in 1866.

The next coach was the luxurious decorated coach of Tsar Boris III.  It contained a spacious saloon and a very well equipped kitchen.  The next coach was the coach of Tsar Boris' son, Ferdinand, and was divided into 3 parts: a saloon/reception area with clocks indicating the time in all European time zones, a small dining room and a spacious kitchen.

The last coach was the coach of marshal Tolbuhin.  Guests were welcomed in a cosy saloon and then brought to one of the 4 sleeping compartments, which all had a private toilet and wash basin in a separate room.  At the end of the coach there was a kitchen as well.  Across the railway next to the museum I saw 4 old, rusty steam locomotives waiting to be restored and placed in the museum garden as well.

Inside the museum there was a collection of small railway objects: the very first sundial of 1866 was on display and a scale model of how the area used to be in the days of the first railway activity showed how big the area around this tiny station used to be.  I saw that among other things the first workshops of the Bulgarian Railways used to be here.

In the next room the first uniforms of the Bulgarian Railways were on display together with some kepis.  There is also a small collection about the shipping history on the Danube, which I personally didn't find very interesting (and apparently nor did my guide).  I found that the most interesting part inside the museum was the original waiting hall, the desk of the 'chef de mouvement' and the office of the 'chef de gare'.  The original luggage depot was also to be seen and finally there was a huge model railway which depicts the original station area of Ruse.

For Bulgarian standards, it wasn't a cheap museum (8 euro), but it was really worth every cent!  Especially my female guide, who clearly has a huge passion for railways as well, made it worth the visit.  Her English wasn't very good, but she made that up with a very good knowledge of French.

I returned back to the city centre, passing the statues of Bulgarian revolutionary fighters such as Alyoshka, Stefan Karadzha and Baba Tonka.  I also passed the city museum, which I couldn't visit due to a lack of time.  Also the house-museum of Zahary Stoyanov had to be placed on my bucket list for my next visit.

The next sight I saw was the catholic St. Paul's church, which is one of the very few Roman Catholic churches in Bulgaria.  The house of Ivan Solarov was my next stop, but I quickly noticed that it was screaming for an urgent renovation, as part of it was sinking in the ground, so a visit was not possible at all.  The last sight I still wanted to visit was the Roman Sexaginta Priest castle, but it was closed today.  The last few buildings I saw were the Carrettis Business house and some beautiful buildings on Aleksandrovska street.  I ended my walk by signing the guest book as the very first tourist of the year at the tourist agency.

I picked up my luggage and carried it all the way across Borisova Boulevard to the station, while enjoying seeing the mighty TV-tower in raising in front of me.  I stopped at the middle of my walk to enjoy a last delicious Bulgarian grill-meal and then took the train to Bucharest and leave magnificent Ruse behind.  The train to Bucharest only had a declassified Bulgarian first-class coach, so I had a nice first class compartment all to myself while driving towards the bad weather over Romania.  With some luck, I will have good weather tomorrow in Budapest.

At Bucharest I had to wait for 2 hours for my connecting train to Budapest.  The Romanian railways actually have lots of modern trains: brand new Siemens Desiro's on diesel traction and lots of nicely renovated sleeper cars.  Bucharest station is also very interesting because lots of foreign trains come here, I saw Russian as well as Moldovan sleeper cars.  When I wanted to make a picture, security staff quickly told me not to do so, so I haven't got any photos of these trains.

And although photography and filming are not allowed, many gipsies came to me at the station trying to sell me video cameras (probably stolen, because they were packed in a dark garbage bag).  My train finally came to the platform and I had a spacious compartment (larger than the one on the Artésia) and everything was working fine (so no heating problems as in the night train from Venice to Belgrade).  But in fact I don't really care about this all, as long as the train drives smoothly and the bed is comfortable, the train may fall completely apart.  The eye wants something as well, but to me that's the first compromise I'm prepared to make as long as I sleep well.  But again: this wasn't an issue at all on board this very nice Romanian sleeper car.

Classic Oriënt Express 2009: Day 11

I recently found my old travel diary again and started reading it.  Seems that I made 2 very nice trips in the past, which I think may be very interesting for my blog.  Thus I decided to copy what I wrote about these train journeys through Europe on my blog.

This is the eleventh day of my Oriënt Express Journey.

