Tag: sleeper train

Roman-ia!

Published on 22 October 2025

A new day, a new country! It’s absurd I hadn’t been to Romania yet, considering you can’t even spell the country’s name without “Roman”! Ready to discover which local dishes and beers Bucharest has to offer!

My Ister sleeper train wouldn’t even arrive until just before noon, so I had plenty of time to take in the views of the Carpathian Mountains and the Romanian countryside. Such a late arrival had the benefit I could check in straight away and have a shower at my ibis Styles Bucharest City Center. My room even has a balcony! Although judging by the presence of an ashtray there, it might have something to do with the prevalence of smoking in Romania…

Since I didn’t pack much of a breakfast for my train ride, I enjoyed The Pulled Pork Sandwich—and coffee of course—at Meron even more.

Time to delve into some Roman history at the Muzeul Național de Istorie a României. Here they have casts of all the reliefs of Trajan’s Column, and full-size replicas of the base and top of the column. With the Museo della Civiltà Romana now closed, this might very well be the only place where one can still see casts like this! There’s also a lot of gold in the museum, but I’m not much of a pirate…

The museum was smaller than I expected, so I already had some time to visit my first beer destination in Bucharest: the Ground Zero Beer Taproom.

Another coffee at Origo, and since I still had some time left before my dinner reservation, a couple of beers at Ironic Taproom.

Then it was time to start ticking off dishes of my Romanian cuisine list! Although it’s quite touristy, even experienced travellers and locals recommend Caru’ cu bere as the place to go for local food and a unique experience. Three checks in one go for me: zacuscă, tochitură muntenească, and papanași. While the main dish alone would have been enough to fill me up, they seemed to have given me a double portion of the dessert. So while every course was as tasty as I could hope for, it left me feeling quite stuffed. Maybe I should have joined the dancers when they asked me!

Then it was Beer O’Clock! No seriously, that was the name of the bar! They only serve their beer in half litres though, which is not ideal for tasting… At Tap Craft Beer next door everything was available in a much more reasonable 200ml, so I had a couple of beers there.

The last stop for the night was the NoRoom Taproom—serving Maktoob and OneTwo beers—a place so small I first couldn’t find it, an literally no room to sit inside.

Along the Limes

Along the Limes

Published on 21 October 2025

Starting the day with a visit to the ruins of Aquincum, the Roman border settlement and origin of Budapest, and ending it on the Ister train, which is the Latin name for the Danube, part of the northern border of the Roman empire. It was a very Roman border themed day!

Check-out day usually means breakfast in the hotel, to save precious packing time.

Once that was done, I discovered the suburban rail network to get to Aquincumi Múzeum & Archaeological Park. Apparently there a two hour trail that takes you to even more remains, but I stuck to the main park and the nearby amphitheater this time. The park could use some TLC, but it was a nice discovery nevertheless.

Back in the centre of Budapest, I resumed my mission: eat Hungarian specialties! there is one that I found out about when I first planned my trip in 2020, and it sounded so tasty, I actually looked up a recipe and I’ve made it myself quite often: rakott krumpli. So yeah, I actually never tasted the original, until today! And GRUMPY didn’t just serve that dish, but also sweet Túrógombóc for desert.

After that late lunch I had just enough time to visit Tamp & Pull, one of the oldest specialty coffee bars in Budapest, and Constellation, a taproom and restaurant for both Gravity—whose brewery I visited on the second day—and Brew Your Mind.

By then it was really time to get ready for my train. Since every train trip is better with a nice beer, I stopped by at Beerselection to get one, but it had slipped my mind that this beer shop had some beers on draught as well. It would have been rude to not try some, wouldn’t it?

After picking up my bag at the hotel, I headed to the Budapest Keleti business lounge, to charge my phone a bit—you never know if the power on the train is working—and eat a bit, although I hadn’t quite digested my large, late lunch yet.

Time to find out if I have better luck with this Romanian sleeper than I had with my Hungarian one! Turns out I had: the one and only sleeper car was present and functional—running water and electricity present—and I think this is the roomiest room I ever had on a train.

