This website is an archive from 2016

This site was actively maintained from 2006 to 2016. Since then I have kept it online for historical interest, but have made no further updates. Much of the information in these pages is now incorrect or obsolete.

By train through the Rhodopes

17 January 2013

Regular readers of Balkanology will know that one of my favourite train journeys in the Balkans is the narrow-gauge line that meanders between the Rhodope, Rila, and Pirin mountain ranges of southwest Bulgaria - see the page on scenic train Journeys in the Balkans for more details. I’m certainly not the only fan of the railway from Septemvri to Bansko and Dobrinishte. A recent edition of the Hidden Europe newsletter has an evocative account of the trip. It sounds like the red engine and four green carriages are the same ones I travelled on almost ten years ago … which reminds me, I really must try to get back there some day soon.