Back in Cymru for some required stations! Rhoose Cardiff International Airport ✅ Llantwit Major ✅ Transport for Wales ✅ Vale of Glamorgan ✅ All stations in Cymru visited 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿✅ All stations in Great Britain visited 🇬🇧✅

A weekend trip to Scotland results in visiting both Insch and Huntly Insch ✅ Aberdeen to Inverness ✅ ScotRail managed stations ✅ Visited every station in Scotland ✅ 2587/2589

Ah I’ve discovered what all the fuss is about! A new station has opened in Essex! Welcome station 2589! 🚉 Beaulieu Park ✅ Every station in England (again) ✅

After some very random trips around the country, Market Rasen is a large landmark! Market Rasen ✅ Lincolnshire ✅ Every station in England ✅ This just leaves Scotland and Wales left to complete! Hang on what’s going on in Essex this morning???

Sadly the time comes to return home, flying back to London with Uzbekistan Airways, arriving around 50m late 🇺🇿 🇬🇧

More of Tashkent! 🇺🇿

Tashkent Metro! 🚇 One of the prettiest metros in the world with each station having a unique design. Fully contactless travel just tap and go, each tap is a single journey and costs £0.10

Back in Tashkent, have some photos from Tashkent’s grand station building and the nearby Railwau Museum! 🇺🇿 🚆

Samarkand also has 2 tram lines, sadly the one which would’ve been useful to me was not operating due to roadwork, so I wasn’t able to try them out. Luckily the bus network is frequent and relatively simple to work out! 🇺🇿 🚊 🚌

Samarkand! Really cool historic centre here, a key location on the Silk Road! 🇺🇿

Leaving Tashkent for now, I continue south on Uzbek Railways, using their premium high speed “Afrosiyob” service, I paid around £23 for the around 2.5 hour journey in Business Class

Leaving a rainy Almaty for another long distance sleeper train with the same Talgo rolling stock, this time an international service across the border to Tashkent, Uzbekistan! 🇰🇿 ➡️ 🚆 ➡️ 🇺🇿

Almaty Family Park, and nearby Sairan reservoir 🇰🇿 Large park which has had old Soviet statues and military equipment moved to as a sort of bare bones open air museum!

Almaty Metro! A ticket system not really seen in Europe, you pay to receive a plastic token which is valid for a single journey. Each token costs 120 Kazakh Tenge (£0.17 / €0.19) 🇰🇿 🚇

A wander around Almaty! 🇰🇿

A couple of nights in Almaty now, and I cannot resist a cable car! Kok Tobe is an entertainment area up a hill to the east of Almaty city. 🇰🇿

The time comes to depart Astana and head south, and I can’t turn down the opportunity of an over 800-mile and 16 hour sleeper train across the Kazakh Steppe

Astana Grand Mosque! Really beautiful and massive structure, the largest mosque in Central Asia and second largest outside the Middle East! 🇰🇿 🕌

A couple of days wandering around Astana! A surreal place covering a vast flat expanse, very shiny and clean with imposing structures and large spatial parks! A really interesting city!

After a fairly pleasant flight east from Frankfurt, I arrived in the small hours in Astana, Kazakhstan! 🇰🇿

Last time I visited Koblenz, delays resulted in not having enough time. This time I had plenty of time so it was time for a cable car ride!

Time for another trip where I escape the UK and this time something slightly different 👀 I start off my usual way with a Eurostar service over to the continent!

Back in Britain and it’s time to tick off some stations, a visit to Cumbria with friends and a day in East Yorkshire brings me up to 99% of National Rail Stations visited ✅🚉

And finally reached Budapest! 🇭🇺 Which means I’ve returned to my original plan Sadly the Serbia issues meant I lost time exploring Belgrade and trying out more of Serbian railways, another time maybe!

