September 30 & October 1- Belgrade to Bucharest by train .. ФУН WITH CYRILIC ..

Fun, indeed. The Serb's are generous with these alternate alphabet signs. After passing them for a few days I've learned to decode about 3/4 of the letters.

The route to Bucharest involves changing from Serbian to Romanian trains at Vrsac about 60 miles east of Belgrade. The handover included Serbian emigration validation, Serbian customs verification, and Romanian customs verification. Once rolling on Romanian stock we stopped about 20 minutes later at the border for Romanian immigration processing. All very civilized, but we sat for quite a while. Again, none of the border crossing shenanigans, or snarling hounds, that these parts were once known for.

Belgrade's plush Dunav station...

Interior of the 1905 Vrsac station...

Posters and gear commemorating the history of the Russian Railways...

This one refers to "Vostok", as in Vladivostok. The below that reads "Moscow-Pekin". 

Historic ads for Russian "Volga" automobiles...

At Vrsac we transferred to this Romanian train...

Arriving quite late we overnighted in Timisoara. The hotel suffered from comical neglect. We had a number of light sockets without bulbs. Decorative touches intended to spruce the place up a tad were left partially attached to walls. No matter. We just needed the sleep.

The trains don't always run on time here. So we learned. The ride to Bucharest from Timisoara was scheduled for better than nine hours. It took us about ten and a half. We eventually settled into our Bucharest hotel after 1 AM.

The initial few hours on the train were nice. It was daytime and we headed south toward the Danube as Serbia on the opposite shore eventually gives way to Bulgaria. The river is very wide there - not yer daddy's little German stream anymore. A huge damn evenually interrupts the flow and slows it down, but not for long.

Once the sun set the fun was gone. We napped a bit and watched the clock tick as we crept along. 

Our train interior...