INDEPENDENT BULGARIAN ESTATE AGENTS

You're unlikely to save any money travelling to Bulgaria by train; the chief reason for doing so is to visit other countries as well. Although the most direct train routes to Bulgaria (Dieppe-Paris-Milan-Venice-Zagreb-Belgrade-Sofia or Ostende-Brussels-Munich-Zagreb-Belgrade-Sofia) have become viable again since the resumption of services between Zagreb and Belgrade, it's still easier to take the slightly longer Paris/Brussels-Budapest-Belgrade-Sofia route.
   Travelling via Budapest in Hungary makes sense because it's the nearest point to Sofia to which you can buy a ticket in Britain; the city makes a great stopover; and there's a daily train to Belgrade and Sofia from Budapest's Keleti Station. Even so, this is not a journey for the faint-hearted. It's unsafe to travel overnight through Yugoslavia unless you've booked a sleeper, and women trav¬ellers should team up with a male companion or book the whole compartment for security. Depending on delays at border crossings, the journey from Budapest to Sofia takes 17-24 hours. Bring food, drinks and toilet paper for the duration, plus warm clothing if you're travelling from October to May (the carriages are unheated).
   A longer way of reaching Bulgaria is to travel across Romania on the Balkan Express from Budapest, entering Bulgaria at the northern town of Ruse. The highlight of the two-and-a-half-day journey is the spec¬tacular crossing of the Carpathian mountains at Petrosani in Romania, around dawn. The same general advice goes as on the Belgrade route. Perhaps the most roundabout train route to Bulgaria is London-Paris-Milan-Brindisi, followed by a ferry to Patras in Greece, from where you can continue to Sofia via Athens and Thessaloniki by train or bus (one or two of each daily). Travelling to Bulgaria via Croatia, Yugoslavia and/or Romania, be sure to check whether you require transit visas.

Buying tickets

   At present, it's impossible to buy a through ticket from London to Sofia or reserve seats the last leg of the journey until you reach Budapest, but don't rule out the future possibility of online bookings on Hungarian or Bulgarian railways if their websites improve. Meanwhile, Rail Europe sells tickets to Budapest. Getting there from London takes 25 hours by the quickest route, aboard Eurostar to Paris and then a sleeper via Munich or Vienna (both take about 19 hours). A standard second-class return ticket, including Eurostar, costs around £330; tickets have two to three months' return validity, and stopovers are allowed so long as you stick to the prescribed route. If you're over sixty, it's worth buying a Rail Europe Senior card, which gives a 25 percent discount on the regular fare. Otherwise, you'd get better value with some kind of rail pass (see below).
   Once in Budapest, it is easy to buy an onward ticket to Bulgaria at the MAV International Bookings office, VI, Andrassy ut 36; expect to pay about £55 if you travel via Yugoslavia, and £70 via Romania.
   If you want to freely stop off in various countries en route or travel across Europe as far as Turkey, you'd do better to buy some kind of pass. InterRail passes cover 28 European countries (including Turkey and Morocco) grouped together in eight zones. As Bulgaria is in Zone H (together with Romania, Yugoslavia and Macedonia) you'll need to buy a one-month all-zones pass to cover the whole journey from the Channel ports to Bulgaria and back again, which costs £229 for under 26s, and £319 for anyone older. A cheaper option is to buy a three-zone pass (£199/275) as far as Greece, then catch a bus to Bulgaria for about US (less than you'd pay to travel the last leg by train). Note that InterRail passes do not cover travel between Britain and the continent, though holders are eligible for discounts on cross-Channel ferries and Eurostar, and free travel on the Brindisi-Patras ferry between Itely and Greece.
   As InterRail passes are supposedly only sold to those who can prove residence in Europe for six months prior to the date of application, people who aren't eligible (or can't find an agent who doesn't require Proof) are obliged to consider other options, such as a Eurail pass. Eurail passes allow unlimited travel through seventeen countries in Europe, but as they don't cover Bulgaria nor any of the neighbouring states except Greece, they're only worth considering if you're travelling widely throughout Europe.
   Eurail passes come in numerous varieties, some with age restrictions and others allowing the option of first class travel. To give an idea, a Youth Pass valid for ten days' second-class travel in two months costs £306, and a Eurail Saver (for over 26s) valid for one month's unlimited first class travel costs £625. All these passes can be bought at Usit Campus in the UK; InterRail passes are also available from Rail Europe/French Rail in Britain; and Eurail passes from selected agents in North America and Australia.

Rail contacts

Bulgarian State Railways in Bulgaria  www.bg400.bg/bdz, ® BDZweb@abv.bg. Its website has details of international trains to/from Bulgaria (in English) and may eventually allow online bookings.
Eurostar 0870/160 6600, www.eurostar.com. Passenger train which goes from Waterloo international in London to the continent via Ashford in Kent (itself 1 hr from London) and the Channel Tunnel. To Paris (3hr) via Calais-Frethun (1hr 30min) and Lille (2hr); Disneyland Paris (3hr); and Brussels (2hr 40min) from Waterloo. The cheapest return ticket to Paris is currently £70, though restrictions apply. You can get through-ticketing - including the tube journey to Waterloo International - from Eurostar (see above), from most travel agents or from mainline train stations in Britain; typical add-on prices for a return ticket to Paris from Edinburgh or Glasgow is £30, from Manchester £20 and Birmingham £13.50. Note that Inter-Rail passes give discounts on the Eurostar service.
Hungarian State Railways in Hungary www.mav.hu. A comprehensive website, but so far only in Hungarian.
Rail Europe (SNCF French Railways) 0870/5848 848, www.raileurope.co.uk. Sells tickets from Paris onwards to Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia.
Usit Campus www.usitcampus.co.uk. Can book student/youth discount train tickets and sell passes.

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