The first stop on my way back home (following the Arlberg-Oriënt-Express route) was Ruse in the north of Bulgaristan (as the Turkish call Bulgaria).  After a long trip through breathtaking mountains and valleys of the Bulgarian inland, I arrived at 14h00 at what might have been the biggest surprise of my journey: the city Ruse.  I arrived here without high expectations, but my first impressions were so positive that I already regretted only staying there for one night.

After checking in at my hotel, I started looking for some food, the last meal I had was yesterday evening.  I found a nice small restaurant, where I had a delicious Shkembe Chorba (a soup with pieces of "the stomach of the son of a cow" - veal stomach), a salad, a double big chicken skewer with chips and 2 ice teas.  The restaurant was located on Svoboda Square, the main square of Ruse.  Nearby I found a tourist information office, where I got a city map and some brochures about the city.  In return for all this information they asked me to sign the guestbook, which I promised to do the next day after my visit.  I did take a look at what other tourists wrote... and apparently I was the first one to look at the guest book this year, as no one signed it (so I wondered, was I really the first tourist this year?).

At the tourist agency they strongly advised me to visit the historical museum, where there was currently a special exposition running on the history of the local area.  For only 2 euro I got a full guided tour of the museum (probably because I was the first tourist of the year).  I learned that in this region humans hunted mammoths en that they also made and used boomerangs in the prehistoric era (they even claimed that they invented the boomerang before the Aussies did).

Next part of the museum was all about Roman times.  The Romans reigned over this area while there was a war for independence going on with the local Bulgarian tribes (then still called Thracians).  In the permanent collection there were lots of memorabilia of the Bulgarian Navy, which was founded in Ruse.  More recent in this history Belgium sold a ship to Bulgaria and so there was a document signed by the Belgian minister of Defence, André Flahaut, and his Bulgarian counterpart.

In the last part of the museum that I saw, I got to see lots of music instruments as to clarify the band between the city of Ruse and classical music.

After visiting the museum I continued on my tour of the city.  I saw the orthodox Holy Trinity-church, the beautiful operahouse, the modernist city hall, the Girdap-bank (which was the very first bank in Bulgaria), the palace of justice, the profit-yielding building (with shops, casino, library, art gallery and theatre 'for the community') and the Hristo Botev school.  I ended at the Lyuben Karavelov regional library, close to the historical museum, where my city walk started.  I finally went on to the Semisov-house and ended the day with an evening walk on the Danube bank.

Ruse is a city which surprised me in a very pleasant way, on every street corner there is a building which could be a monument and the main shopping street, Aleksandrovska Street (which is almost completely car-free), is the center of cosiness in Ruse.

Classic Oriënt Express 2009: Day 10

I recently found my old travel diary again and started reading it.  Seems that I made 2 very nice trips in the past, which I think may be very interesting for my blog.  Thus I decided to copy what I wrote about these train journeys through Europe on my blog.

This is the tenth day of my Oriënt Express Journey.

This morning was the last time I would wake up in Istanbul.  After breakfast and check-out, I left my luggage in a locker at the station.  The railway museum at Sirkeci station was open today, so I decided to pay it a visit and see the collection.  Many items referred to the Oriënt Express history, but there were also other "daily railway" items, such as detonators, destination indicators, uniforms, hats, bells, clocks, warning signs, ...  It was worth my time!

I left the station and took the fast tram to the city walls.  A nice park surrounded them, so I had a very enjoyable walk there, especially because the weather was fairly good today.  As soon as my batteries were charged during this walk, I boarded a tram back to the city centre, to visit the Dolmabahçe-palace.  I walked around it, took another boat-bus to the Asian side, as I absolutely wanted to send my postcards from Asia.  It also gave me the chance to look at the beautiful white Dolmabahçe-palace from the water.

On the boat I took the time to write and stamp my postcards, I quickly found a postbox near to the boat-bus-pier (on the Asian side of course) and returned back to Europe by boat, enjoying the sunset in Istanbul.  To finish my last day in Istanbul, I went into the Yeni Cami mosque for a quick visit and then continued to Sirkeci-station, where I arrived just in time to see the night train to Thessaloniki depart and board my luxurious sleeper car from the Romanian railways to Ruse (in Bulgaria).

Without exaggerating, this really is the best sleeper car up until now, a wide bed, a real duvet (not a plain blanket), a double cup holder, air-conditioning, ... really worth the money!

