THE TRAIN

No two days are alike, that is for sure! This past week I spent 2 different days on the train ...one going to Bucharest and the other coming back. It is a long, usually uneventful 8-hour ride through a vast variety of terrains. You move through tunnels as the train carves through the Carpathian Mountains. Then you hug the banks of the Danube River (....remember the Blue Danube in the song ....definitely NOT blue!). The Dunare (as it is known here) creates part of the border between Romania and today's Serbia (formerly Yugoslavia). There is a massive dam on the river called "Iron Gates" (Portile de Fier) that was built in a joint-venture by these 2 former communist governments. During those years, swimming the Danube was an option to try to reach freedom in the west. You can still see abandoned guard towers along the river. The river continues to create the border with Bulgaria, then curves eastward back into the country before it empties into the Black Sea. There were snow-covered mountains towering above green, rolling hills that empty into villages that dot the landscape. It is quite a sight to see!