Advice on Bulgaria train travel

[crispy1978]

Looking at going to Bulgaria on holiday next year.

Don't know if we'll get on a train or even get near a station, but in case we do can anyone provide any experience of Bulgaria and trains?

Aside from trains, anyone have any experience of Bulgaria full stop? Looking to go to Sandy Beach at present, which I understand is 35km from Burgas, the nearest station?

 

[radamfi]

Went to Bulgaria in May and used three trains, Sofia to Blagoevgrad, Sofia to Plovdiv and Plovdiv to the station 2 miles from the airport. Trains are of course very cheap compared to Western Europe and they are cheaper than buses, which tend to be quicker and more frequent. Buses seem to be more heavily used than trains.

The first two trains were old loco hauled trains and the last was a modern Siemens local train. They were all more or less on time but slow, mostly running 40 to 50 mph. The main difficulty is buying tickets as not many people speak English. I would recommend writing down the to and from in Bulgarian and giving it to the ticket office clerk. It might be different on the coast as it is more touristy.

It is also a good idea to look to learn the alphabet. It is not as hard as it sounds. Once you know the alphabet you can read quite a few words that look like English or German.