Classic Oriënt Express 2009: Day 9

I recently found my old travel diary again and started reading it.  Seems that I made 2 very nice trips in the past, which I think may be very interesting for my blog.  Thus I decided to copy what I wrote about these train journeys through Europe on my blog.

This is the ninth day of my Oriënt Express Journey.

I just realised today that yesterday I completed one of my big dreams: following the "Venice-Simplon-Oriënt-Express"-route from Paris to Istanbul.  As I am finding myself at an end of Europe, it's time to cross the border to Asia.  Before sailing over the Bosporus, I still had some sights to visit on the European side of Istanbul.  Yesterday I saw the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofia from the outside, but inside they were still a big mystery to me.  Thanks to the fact I got out of bed early today, the huge patio in front of the Blue Mosque was still empty.  As I entered the building, I got really impressed by it: a huge red carpet was covering the entire floor (and it was very clean, as wearing shoes was prohibited and everybody was carrying their shoes in a plastic bag) and the beauty of the mosaics attached to walls and ceilings disappeared to the comparison of the magnificent stained glass windows.

After my visit to the Blue Mosque, I visited that other mosque-like building across the square: the Aya Sofia, which today is a museum.  Before it used to be an orthodox church and later a mosque.  Iconography of Christian saints go together with Islamic holy words.  The most beautiful part were the chambers on the first floor, from where I had a spectacular view on the interior of the Aya Sofia.

When I left the Aya Sofia, I went underground across the street and visited Yerebatan Sarnici.  It was nothing more than a huge underground arched room, but that is exactly what made it so special.  Imagining how they once constructed this room in the old days, I passed the Medussa columns and the endless beautiful colonnades.

After my moist visit to Yerebatan, it got time to cross the real water to the Asian side of Istanbul.  On the Asian side, I found that there weren't too many sights as on the European side, because it is newer and it contains mostly living quarters.  Nevertheless, I was happy seeing the 'gate' to a further voyage: Haydarpasa-station.  It won't be a starting point for a long time any more, as the TCDD (Turkish railways) are currently building a tunnel connecting both city sides on the bottom of the Bosporus.

From Haydarpasa station I walked to Kiz Kulesi, passing the old port.  Kiz Kulesi is a small island with a tower on it near the coast of Asian Istanbul.  It is here that part of the James Bond movie "The World Is Not Enough" has been filmed.

My walk continued past mosques, houses and apartments, not what a tourist like me was looking for. So I decided to cross over to Europe again on a boats.  I noticed on the boat that homosexuality wasn't a very big taboo anymore in Istanbul, because a cute young Turkish gay couple was sitting arm in arm on a bench (it might perhaps also have just been the way Turkish guys deal with each other).

Once I arrived back in Europe, I went to the palace gardens, and to get there, I had to pass the train-port.  It was very interesting to see how they put trains on ships.  In the gardens I saw lots of wild cats, none of which were shy.  While sitting on a bench they all paraded proud in front of me showing their tails.

After spending an hour with the cats, I continued to the bazaar.  I made a small walk, but I quickly got annoyed by the pushy salesmen.  I left the bazaar and had a nice döner for dinner.  When I finished my quick dinner, I went to the Kücük Aya Sofia (the small Aya Sofia).  This small mosque (which also used to be an orthodox church) was model to it's bigger sister.  I strolled around a bit in the area and ended up in an other bazaar.  At this bazaar, prices were clearly indicated and there were less tourists walking around.  I actually enjoyed walking here and bought gifts for the folks back home and some turkish delight.  At this bazaar there were also lots of spices on sale, which made it much more colourful than the tourist trap I visited earlier today.

To finish my day, I made a walk on Kennedy Caddesi, next to the water, having a spectacular view on the lights of the Asian side.  At that moment, I regretted that I already had to leave Istanbul the next day and wouldn't be able to see all of this again.

Classic Oriënt Express 2009: Day 8

I recently found my old travel diary again and started reading it.  Seems that I made 2 very nice trips in the past, which I think may be very interesting for my blog.  Thus I decided to copy what I wrote about these train journeys through Europe on my blog.

This is the eighth day of my Oriënt Express Journey.

