Golden Eagle Danube Express Introduces Snazzy New Bar Car
The Golden Eagle Danube Express now boasts a stylish, new bar car — making travel on the train even more enjoyable. It began service late last season.
Unlike the luxury train’s former lounge car, the new car has an actual bar area, says Golden Eagle’s Ian Lomas.
“There is a piano central to the car and various types of seating arrangements — tables and chairs for two and four, plus sofas and bar stools.”
The car seats 30, Mr. Lomas says.
“That ties in with the size of the overall group on board the Danube Express, so it’s not much problem for guests to get seating. And not everyone is in the bar car at the same time.”
Operating from its home base in Budapest, the GE Danube Express is a “supremely comfortable train,” says IRT Society President Eleanor Hardy, “And the lounge car always has been a big reason for its congenial ambiance.”
“But more seating and an actual bar will make a good thing even better.”
Ms. Hardy has ridden the Danube Express twice: from Istanbul to Budapest, and from Warsaw to Budapest.
“But what I’d really like to do is the Budapest-Venice trip, the Balkan Odyssey,” she says. “The itinerary fascinates me.”
The tour offers “so much in a relatively short amount of time — on some days visiting two countries,” said IRT’s Angela Walker, who made the trip with a Society of International Railway Travelers group last year.
And the history of the region is fascinating, she says. Example: guests see the place where Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated — the event that ignited World War I.
The 12-day, 8-country Balkan Odyssey tour operates June 1-12 and July 4-15 this year. To download a complete itinerary in PDF format, please click here. To see the itinerary on the IRT society website, please click here.
Other Golden Eagle Danube Express tours include Central Europe & Transylvania and the Venice-Istanbul Balkan Explorer.
For more information, call our office at (800)478-4881, or (502) 897-1725. Email: tourdesk@irtssociety.com.
