From Amsterdam to Tbilisi by train

In July 2024 I went on a great summer trip, going from my home in Amsterdam,

Netherlands to Tbilisi, Georgia (თბილისი, საქართველო). While for sure I was

looking forward to the destination, at least half the trip (by time and by what

I saw) was the journey itself and the places on the way - I went by train (and

more, read on!).

While I've done longer trips in the past, for example Amsterdam to Thessaloniki

in Greece (where a small part also [made it onto my

blog](/post/2023-07-17-ferry-brindisi-igoumenitsa/)), this was by far the

longest and furthest I've travelled like that. And apart from a trip to Taiwan

it was the furthest I've ever travelled away from home.

The "goal of the trip" wasn't to get to Georgia the fastest possible, if that

would be the case I'm sure you can find many opportunities to shorten it

especially if you are willing to take more bus trips as well.

You can also take a look at the [interactive map view of the

route](https://umap.openstreetmap.de/en/map/georgia-2024_58965#5/47.294/25.356)!

Image: Map showing the route from Amsterdam to Tbilisi

Part 1: Amsterdam 🇳🇱 to Vienna 🇦🇹

The first leg was an ÖBB Nightjet from Amsterdam Centraal to Vienna Central

Station (NJ 40421, departing 19:00 and arriving the next day 09:17).

It's train I've taken often in the last years when visiting family. A standard

Nightjet with the old carriages, not the fancy new Nightjet which is already

running on some Nightjet routes, but not on Amsterdam-Vienna yet.

Having a great start, the city bus in Amsterdam which I needed to take didn't

arrive for some reason, so I've actually missed the train and quickly needed to

re-arrange and I've booked a Flixbus ticket to Vienna. But I got to Vienna in

the end with only a couple of hours of delay compared to me previous plan.

Could've been much worse!

Part 2: Vienna 🇦🇹 to Bucharest 🇷🇴

After spending the day in Vienna, the D 347 (Dacia) was scheduled to depart at

19:42 from Vienna Central Station and arrive at Bucharest North railway station

the next day at 15:06.

The train which is run by the Romanian Railways (CFR) has quite a similar

quality to the Nightjet trains but compared to the 'Couchette' in Nightjet you

actually get proper full-sized pillows and not just these tiny pillows.

Additionally that train also has a restaurant car which sells a selection of

sandwiches (no vegan options though from what I can see) and otherwise mostly

drinks and some snacks like potato chips.

I've taken this train before and have really nice memories of slowly rolling

through the Romanian countryside for many hours, so I was excited to take the

train again. At departure the train was already more than an hour late, and it

accumulated some more delay during the trip, so we arrived about 2 ½ hours

late.

But I had a great time on it, played card games with other people in the

compartment for hours and talked about various topics.

Part 3: Bucharest 🇷🇴 to Istanbul 🇹🇷

After a nice evening, night and morning in Bucharest, the Bosphorus Express was

departing at 10:47 from Bucharest North railway station with a scheduled

arrival time of 06:34 in Istanbul Halkali station.

At departure it's a three or four car train, with only a single car going to

Istanbul with the others going to e.g. Sofia. The tracks head south, after a

bit crossing into Bulgaria, then slowly heading further south until you cross

into Türkiye in the middle of the night.

The train is operated as a [through

coach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_coach) so it's getting re-coupled

to different trains a couple of times during the journey, each taking quite

long and together with the border checks this one was the slowest trains in

this journey with a calculated average speed of about 40 km/h. But I have to

say, I've got quite some appreciation for the Bulgarian countryside now!

Then at 2am or 3am you arrive at the Turkish border and have to leave the train

with all your belongings, queue for passport control and then you can then head

back to the train and continue sleeping for the rest of the night.

With close to 3 hours delay we've arrived in Istanbul at about 09:10.

lunch, dinner and breakfast on the train.

