It is 3h40 AM as I am standing on platform 2 of the train station in Schwarzach-St.Veit (For ski enthusiasts, it´s right next to Bischofshofen). I am about to board the Euro Night train EN 40465 from Zurich to Belgrade. Or Zagreb. Or is it Belgrade after all? Well, it`s both. But first things first.

It wasn’t easy to get there in time, though I had tried to make arrangements as early as June. With my destination being Sofia, Bulgaria, I sought to purchase tickets from Salzburg with ÖBB, DB, SBB, on-line, but none could at first accommodate me. During the process I also learned that travel agencies no longer offer services for ordinary train travel, only for special trains, like Blue Train as a holiday experience, not to get from A to B. Only a call to ÖBB service hotline helped. Within minutes I had a code to pick up the printed ticket (all the way to Belgrade, no onward, no return ticket) from any train station in Austria. Upon asking the help desk agent why only she could assist, the answer was that the train changes numbers and normally agents in the stations wouldn’t know that. I accepted that as kind yet irrelevant information. Alas, I was wrong…

Upon asking the help desk agent why only she could assist, the answer was that the train changes numbers and normally agents in the stations wouldn’t know that. I accepted that as kind yet irrelevant information. Alas, I was wrong…

Back to the platform, 4:00 AM, mostly a sleeper train, but according to whatever regulation, boarding a sleeper train after midnight doesn’t entitle one for a sleeper berth. At least I had a reserved seat in a 6-seater compartment. It reminded me of the old days and I enjoyed pleasant company all the way to Zagreb.

And here the irrelevant information became relevant. I had to change coaches – within the same train, In Zagreb I lugged my bags into another coach a few coaches ahead. No big deal, with hand luggage only. Time was plenty, and despite the crowded platform, my reserved seat was unoccupied even though that coach had already been coupled to the train in Ljubljana.

The scenery for the most part was fascinating, sometimes wild, sometimes gentle, mostly forest, later open fields. Following the bends of Sava River slowed the train to a gentle pace and made me contemplate about my white spots on Europe’s map that still need discovering. Our generation’s thinking and traveling used to be largely westward, not eastward. Even though there were no prohibitions, eastern and south-eastern Europe was still not a destination for many of us in western Europe. We travelled 500 km to Paris, but not 150 km to Prague, 10000 km to Rio, but not a 1000 to Kiew.

For the future I can only hope that our European train services will make it a bit easier to discover eastern Europe. Right now airlines win – not necessarily on prices but certainly on booking, comfort, connections, service orientation, and, of course time.