Train reaction: A journey on the Danube Express

So imagine: you're just finishing lunch in the dining car when it seems your train has been stopped by two Cossacks on horseback cracking bullwhips. It's not a dream. It was my first afternoon on the Danube Express, somewhere between Budapest and Istanbul, and the men in the blue flowing robes were actually chicos. Once they herded and pillaged their way across the vast Hungarian plain, now they put on shows for tourists.

We were only a few hours out of Budapest and this was our first stop, a horse show in a place called Lajosmizse. We stepped outside, a party of Americans, Brits, Hungarians and Mexicans, to find out that the vast plain has no platforms. In the field before us two open horse-drawn carriages were waiting, their only concession to even the 20th century being pneumatic tyres.

As we bounced our way down a wooded trail it was a good chance for the passengers to get to know each other. The Danube Express is liberal with its beer and wine, which had left everyone chatty after lunch. Our carriage consisted of middle-aged Americans in baseball caps and at least one Brit in a cravat. There were also four glamorous and mysterious Mexican women, all married, who had come without their husbands to discover Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria - well, it beats joining a book club.

The show involved some impressive stunts, such as one man riding standing upright on the backs of five horses, and also weirder stunts such as getting Lipizzaners to sit on their haunches like dogs. The high point for me was when the tourists were challenged to dislodge an empty wine bottle with a bullwhip. The Brit in a cravat failed despite graceful technique but Fabiola, one of the Mexican wives, went for it with gusto, blond hair flying, and down it came.

We had another stop before dinner which was in the Hungarian city of Kecskemét. The most famous person to be born in Kecskemét was the composer Zoltan Kodaly. To celebrate this fact the city demolished his home to build the railway station. The centre of the city is pretty enough, with buildings in every style from the Baroque to some truly inspired Secessionist houses that bordered on the psychedelic with their wavy rooflines and purple decorative panels, but they were all spaced out across a wide pedestrian area.

That night we drank well in the bar car and dined on venison and strudel as the Danube Express trundled its way into Romania. The great thing about a luxury train journey is that you can switch off completely and ignore your surroundings if they are dull or downright ugly.

The train becomes your immediate surroundings, you look away, listen to Zsolt, the ever-present pianist, and accept another Rizling refill from Gabi the naughty waitress.

The next morning we stepped out into the cold light of day at Sighisoara railway station. "If it's Thursday it must be Romania," said an English type.Sighisoara is famous as the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, better known as Dracula. It has a beautiful, compact fairytale citadel, mercifully neglected by Nicolae Ceausescu when he was forcing all Romanians to live in high-rise concrete slums.

"We were fortunate that he was killed when he was," Georgiana our guide told me. "Another 20 years and he would have demolished all the historic buildings in Romania."

Georgiana joined us for lunch on the train and explained to me that the bearded man on the new one lev note was her grandfather, Nicolae Iorga - democratic prime minister of Romania for a few days in 1940 before the Fascist Iron Guard shot him.

Our afternoon stop was in Brasov which is the station for Bran, Dracula's castle. Georgiana had given the police advance notice of our arrival as a courtesy. We were met not only by armed men in police battle dress but by their boss, a scary man in a full-length black trenchcoat who looked like he'd stepped out of a 1940s B-movie.

"They're here for our protection," Georgiana explained as we boarded the coach, but all they had to protect us from was the appalling Dracula-related tat that surrounds Bran. Fortunately the castle itself was gorgeous.

But that's the beauty of a train trip - you can enjoy the good bits and ignore the rest and remember that at the end of the day Gabi is waiting for you with her infinite supply of Hungarian Rizling. As for tomorrow, it's not another day. It's Bulgaria.

Danube Express offers a three-night Transylvanian Journey from Budapest to Istanbul from £2,790pp full-board, based on two sharing, including scheduled sightseeing flights from Heathrow to Budapest and Istanbul to Heathrow. The next departure is May 9 2012,