Part 4: Istanbul 🇹🇷 to Ankara 🇹🇷

I had tickets for Yüksek Hızlı Tren (YHT) - Turkish for "High Speed Train" - Nr

81008 from Istanbul Halkali at 08:50 to Ankara Gar at 14:16. But as you can see

the previous train from Bucharest only arrived half an hour after the YHT

departed.

While it's "just" a 5 ½ hour journey where there's quite regular trains going,

unfortunately it seems demand exceeds supply on this route, so there was not a

single ticket available anymore for that day to Ankara.

So two other possibilities to get to Ankara that came to mind: Finding a bus or

a ride-share. While there's plenty of buses going this route, they all depart

from various stations in Istanbul and finding one that leaves reasonably close

to where I was (Söğütlüçeşme) wasn't super obvious. And since I didn't feel

like sitting in a bus for many hours that day I decided to try out BlaBlaCar, a

ride-sharing / carpooling app. But also there, while there were a good number

of people offering rides from Istanbul to Ankara, they were also a bit all over

the place and not super easy find a ride for me.

But at some point I've found someone, got picked up at a city bus stop by the

and we rode to Ankara. On the way I've had nice conversations with the driver

who was going to Ankara for a couple of days for holiday. And we also grabbed

dinner on the way at a restaurant in the mountains with an amazing view.

short. Or if you think the trains will be fully booked, get a second ticket for

a later time, as I've done for the YHT on the way back. You can still refund

the YHT tickets some hours beforehand and get at least a good chunk of the

money back. And anyways they're not expensive, around €11-12 per person.

Part 5: Ankara 🇹🇷 to Erzurum 🇹🇷

After spending nearly two full days in Ankara for sight-seeing and taking a

rest from the travel, it was time to go further east to the city of Erzurum

using the Doğu Ekspresi ("Eastern Express") train. Departing at 17:55 from

Ankara Gar and scheduled to arrive at 16:06 the next day in Erzurum meant this

was a very long journey. But a great one which I was looking forward to quite a

lot!

Of course I didn't look outside all the time, and it also became night at some

point but there were really some amazing views along the way!

Communication with my compartment-mates was more limited but still with an

(offline) translation app on the phone it was quite nice and you quickly get

offered some food and tea.

With not even an hour delay the train arrived to Erzurum, and I quickly headed

to the hotel to leave my baggage and then headed to some tourist destinations

before they closed since I wanted to see some of the city since I really only

stayed for the night.

take enough water with you since you don't want to run out.

Part 6: Erzurum 🇹🇷 to Tbilisi 🇬🇪

The day with the most amount of transfers was here. The plan was: take a bus

from 7am to Hopa on the Turkish coast taking around 5 ½ hours. Then take a

Dolmuş, a sort of shared taxi or

Dolmuş

minibus which regularly runs a fixed route from Hopa to Sarp, next to the

Turkish-Georgian border. There, cross the border by foot and on the other side

take another minibus from Sarpi to Batumi. From Batumi then take the 18:30

train to Tbilisi which arrives there at 23:31.

Image: The journey on a map from Erzurum via Hopa and Batumi to Tbilisi

The day was quite exhausting for me. While the first bus was a beautiful ride

where the road was curving down to sea level and going through many long

tunnels, from then on there wasn't much time to relax, or even properly have

lunch since I wasn't sure how long everything would take until I'd be in Batumi

to catch my 18:30 train there. Even going from the drop-off point from the

minibus to the Batumi railway station took quite a bit since the city bus was

stuck in traffic.

But I made it in the end with some time to spare, and had a good ride to

Tbilisi on the much advertised (by the Georgian Railways at least) Stadler KISS

trains which are very comfortable, spacious and modern trains running on the

Tbilisi-Batumi route.

in-between. Especially Batumi is a great city to be in for a couple of days!

