Train travel across the Balkans has become, let’s say, an exotic affair. Since the pandemic, the already limited number of direct international train services in this part of Europe has sadly reached zero. Take Zagreb to Belgrade and Belgrade to Sofia, for example. These capital-to-capital journeys used to have one train opportunity a day and now, in 2025, there is nothing.
However, there is a little-known service hidden from journey planners of the national operators. Not to be confused with it’s glamorous cousin from another era, the Orient Express. The Optima Express is a private company running direct services not just across one border, but six! It is now the only way to travel across Serbia and Bulgaria by train!
The Optima Express is the longest continuous train connection in Europe, having been running almost every year for fifty or so years! This epic trip starts in the unlikely international hub in the town of Villach in Austria a few miles away from the main station, and crosses through Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria before concluding its epic 1,600km journey in the also unlikely destination town of Edirne in Türkiye. The train doesn’t officially stop anywhere en-route – once you’re onboard, you’re committed for the trip!
For a service that doesn’t touch major tourist cities, why does it operate? Well, this train fulfils a specific purpose, unchanged in its impressive long history. This train serves Turkish expats living in central Europe who visit Türkiye to see their families for the summer. The train, that runs from April to November, is a motorail service, conveying cars onboard – a rare feature of European trains nowadays! Thankfully foot passengers are also welcome onboard as myself and friend had travelled from the UK by train.
The Optima Express is scheduled to take thirty-five hours, though, as experienced, this is nothing more than an aspiration! The train is an epitome of the much hyped ‘slow travel’ with a friendly atmosphere, all the food and drink you need, a place to sleep and, at times, a crawling pace to properly admire the scenic stretches. What’s the difference between arriving on time and seven hours later when you’re travelling half way across the continent?
In this two part series, I’ll introduce the Optima Express in Part 1 in this travel report, showcasing its amenities and what to expect onboard. Part 2 delves into our own experience of this true Balkan adventure – so stay tuned!
To kick things off – the all important route map of the Optima Express route from Villach, Austria to Edirne, Türkiye.
Depature from Villach Autoreisezug station
Villach is the starting point for the Optima Express, but it doesn’t depart from the main station, or Hauptbahnhof (Hbf). The station that can accommodate the boarding of vehicles – the ‘AutoZug’ station is about twenty minutes walk away which can conveniently be searched in Google Maps as ‘Optima Express’.
Presumably due to the majority of passengers taking cars, the Optima Express requested that we checked-in two to three hours prior to the departure time of 21:32. Not wanting to miss the sole reason we were here so we promptly headed to where we needed to be, armed with enough food supplies for two nights from the Billa supermarket at the main station. Having rocked up at Billa at 17:50, upon realising the shop’s imminent closure at 18:00 (on a Saturday), it needed to be probably the quickest shop of our lives!
The Optima Express undersells its catering offer online in my opinion stating that it serves nothing more substantial than ‘small snacks’. We stocked up well assuming there wouldn’t be anything more than a Mars bar, however much to our delight there were freshly cooked meals available – which we couldn’t miss out on! There was no way we were going to starve on this trip.
After the rush to arrive no later than two hours before scheduled departure time, suddenly post-check in (where we were given our tickets and specific couchette carriage and compartment number) there was an air of calmness at the AutoZug station.
Everyone had checked-in and were waiting around and the community that we’d be part of for the next two nights became apparent. Some people knew each other and one took a liking to my friend’s moustache – which instantly broke the ice.
Meanwhile, there was lots of toing and froing with train carriages to form our train. Firstly, the sleeping car arrived coupled to a former seated carriage of the Dutch Railways in full Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) livery – an unusual sight in the south of Austria. Neither carriage was used in our composition, so this was nothing more than a red herring.
Two rakes of motorail carriages disappeared and then appeared again coupled together, before, finally, at 21:00, the full Optima Express arrived on platform 11 with her twenty four carriages, ready for boarding. The wait was over and the adventure was about to begin!
Onboard the Optima Express
The Optima Express has a motley array of carriages. Aside from the eighteen car-conveying wagons, there were five couchette carriages and a restaurant carriage. Although available to book at the point of booking on the Optima Express website, our train didn’t feature a sleeping car. This was left behind at the station.
As Europe competes for night train stock, all of these carriages are leased from different companies. You wouldn’t know this first looking at the couchette cars, freshly painted for this season and confidently displaying the “Optima Express” brand.
Couchette Car
Primarily, the accommodation on offer on the Optima Express are couchette carriages. This consisted of five carriages, each housing ten compartments of up to six beds, or berths. These are actually former Deustche Bahn (DB) carriages with their trademark dark blue squares on blue moquette. At the point of booking, you can select how many people you want to share with – with up to four people sharing each compartment.
The beds convert to seats during the day and can be easily converted by lowering the middle bunk to form seats, or folded out to form the middle bunk again. Provided in the compartment were provided with one sheet, two blankets and two pillows, but only one pillow case each in our compartment. As is standard for couchette carriages in Europe, you make the beds yourself. Amenities are fairly basic with a washbasin provided at one end of the carriage along with one toilet at each end.
Each compartment has a slide-able open window – a key benefit of booking the couchette to properly enjoy the experience! There are curtains to block out the corridor and window. These former DB also have some larger compartments towards the centre of each carriage. with two openable windows per carriage! There is plenty of storage with space under the bottom berths and above the door. The doors can only be locked on the inside but the train felt very safe.
