Day Three. Train Tickets.

Our hope was to take an excursion to Kiev in the Ukraine, but you probably already guessed that from the blog name.

We had several futile attempts to buy them from the UK, until a post on the Raildude forum advised that you can only buy them economically from a station booking hall.

So we decided to do just that and keep the holiday flexible.

Crina and Ioana again kindly volunteered to interpret for us.  And boy, were we glad for their help!  Even with a local doing the negotiations it took well over an hour to buy them, with two travel agents doing the research!  Without Crina and Ioana's help, I don't think we could have ever managed it.

So we need to get a train to Suceava in the Romanian mountains, and then a night sleeper to Kiev.  Only 2nd class was available, so we will need to share four bed cabins with Carolyn in a separate female cabin.

We will get nearly two days to explore Suceava starting on Monday 29th April, then catch the 13:27 train to Kiev, this arrives at 09:18 the following day in Kiev (2nd May).  We catch the return train at 20:12 on the 5th May, this ticket is paid for, and is open, BUT the Romanian office couldn't book us seats/beds, we just have to hope that there is availability on the train!  Apparently it won't be a problem!

We have no stop over on our return journey, and just change at Suceava, this gets us back into Cluj-Napoca 00:18 Tuesday 7th May.  We then have to get back to the hotel, we have EBT (estimated bed time)  of 1am!

I have booked our accommodation in Suceava, but haven't yet for Kiev.  We are wanting to do a tour of Chernobyl, and this I have attempted to book today.  Many failed Skype calls, a lot of e-mails and a couple of mobile calls, has brought me to a dead end.  Apparently according to a nice guy at chernobylwel.com, the administration of The Zone have cancelled some tours, right on the dates we are there, and availability is virtually zero!

Looks like I am going to have to book accommodation and hope tours of Chernobyl are like Romanian train tickets, you have to be there to get them.

Anyway, tonight we go for a meal in the pub with a brewery with six other people, so that's good!