The way back

🇬🇪 - 🇹🇷 - 🇧🇬 - 🇷🇴 - 🇭🇺 - 🇦🇹 - 🇩🇪 - 🇳🇱

After spending about a week in Tbilisi, Borjomi and Batumi it was time to head

back home! The journey looked quite similar, except that from Batumi in Georgia

I went (again via Sarpi, Sarp and Kars) to Kars and the day after took the Doğu

Ekspresi from Kars instead of Erzurum, the station I used for the way there. To

be fair, this is quite a bit less direct than directly going to Erzurum and

skipping Kars but I wanted to also experience the full route of the Doğu

Ekspresi, the full nearly 26 hours on a single train. And Kars is also a city

worth visiting, even if just for an afternoon and evening.

And similar to the extended break in Ankara on the way to Georgia, on the way

back I stopped for a couple of days in Istanbul, both for adding some buffer

days in case something goes wrong but also to have some days of sightseeing on

the way.

But apart from that I basically took the same route just the other way. And it

went quite smooth with no issues to report.

Some more learnings and recommendations

This is a bit of a rambly section, so feel free to skip ahead to the summary!

lacking. So always bring enough food with you. While I brought a decent stash

of food with me from home, like some canned bread spreads, a glass of

chocolate spread, and peanut butter, I tried buying most of the food for the

trip days in supermarkets where I was. Save some for situations where you

might not find something good.

Ravioli and lentil soup, it definitely depends on the country (and size of

supermarket) what you can find. In Türkiye you can often find amazing

portion-sized cans of for example string beans in tomato sauce or fried

aubergine which are a great meal with just some bread on the side. Tasty food

that you don't have to refrigerate is amazing for these trips.

more of water on the train, it's definitely better to have too much than too

little.

staring out of train windows, I've listened to plenty of podcast episodes,

hours of audiobooks and many YouTube videos and TV series episodes. Just make

sure it's downloaded since network connection is spotty and anyways you don't

want to be streaming video while outside the EU. Or bring whatever brings you

joy: novels, puzzle books, etc.

but containing Türkiye and Georgia (all other countries I travelled through

were part of the EU, so roaming was free) but unfortunately arriving to

Georgia I couldn't get the internet connection to work. After quite some back

and forth with the support of this eSIM provider where they recommended me to

connect to the AT&T network (which is an operator in the USA and in the US

state of Georgia but not the country of Georgia) I learned that apparently

due to some issue on their side the bundle I bought actually didn't work in

Georgia and a replacement eSIM which they only handed out reluctantly it

still didn't work. Since we're all quite dependent on mobile data nowadays, I

bought another eSIM for Georgia from another operator for €15 or €20 which

worked instantly. Problem solved.

still not running. Having that would make the last part of the trip so much

better, not having to change a bunch of times and walk across the border. But

as of November 2024 there's no sign of it starting anytime soon. Azerbaijan

still has land borders locked down so you cannot even take a bus or a car

into that country. While just going to Tbilisi you never touch Azerbaijan, I

doubt the train would start running just Ankara-Tbilisi but who knows. But I

really I hope this train will start sometime within the next years!

where you can find food easily, but it always helps to have a translation

ready. Something like "vegan, no cheese, no dairy, no eggs" in the local

language worked fine for me. If you're also interested in deserts, adding "no

honey" is probably a good idea. *End animal agriculture! Go vegan!* 🌱💚

Summary

The trip is long, takes many days but it's totally worth it in my opinion. Not

that I was scared or anything before about the trip length, but after having

done it I definitely know that I can do - and enjoy! - long trips like this, so

this gives me quite some ideas where I can go in the future.

Most of the trip was very relaxing, having hours to spend while just enjoying

yourself and not having to worry about really anything while sitting in a train

is a great change of pace for myself. And even so, I didn't even get to reading

the book I took with me.

Need a longer trip for that, I guess.

Thanks for reading!

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If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send me an e-mail or

comment on [the Fediverse (Mastodon)

post](https://fosstodon.org/@z3ntu/113495563938121760)!