All aboard the night train to Istanbul: the reality of one of the ‘world’s best’ rail journeys

SJ Armstrong takes a ride on the Bulgaria-Turkey sleeper, one of Lonely Planet’s picks for 2023’s best travel experiences

Istanbul can be reached by rail overnight from Bulgaria (Getty/iStock)

Wavering out of Sofia Central Station, the train slips past sterile post-Soviet architecture, visibly crumbling with its shattered window panes. We’re being treated to the sights of the outer city: faded green graffiti, skinny street-dogs’ gnashing jaws, a barrage of small, nondescript stations. Soon, urbanity dissipates. We’re plunging into central Bulgaria’s mountainous horizon, a blurred charcoal massif stacked with green-grey trees and impenetrable mists.

I’m on board the recently revived night train service from Sofia to Istanbul (and vice versa), which resumed in April 2022, sputtering each night across the mountainous plains of eastern Bulgaria. My hopes were high as I joined the station line, a barely legible Cyrillic scrawl from the international ticket desk confirming that I was embarking on one of Lonely Planet’s picks for 2023’s best travel experiences. With train travel’s still-booming resurgence in popularity front of mind, I had read stories from the easterly route already; stories from the first-class, private carriages. I, however, was clutching a second-class ticket (the cheapest available).

The sleeper to reach the vibrant streets of Istanbul costs from from just £16 (SJ Armstrong)