After a brief few hours in a hotel it was time for 2 consecutive long distance trains totalling about 23 hours of travel, from Sofia to Bucharest and onwards overnight to Arad in northern Romania 🇷🇴

Phase 2 of the “Serbia avoidance route” was a coach to Sofia, due to arrive at 2330. However, the bus decided to start smoking and caught fire leading to being stuck in rural Bulgaria for 2 hours whilst a new bus was sent from Sofia! Eventually made it to my hotel at 2am 🇧🇬

As a result of the Kosovo border shenanigans, I find my self travelling south into North Macedonia! A new country for me and hope to return soon, the brief visit to Skopje was very pleasant! 🇲🇰

Upon leaving Kosovo my intention was to take a coach back north to Belgrade. However this proved to not be possible as Serbian authorities denied re-entry into Serbia as I had not received a Serbian entry stamp from police when entering from Montenegro.

Prishtina station! Sadly none of the 2 trains per day were running due to renovation works.

Prishtina, Kosovo! 🇽🇰 A very interesting city in a lesser visited area of Europe!

Sadly didn’t have long in Belgrade to properly look around as a coach south awaited me the next morning! After around 5 hours I arrived into Pristina, Kosovo 🇽🇰

After a very long and slow journey…. Beograd Centar! ✅🇷🇸

Bijelo Polje! A station where we swap the Montenegrin train for the Serbian Stadler Flirt! 🇲🇪 🇷🇸 Border control for both countries also happens here!

The Mala Rijeka Viadict, near Podgorica on the line towards Bijelo Polje and Belgrade, it is the highest railway bridge in Europe. 🇲🇪

Took a little train ride out to the lovely town of Nikšić! 🇲🇪

Had a day wandering around Podgorica! The Montenegrin Capital doesn’t have quite as many usual tourism sights as most places but definitely an interesting and pleasant city to explore! 🇲🇪

Stopped off for an hour in Sutomore! A popular beach town with a nice row of cafes and restaurants. 🇲🇪

Bar railway station! Finally back on the rails after quite frankly far too many coaches and buses! My first taste of Montenegrin railways! 🇲🇪🚆

Continuing south, my next stop, still via buses sadly, is Budva! 🇲🇪 🚌 Another quaint old town, seemingly slightly less frequented by tourists than Kotor.

A very uncomfortable bus eventually got me across the Montenegrin border to Kotor! (A mere 2h30 late due to traffic!) 🚌 🇭🇷 🇲🇪 Very nice old town! I didn’t have as long as planned here, will definitely aim to return, maybe in a slightly cooler month! ☀️ 🇲🇪

Dubrovnik Cable Car! 🚠 A short ride up to amazing views! 🇭🇷

From Mostar I have to leave the rails behind and take a coach south, back into Croatia 🇭🇷 Dubrovnik! 🏰 🏖️

Took the train from Sarajevo for a stop off in the lovely town of Mostar! 🇧🇦 Had a nice evening stroll around the old town and to Mostar Old Bridge

Sarajevo station! 🇧🇦 A very quiet station for a capital city, with departures to places such as Mostar, Zenica & Visoko! 🚆 One train to Čapljina and back is extended to Ploče, Croatia on summer weekends. 🏖️

Sarajevo! 🇧🇦 Really like the Bosnian capital with a great vibe in the centre market area and amazing view from up the cable car!

The ŽFBH train from Ploče to Sarajevo! This is the only international train to/from Bosnia and only runs on Fri/Sat/Sun in Summer! ☀️ 🚆 🇧🇦

After some time in Split I had a coach to catch down to the port town of Ploče! Quite a nice little town to spend a few hours in. 🇭🇷🚍

Took a short bus ride to Trogir, a very quaint old town with less of a tourist focus than Split. 🇭🇷 🚌

The coastal city of Split, Hrvatska! 🇭🇷 Very nice place to spend some time! 🛥️ 🌊

A very long and slow train from Zagreb to the coastal city of Split! 🚆🇭🇷