March 17, 2026
Up early for a 5:10 train to Arad, Romania with a connection to Sighisoara. The Romanian railways website was down, so I could not access the ticket to present to the Hungarian conductor. Arriving in Arad in western Romania, the train departing for Sighisoara was shown on Track 1 on the departure board. However, at the bottom of the departure board was a notation "Trenuri annule" which sounded too much like "train annulled"
Checking with the ticket agent at 10:30 a.m., she said the train was cancelled and the next departure connecting to Sighisoara left at 5:00 p.m. and arrived after 11:00 p.m. Not a good option (1), so we headed to Cluj Napoca on the 2:00 train (2), where we had planned to be tomorrow night. Pleasant views awaited as the train climbed the Mureş River valley up the mountains to Deva on this early Spring day. The hoteliers in both Cluj and Sighisoara were flexible about switching our arrival dates (3).
(1) We had already left the station for coffee and there did not appear to be much to do in Arad. The arrival of the proposed train in Sighisoara agter 11:00 pm (with a 2 hour night-time layover in the middle of nowhere) were not desirable.
(2) The ticket agent was not interested either in refunding the Sighisoara ticket, nor in permitting its use to Cluj. Ironically, the train to Cluj which we caught at Arad had originated in Budapest many hours after the departure of our train. We could have slept later if we had known.
(3) The hotel host in Cluj was pleased to meet us at breakfast. He was an estate manager in Southampton, N.Y. for 15 years and does not see many Americans in Cluj.
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