At the point of purchase the tickets, unlike other trains in Europe, you aren’t allocated a specific compartment for the Optima Express. The specific carriage and compartment numbers are allocated at check-in.
Each compartment has its own allocated attendant who also is allocated a role elsewhere in the train – so you’ll see the same faces constantly throughout the trip.
Sleeping Car
The sleeping car utilised on the Optima Express dates back to the mid-1950s and unusually for Europe, sports an American-style metallic exterior. This features ten compartments with up to two berths in each one. Bedding is provided as is a sink in the room. This comes at a 80,00€ surcharge on top of the couchette price. It features air-conditioning but has no opening windows – a trade off not worth making in my opinion for such an adventure!
On our departure, the sleeping car was exchanged for a couchette carriage at the front – perhaps there weren’t enough takers this time.
Motorail Car
It’s possible to reserve a place in a motorail car for a supplement on top of the ticket price. The specific price paid depends on the dimensions of the vehicle and needs to be reserved in advance when booking.
Slovenian Restaurant Car
The train conveys a rare restaurant carriage leased from the Slovenian Railways (Slovenske železnice, SŽ). You might think that you’ll find the same goulash soup and pork schnitzel on the menu as you do on the EuroCity Emona from Vienna to Trieste, however you would be mistaken. The catering service is provided by Optima Express with a different menu: cheese or meat salads for breakfast, chicken or fish salad for lunch and dinner. For any whisky fans, the chosen variety is Ballantine’s. The restaurant is simply leased from SŽ.
The restaurant carriage was open throughout the trip – I’m not sure it ever closed. It’s also life and soul of the Optima Express with opportunity to chat to fellow travellers, play board games and even kid’s movies, if there were any kids onboard that is – for our trip it was turned off for the full duration.
The restaurant carriage also featured a smoking area with Optima Express branded ashtrays. An unusual sight in 2025. This was accompanied by a ‘no smoking’ sticker – presumably a relic from its operation in Slovenia.
Border Controls
There are five borders on the route of the Optima Express, however, this doesn’t mean ten exit and entry document checks – thanks to the Schengen free travel area. The first stretch from Austria-Slovenia-Croatia is without checks for this reason. Then there are six checks that take place once the train reaches the Croatia-Serbia, Serbia-Bulgaria and Bulgaria-Türkiye borders. Most of these involve passports being collected by the attendants and returned to you before the train departs. The main exception is the exit from Croatia where passports are checked from the comfort of the compartment.
The most disruptive check is the entry into Türkiye at Kapikule. This is scheduled at very unsociable 4am on the third day. In the northbound direction, instead of Kapikule, the border checks take place on departure at Edirne.
| Frontier | Passport Control Locations |
| Austria-Slovenia | No passport control |
| Slovenia-Croatia | No passport control |
| Croatia-Serbia | Croatia exit at Tovarnik – passport check on train (normally at 07:30) Serbia entry at Šid – passports collected and returned (normally at 08:03) |
| Serbia-Bulgaria | Serbia exit at Dimitrovgrad – passports collected and returned (normally at 19:40) Bulgaria entry at Katolina Zapad – passports collected and returned (normally at 20:30) |
| Bulgaria-Türkiye | Bulgaria exit at Svilengrad – passports collected and returned Türkiye entry at Kapikule – must leave train with passport only to check (normally at 04:00) |
Arrival at Edirne, Türkiye
The Optima Express concludes its journey in Edirne, Türkiye. Facilities are very limited at the station with a ticket office and museum. The platform for the Optima Express is at the far end of the station accessible by an underpass or a free transfer bus.
The station is located some 3.5km from the centre so you’ll most likely need a taxi to visit the city. The bus station is also a taxi ride away at 5.9km for onward travel to Istanbul.
Optima Express Tickets
As you might expect, tickets don’t come cheap for the longest train ride in Europe. It must, after all, be a very expensive operation to cross into the railway networks of six countries.
The price of the ticket varies according to the accommodation selected with shared couchette (with up to four passengers) being the cheapest through to a private sleeping compartment being the most expensive. Sleeping compartments can only be booked for private occupancy while couchette compartments can be booked for either shared or private occupancy.
The cost of conveying a vehicle is also dependant on the dimensions with the prices quoted below being for those with a height of no more than 150 cm.
| Journey Leg | One berths in shared four-berth couchette | Two berths in shared four-berth couchette | Private couchette compartment – solo occupancy | Private couchette compartment – duo occupancy | Private sleeping car compartment – solo occupancy | Private sleeping car compartment – duo occupancy |
| Villach to Edirne | 217,00€ without vehicle from 625,00€ with vehicle | 434,00€ without vehicle from 842,00€ with vehicle | 588,00€ without vehicle from 996,00€ with vehicle | 690,00€ without vehicle from 1,o98,00€ with vehicle | 668,00€ without vehicle from 1,076.00€ with vehicle | 770,00€ without vehicle from 1,178.00€ with vehicle |
Tickets can be booked direct from Optima Tours on the Optima Express website.
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Optima Express Part 2 – The Journey Experience
Don’t miss part 2 of this epic adventure which delves into our own experience onboard the Optima Express – the restaurant, the scenery in store, who we met on the train and how we passed the time.
Check that part 2 by clicking here.
This travel report was first published in June 2025.
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