I don't think people realize how easy it is to get from the Netherlands to Turkey by train. I've had this shit memorized for years.
Imagine you're starting at Amsterdam, okay?
Now, you take the ICE (high speed rail, not to be confused with those US dickheads) to München also known as Munich. You'll probably get delayed, possibly around Köln/Cologne. Go in the morning. The chance of delays is a bit lower. At München you switch to a train to Austria. Alternatively, if the timing is right you take that train all the way to Hungary. Depends on where you want to sleep. You're not gonna catch that night train to Romania just yet. You're crossing Germany, you will get delayed.
Alternatively, take the night train if it hasn't been booked to full capacity yet. That thing is Popular.
Then from Vienna, you take a short ride to Budapest and there you get some snacks and drinks for the night train to Romania, because that lovely train does not have a catering car.
Then once you spent 12+ hours going through Romania, probably at slug speed on some stretches, you're either just in time to sprint to another platform to get to Bulgaria via the Giurgiu/Ruse border crossing or you traverse the urban hellscape of Bucharest to get some yummy food and and a place to sleep. If it's summer season, you might be able to take a direct night train to Istanbul from here. But we're assuming it isn't.
Once you crossed the river on that train and you've arrived in Bulgaria, you take the very old train towards Sofia (with your leftover snacks) and there you gotta spend the night because the night train towards Istanbul will have already departed.
Then after enjoying Sofia and its train station's random animatronic dinosaur exhibit, you board the train to Turkey, get woken up for EU exit check, reboard, then officially enter Turkey at Edirne. If the luggage scanner ain't broken, you'll get to put your luggage in there after getting your passport stamped in the most stupid way imaginable. You reboard, arrive to Halkali, a Western suburb of Istanbul (bruh, it's a city of 10+ million people. It's ginormous), buy a public transit smart card and take the Marmaray train to Sirkeci station to officially arrive to the end point of the Orient Express or go a bit further if you want to cross the Bosporus by tunnel or venture further East towards Ankara and other exciting destinations. Get yourself to the Grand Bazaar for a good exchange rate to get some cash, ignore the people selling their wares unless it's yummy corn from a cart and go explore!
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, great food, wonderful landscapes. I've had more issues navigating around railway issues in the Netherlands. The biggest challenge is German railways and its Numerous Delays.
"But flying is so much easier" you say.
Yeah, but you won't get to enjoy Romanian pastries on the way. You're really missing out. My good friend Jonathan Harker would be disappointed.
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