On my way to Bucureşti Nord!

The IC/IRN 473 Ister from Budapest Keleti to Bucureşti Nord

FIRST time in Budapest!

FIRST time in Budapest!

Published on 19 October 2025

Five years after I originally planned my trip, I was finally there: Budapest! Run with the local hashers, drink the local beers, enjoy the local delicacies: lots of fun ahead!

Everything had to wait a little bit, though, because my rather dusty sleeper train arrived over twenty minutes late. On top of that, due to my accommodation downgrade, I hadn’t had the opportunity to change into my running kilt, so I had to sort that out first. Once that was taken care of, and I dropped off my bag at my hotel, it was time for coffee and breakfast, at Dorado.

Arrival of the Kálmán Imre sleeper train in Budapest Keleti

From there I headed to Nyugati railway station, since the hash run would start in Piliscsaba , a 38 minutes ride from the centre.

Over there, I joined the Budapest H3 for their Trail 1853 – The Jenga Farewell Run! The Jenga part referred to a recently torn down wooden viewpoint tower, on top of a hill. To get there, the hare picked the steepest way up, so even though we were only two kilometres from the start, the beer stop there was very welcome!

My train to the run ready to leave Budapest Nyugati train station

After the run I could finally check into my ibis Budapest City hotel for a much needed shower and a change.

As the restaurant I picked for dinner turned out to be closed, I had something to eat with my beers at FIRST Craft Beer. While tasty, it was not particularly Hungarian, something I’ll have to make up for tomorrow.

Then it was finally time for a visit to Mad Scientist’s Madhouse. Finally, because it was one of the first breweries on my to-visit list, although this actually isn’t the same taproom they had back then.

Last call was at the Hops Beer Bar: small—just seven beers on tap—but cosy.

Good beers, good food, good company, and good times: after a rocky start, a perfect end of my first day in Budapest!

Back in Inverness

Back in Inverness

Published on 18 June 2025

After a full Scottish breakfast—but is it still Scottish when it doesn’t include haggis?—we arrived about ten minutes early in Inverness. My Scottish adventure was about to start!

My first port of call then was the Caledonian Sleeper lounge, just across from the station. It was definitely smaller than the one in London, but it fulfilled its purpose, and I had a moment of relaxation with a nice cuppa and a cookie.

Rectangular plate with beans, sausage, a hashbrown with some other items hidden underneath it, a mini frittata, and a slice of toast

I then dropped off my bags at Travelodge Inverness City Centre, and headed to PERK Coffee + Doughnuts for coffee and—you guessed it—a doughnut.

Coffee shop facade, people queuing out the door

Since the last time I was in Inverness I was quite hungover, I decided to once again take Stagecoach 27 to revisit Culloden Battlefield.

From there I took the same bus back in the direction of the Black Isle Brewery. From the nearest bus stop it was still a 25 minute walk, but who cares when your walking in the Highlands? The brewery didn’t actually have a taproom—just some cans in a fridge. They did however spontaneously offered to give me a tour of the brewery, which of course made me very happy!

A sign pointing out the way to Black Isle Brewing Co., hilly meadows and woods in the background

The way back from the brewery to town was even less convenient—Scottish public transport truly works in mysterious ways—so I ordered a taxi straight to the Black Isle Bar. There I actually managed to find a couple of beers not available in the brewery, so happy me!

After checking in to my hotel, and briefly closing my eyes, I popped by at the Victorian Market, where everything seems to close quite early… Moonshine was still open though, so I had a can of beer there.

Since it was still a bit early to go for dinner, I also made a stop at Highlander. While most of their beers are pretty standard, they do seem to have a special place in their heart—and fridges—for a local brewery: Dog Falls.

From there it was onto Mangrove, for some proper Indian food! I had the ttandoori mix, chilli korma chicken, and some garlic nan.

Then I ventured into the lion’s den: MacGregor’s, historically archenemies of the MacLarens… They didn’t seem to recognise my tartan though, and served me beers with a smile on their face. Bullet dodged!