This morning our train arrived very punctual at Istanbul Sirkeci Station, though we expected otherwise.  The train trip was very exhausting.  Together with my Slovenian compartment-mate and a British traveler of the compartment next door, we have been playing cards all night long.  As we would pass the border a bit after midnight, we decided to stay up and play cards until we would be in Turkey.  Though the Brit and I preferred to catch some sleep before the border (as the night would be very short if we stayed up until the border), the Slovenian convinced us to stay up, by saying that the train would have at least 2h delay upon arrival in Istanbul.  A quick calculation thought us that with this delay we would have enough time to sleep after crossing the border.  So back to our card game until we got to the border.  At the border everybody had to get off the train for passport control and to buy a visa.  The queue disappeared quite fast and our train was able to leave on time at the border and the next morning we were on time in Istanbul.

My first impression of Istanbul was amazing.  I guess the train is the best way to enter the city.  Before the train arrives at Sirkeci station, it drives all around the old city.  At one side of the train you see the sea, and on the other side you see the old city.  The Sirkeci-station is placed right in the back garden of the Topkapi-palace.  Very impressive!

After arrival I went to my hotel to drop off my luggage.  My room wasn't ready yet though.  I started to make a walk over Kennedy Cadessi (next to the seaside), bringing me back to Sirkeci station.  I walked through the Topkapi-palace gardens, where the flowers were blooming and wild cats were entertaining the people in the park.  I noticed that there are lots of wild cats roaming the streets of Istanbul and it made me miss my cats back home.

I started my visit of the Topkapi-palace and saw several treasuries as well as the scary circumcision room.  From the inner gardens of the palace I had a very nice view over the Bosporus and at the Asian side of the city.  Inside the palace building I noticed that the ceilings were very beautifully painted and that the walls had very nice tiles.  Before leaving the palace, I visited the temporary exhibition on Sultan Selimhan III.

I didn't realise it, but I spent several hours in the amazing palace and the time to check-in at the hotel had already passed.  I made my way to the hotel, which luckily was near to the palace.  My room was ok, but not very luxurious and my 'private' bathroom was in the hallway (though I had a key to lock it, so it was really private).  I put my luggage in the room and tried the television, which was out of order.  No problem, as I wasn't here to watch television.  I returned to Sultanahmet (the old city) and walked around the Aya Sofia.  I couldn't enter though as it was closed today.  I also walked around the blue mosque and passed the 2 obelisks.  All of these I would visit tomorrow, when the Aya Sofia would be open as well.  I walked on to the Galata-bridge, where I saw a lot of fishermen fishing.  After crossing the bridge I got to "Tünel", which is one of the very first metro-like public transport systems in the world.  When I got to the other terminus of Tünel, at Iskiklal Cadessi, I walked past all the shops.  In this street I saw that there was still a very old vintage tram running to Taksim square in the modern part of the city.

Near Taksim square I visited the Aya Triada orthodox church.  Istanbul has seen many religions in its history.  I then went back towards the Galata bridge, passing the Galata tower.  In Eminönü (at the other side of the Galata bridge) I ate a very delicious fish sandwich.  This made me feel very hungry and I quickly found a restaurant which served me an exquisite bream with Turkish salad and baklava for dessert.  When I got the bill I almost fainted, luckily the food was really good.

After my overpriced diner I got lost in the big bazar, or rather big maze, where vendors tried to sell me all sorts of things, sometimes in a very aggressive manner.  By the time I found the exit of the bazar it was time to go to bed and catch some sleep for another busy day in Istanbul.

Classic Oriënt Express 2009: Days 4, 5, 6 & 7

I recently found my old travel diary again and started reading it.  Seems that I made 2 very nice trips in the past, which I think may be very interesting for my blog.  Thus I decided to copy what I wrote about these train journeys through Europe on my blog.

These are the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh day of my Oriënt Express Journey.

Day 4:
This morning I arrived in Sofia with a delay of only one hour, which is rather punctual for the Serbian Railways.  Upon arrival at the station, I immediately bought my reservation for the night train to Istanbul in a few days.  When I got to my stepmom Aleksandra (Sasha), she was quite angry as due to a miscommunication she was very worried about my well-being.  She expected me to arrive yesterday. Since my phone was switched off, nobody was able to contact me.

I've already been many times to Sofia, so I'll use my time here to relax a bit.  Today in fact I haven't done anything big, except for a walk through the shopping streets and a visit to a brand new shopping mall.  After that I had a very nice bowl of salad at Ugo and I bought some fresh baklava for everybody "home" (that is home in Sofia), in the hope sweets would soothe the mood.

