Low-cost midlife crisis

The stereotypical way for a middle aged man to attempt to recapture his lost youth is to buy a fast car or motorbike, or fall in love with a young woman. These seemed rather expensive, so instead I’ve come interrailing with my family.

I have gone interrailing twice before. Once as a student with a group of friends, and once, when I was between jobs, on my own to visit post revolution Eastern Europe in 1990. After the first day of this trip, some of those memories are flooding back

We set off at just before 9pm on August 1st from Csíkszereda railway station, deepest Transylvania, on the daily overnight train to Budapest. Luckily this train has recently been upgraded and it’s a modern Hungarian train with new rolling stock and even a restaurant car. Since two of us are in our 50s, we went for a sleeping car. Back in my youth, everybody piled on, tried to grab a seat and hoped it was one of those that you could pull out and get a reasonable sleep. Usually, one failed. More on that later.

The modern carriage was nice, but actually kind of cramped – if we’d been 6 it would have been really uncomfortable.

Soon, however, we realised we were on holiday and we needed to act accordingly. Hence our first stop was….

I recommend the bar on a Hungarian train. They have a very wide selection of booze and at reasonable prices. There was some food too, but I skipped that part.

Already this trip was a big upgrade on my previous interrail adventures. Sleeping carriages. Visits to the train bar (rather than buying some cans at the station). Day 1, all 3 hours of it, had been a good start.