The last stop of the night was The Malt Room. They initially recommended me a flight, but as appealing as that sounded, it simply would have been too much… I settled for one dram of Raasay, and then went to bed, to catch up on some sleep…

Simmer Dim Trip

Simmer Dim Trip

Published on 17 June 2025

Finally! Another ‘big trip’! Not unexpectedly it’s to Scotland again, but with a very specific goal: experience the shortest night of the year—Simmer Dim—on Shetland. As usual, the first day is all about getting to Scotland: 1287 km in under 21 hours, including over 7 hours in London…

Faithfully filling out all those questionnaires from Eurostar meant I had gathered enough points to upgrade to Eurostar Plus. There’s no lounge access included in that class, but in Brussels that’s usually not really needed anyway. For me the most important advantage of class upgrades are the solo seats. On trains to London however, Plus actually includes a light meal and drinks as well! On the menu today: roast beef bowl with horseradish and lovage potato salad, green beans and courgettes, apricot Bakewell. I also got to try the Two Tribes beer Nomad, brewed exclusively for Eurostar.

A wheelie bag, with a kilt roll and a backpack strapped to it, on the tiled platform of a Brussels metro station.

After arrival—just seven minutes late—I first headed to Hoppers for the second part of my lunch. Not that I didn’t enjoy the food on the train, but it was just a light meal, and definitely not enough for what was about to come… Also, Hoppers had been on my to-do list ever since I saw the founder as a guest chef on the Sorted YouTube channel. So I had an egg hopper, the Lankan chicken kari, tomato chutney, pol sambol, and seeni sambol, all of that with a Toddy Ale by SALT.

Big snifter glass with beer on a wooden table, a brass plate behind it.

Differently sized bowls with food on a table.

I wouldn’t stray too far from the train stations today, but still, taking my big wheelie bag—with a kilt roll and a smaller backpack strapped to it—would be quite annoying. So it was time to store my bag at what turned out to be the cutest Nannybag location I ever used. The lady running the shop calling me ‘dear’ all the time reinforced this sentiment even further…

Wheelie bag, with on top of it a yellow luggage tag with the number 08

After that I had some time to relax a bit and have the first decent coffee in days, at Store St Espresso.

Inside view, a customer at the wooden counter

From there it was just a five minute walk to The Queen’s Head. I’ve been to this bar a couple of times—probably already my very first time in London—but the beer menu never disappoints! To soak up a bit of the beer before my last stop, I finished off with a Mr. Barrick’s pork pie.

Classic pub facade, wooden tables in front

Beer on the bar, bar stools and people sitting at tables in the background

Dimple mug with dark beer on the bar, pump clip in the background

Then it was time to retrieve my bag while the shop was still open—even though the nice lady gave me clear instructions on what to do if it was closed—and head to my traditional pre-sleeper stop: the Euston Tap! It was sweltering inside, so after my first half, I ordered a pint to take outside.

19th century gatehouse, stones engraved with destinations of trains leaving from Euston station, drinking after work people in front of it

Glass of beer on a table, with taps mounted to a copper plated wall behind it

A glass of beer balancing on a fence railing, the Euston Tap and its terrace in the background

Derelict 19th century gatehouse, stones engraved with destinations of trains leaving from Euston station

I didn’t stay too long, since I hadn’t tested the new Caledonian Sleeper lounge yet. It’s definitely nice they have a space of their own now: you already get your room key card—pre-activated, so no messing about with double-tapping—and an announcement when it’s time to board. And of course all the shortbread and Irn-Bru—and coffee and tea—you can stomach! The lounge was quite busy, but I still found a seat.

When I was finally on board, I quickly dropped my bag in my room, filled out the breakfast card, and headed to the Club Car, for my traditional whisky and Scottish cheese plate. After my second dram, I decided it was time to go to bed, and spend most of the 914 km to Inverness sleeping. After all, breakfast will be served at 7:15…

Tumbler with whisky, the mini bottle next to it

So for now, time to take off my trousers and stash them away for the next two weeks, and get some sleep!

Bonus! A little video of my Caledonian Sleeper experience!