Day 5:
Another day of shopping, but this time at the infamous Ilyantsi Bazar.  When I tried to login to my internet banking account this morning, my connection was refused, so I couldn't check how much money I could spend today.  So instead of buying lots of stuff, I only bought 1 sweater, which was 17 leva (or 8,5 euro).  Sasha, of course, bought plenty of stuff for her.

After our shopping morning, we were invited to have coffee at her parents place.  We had such a great time there, that it was already dark when we left.  Thus ending the 5th day of my journey.

Day 6:
Today we went to a furniture exposition at NDK, the national Bulgarian culture palace.  There wasn't really much to see there, but on the 3 lower floors of the building there was a travel exposition going on at the same time.  At this exposition I found plenty of brochures about the cities which I'm still going to visit on this trip.

After our visit to the NDK, we walked on to Vitosha Boulevard to do some more... shopping!  Next to the boulevard there were plenty of small stands selling martinitsi.  These are small puppets made out of white and red wool, which announce the coming of springtime.  Finally we took the trolleybus back home.

Day 7:
It's the 1st of March in Bulgaria, so it's the Baba Marta holiday.  This holiday celebrates the start of the spring.  Everybody gives martinitsi to each other, these are the small puppets which I saw yesterday on Vitosha Boulevard as well as red-white friendship bracelets.  While giving them to each other, you wish the other person all the best and a good health.

In honour of this holiday, we were invited at Sasha's place to have a typical Baba Marta-meal, which was chicken and banitsa.  Banitsa is a salty puff pastry with white cheese.  Coincidence or not, but today it really got warmer and by the evening almost all of the snow melted.  Just a pity that right at this time I had to leave Sofia again, to take my night train to Istanbul.

I shared my compartment on the night train with a Slovenian exchange student, who studied in Istanbul.  The evening started with a very interesting conversation about the Turkish people and Istanbul.  Tomorrow morning I'll be waking up in Istanbul, where only the sea will divide me from Asia in this bi-continental city.

Classic Oriënt Express 2009: Day 3

I recently found my old travel diary again and started reading it.  Seems that I made 2 very nice trips in the past, which I think may be very interesting for my blog.  Thus I decided to copy what I wrote about these train journeys through Europe on my blog.

This is the third day of my Oriënt Express Journey.

Last night my colleague of the Slovenian railways woke me up in the middle of the night to pay a supplement of 8 euro, without even trying to explain me why.  He gave me a receipt after payment, so I guess I'll check it out when I get back home.  The night on the train started out very cold, as the heating of the Serbian sleeper coach was not working.  As these coaches resemble the old Belgian international coaches a lot, I offered my help to the steward to try to get it all up and running again.  He opened the technical cupboard and let me push some buttons... and tadah, the heating was up and running again.  By the time I woke up the next morning, it was very cold again in the coach and the steward explained me that the heating failed again after crossing the border.  I guess it had something to do with changing the power cars at the border station, but I didn't offer my help anymore to get it up and running again.  Thus when the train got to Vinkovci, I decided to warm up a bit in one of the Croatian sitting coaches.  At noon the train finally arrived in Belgrade, with a delay of only 10 minutes.

As my last meal was my pasta in Venice, I was really hungry and started looking for a suitable restaurant to fill my empty stomach.  Despite my hunger, I was very picky, maybe even too picky, while searching for a restaurant.  It took me 2 hours before I was sitting at a table.  I entered this typical Serbian 'restoran', which looked like it came right out of Tito's days.  I ordered some soup, a nice coleslaw, cevapcici (of course) and some chips on the side.  The fresh home-made bread they gave with the food was so delicious that I ate 2 full baskets of it.  I drank 2 Cokes with my dinner, to be sure to have some sugar in my body and all of this only costed me 12 euros.

After my delicious meal (though I was a bit bothered by the people smoking in the restaurant - there was no law against smoking in restaurants in Serbia yet), I started my visit of the city in the Bohemian quarter 'Skadarlja'.  I then continued to the Kalemegdan-fortress, where I had a beautiful view on the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers.  Downhill I visited a very nice orthodox cathedral and passed by the Konak of princess Ljubica.  Near to that place the shopping street starts, which brought me to the houses of parliament and the Saint Marcochurch.  The most beautiful sight, though, was kept to the end for me, which was the Holy Savabasilica, which is apparently still under construction.

