DESTINATIONS n age i travelweekly.co.uk


t’s midnight and I’m at a sleepy railway station on the border between Turkey and Bulgaria, which looks


like it hasn’t changed since the Cold War. Dressed in a dinner suit, I step down from the elegant train carriage onto a concrete platform, passport in one hand, champagne flute in the other. As a series of party-dressed passengers


alight the Golden Eagle Danube Express and totter tipsily forward to show our passports to the poker-faced customs official, I’m not sure whether I feel more like Michael Palin or Michael Caine. It’s a scene that could just as easily come


from an episode of Great Railway Journeys as from a classic 1960s spy film. Then it hits me: this kind of moment is exactly why I fell in love with travel – for the sense of adventure, the unexpected and the total escape from everyday life.


DANUBE EXPRESS | RAIL HOLIDAYS


Rediscover the joy of travel on a luxury rail journey from Istanbul to Budapest, via dinner with Dracula, writes Russell Higham


KING OF THE CASTLES The journey from Istanbul to Budapest – traversing six borders through four countries to sample highlights of Golden Eagle’s Castles of Transylvania tour – is the first fam trip the company, founded in 1989, has done, according to product development director James Masterson. He, along with owner Tim Littler, has gathered 40 international travel agents and tour operators for a grand-depart reception on the roof terrace of the Four Seasons Sultanahmet in Istanbul. Sister hotel to the palatial Four Seasons Bosphorus (see Where to stay box), it’s a fitting start to the rail journey of a lifetime. Transported by coach to the train,


we’re ushered along red carpets and onto sumptuous 1950s carriages, which Golden Eagle has painstakingly restored and furnished to five-star hotel standard. There’s no scrambling to squash bags into²


30 APRIL 2026


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