Our kids, aged seven and four, love a sleeper train. So when my wife and I settled upon a resort in the beach town of Ulcinj, Montenegro for our family summer holiday, I immediately started to research the possibilities of getting there by rail. It would be no mean feat, but an overland journey was possible: London to Croatia via the Netherlands, Germany and Hungary, then down the Dalmatian coast to Montenegro, nipping inland to Bosnia and Herzegovina on the way.
To some, that already looked like quite enough train time. But in my googling, I realised that just up the coast from the town of Ulcinj sits the port of Bar, the starting point for another train to Serbia – considered one of the world’s most beautiful rail journeys. It looked too good to miss, and we added it to the already circuitous route. We would spend three weeks travelling slowly across Europe by rail, before flying back from Belgrade in time for the resumption of school.