On my way back to the station, I passed the main offices of the Serbian Railways, which is a totally different and more beautiful building compared to the main offices of the Belgian Railways.  The night train which was going to bring me to Sofia in Bulgaria, was almost empty.  In my entire coach there was nobody at all (except me of course).

Classic Oriënt Express 2009: Day 2

I recently found my old travel diary again and started reading it.  Seems that I made 2 very nice trips in the past, which I think may be very interesting for my blog.  Thus I decided to copy what I wrote about these train journeys through Europe on my blog.

This is the second day of my Oriënt Express Journey.

They say that Venice is a really beautiful city, but when I arrived there this morning, I rather felt disappointment.  Especially when I crossed the Rialto bridge and walked over the heads of all the tourists on the Piazza San Marco, I was even happy that I would leave this city in the evening.

From Piazza San Marco I continued eastbound and noticed less and less tourists.  As I was advancing further east, my initial disappointment was making room for amazement.  When I started walking through the small Venetian streets and alleys, crossing bridges over canals, I saw how truly beautiful this city is and I got the famous Venice-effect.  Somewhere in these streets, I met the handsome Brazilian Ricardo, with whom I spent the rest of the day.

He knew quite a lot about Venice and told me that it currently was Venetian Carnival and that was the reason why it was so busy in downtown Venice.  Together we crossed the Canal Grande on a ferry-gondola, which only costed us 0,50 euro.  On the other river bank we visited the Basilica Santa Maria della Salute and then continued our walk through alleys, crossing bridges over the canals, arriving in hidden squares, until we got to a boat-busstop.  The boat-bus took us back over the Canal Grande to the Jewish quarter.  We passed the synagoge and sat down at a place where we could see the sunset over the sea.

When the sun had well disappeared, we started to feel a little peckish and went on for dinner.  I ate a nice portion of Tortellini with cream and ham.  The food gave me the necessary energy to walk through all the busy squares full of people celebrating carnival to get to the station, where Ricardo and I had to say goodbye, as I was going to board the EuroNight "Venezia" to Belgrade and Ricardo was taking a sleeper service to Rome.  That's how this very special day in Venice ended.

Classic Oriënt Express 2009: Day 1

I recently found my old travel diary again and started reading it.  Seems that I made 2 very nice trips in the past, which I think may be very interesting for my blog.  Thus I decided to copy what I wrote about these train journeys through Europe on my blog.

This is the first day of my Oriënt Express Journey.

I left Antwerp early in the morning on a Thalys high speed service to Paris North Station.  I was feeling very welcome upon entering the train and immediately was offered a welcome drink and a chocolate bar.  I choose a Coke Light as well as a Mars Delight.  The train manager had a list of reservations and used it to check the tickets of the passengers who boarded in Antwerp, as this train was already coming from Amsterdam.  As I was traveling in first class, I had wifi-access included in my ticket.  The password I needed, was conveniently stamped on my ticket.

Upon arrival in Paris, I immediately went to Gare de Bercy to leave my luggage behind as my train in the evening would depart from there.  When I got to Bercy station, there were apparently no lockers.  A member of staff advised me to go to the nearby Gare de Lyon, where lockers were available.  I crossed the street to Gare de Lyon, just to find out that the staff at the lockers was on strike.  So I headed back to Gare du Nord and left my luggage there.  Luckily staff at Gare du Nord was not on strike.

Leaving my 10kg of luggage behind, I moved on to the Louvre.  I looked at some of the main sights, such as the Venus of Milo and the extraordinary Egyptian collection.  The French can be very proud of their beautiful and huge collection at the Louvre, just a pity that much of it is "stolen", as there was almost no French art, but a lot of stuff came from other regions in the world.  I passed at some Iranian artefacts, followed by French paintings and ending at the Flemish art, where I saw some very beautiful paintings by Rubens.  After seeing all that, I didn't want to miss out the main sight, which is the Mona Lisa, or rather, the tourists around the Mona Lisa.  The painting itself is just small and doesn't really appeal to me.

I left the Louvre and passed the Musée d'Orsay, though it was very difficult resisting my will to go inside.  I strolled through the small alleys at the Saint Germain des Prés quarter and after walking there for about one and a half hour, it got time to go back to the Gare du Nord to pick up my luggage and head back to Gare de Bercy to travel onwards to Venice on the EuroNight Artésia Stendhal.  This train was consisted of old renovated Italian sleeper coaches and marked the start of my journey on the original route of the Venice-Simplon Oriënt Express.