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Can't find trains for Istanbul - Sofia/Plovdiv - Thessaloniki - Skopje - Belgrade. Am I too early?


Hey everyone. I’m looking to make connections between Istanbul - Sofia/Plovdiv - Thessaloniki - Skopje - Belgrade. 

As showed in the picture, it should be possible to do so but when I look for trains in the Rail Planner, I can’t find any of thoses trains. 

I am looking for August, am I too early ? Or the trains connections have changed ? 

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Best answer by rvdborgt 14 May 2022, 20:13

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Yous should travel by flight or bus between this countries. The international trains are suspended or partly replaced by bus from Sofia to Greece and Serbia . 

Userlevel 7
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Yous should travel by flight or bus between this countries. The international trains are suspended or partly replaced by bus from Sofia to Greece and Serbia . 


There are trains again from Sofia to Dimitrovgrad in Serbia but then you'll need a bus to get to Belgrade:

https://www.bdz.bg/en/a/sofia-beograd-sofia

Userlevel 7
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IF you bought the pass as you thought there would be trains-bad idea, that was <2000. Chnage plans to have profit from pass. IF no pass yet-change to bus and mindset.

In summer there is ONLY the overngiht again from RO/BG to ISTanbul, the rest=old Yugoslavija simply has NO trains via borders-only a very few local lines-if not cancelled or vandalised. These are so cheap, that a pass is also throw money out of the window.

reminds me of the many times that your SNCF let me alone when there was again some strike and no trains en mouvement.

So, travel by train makes you lots of headaches all over Europe. The European railways are an adventure, not a professional service.

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