interest than fast or practical. The famed Orient Express from London now travels no further than Vienna, but you can take the daily TransBalkan from Budapest (Hungary) via Bucharest (Romania), a two-night journey with a scheduled 3-hour stop in Bucharest. 1st/2nd class sleepers and couchettes are available, but the train lacks a restaurant car so stock up on supplies. From/to Greek stations there are two daily services, from Istanbul to the border station of Pythion every morning and from Istanbul to Thessaloniki every night. (Due to budget cuts by the Greek government, the services to/from Greece has been suspended indefinitely since 13th February 2011.) There are also daily trains to Istanbul from Sofia (Bulgaria).
From Middle East, there are also once-weekly services from Tabriz and Tehran in Iran to Van and Istanbul, via Ankara. (Due to railtrack renovations, for at least two years from February 2012 on, Istanbul's Asian station will receive no services. As such, the western terminus of Trans-Asia Express, which provides service between Iran and Turkey, has now been shifted to Ankara.) While direct Istanbul-Damascus service has been discontinued for some time now, there are still once or twice weekly trains between southern cities of Mersin, Adana, and Gaziantep and the Syrian city of Aleppo. There had also been a train connecting Gaziantep with Mosul in Iraq, but it was suspended shortly after it was inaugurated and does not seem to come back into service, at least not in the foreseeable future.
A cheap way of traveling to or from Turkey might be the Balkan Flexipass.
By car
From Central Europe, getting to Turkey is not too difficult. In any case you'll need your International Insurance Card (Green Card). Pay attention to "TR" not being canceled and be sure your insurance is valid for the Asian part of Turkey, too. Otherwise you will have to buy Turkish car insurance separately. In any case, Turkish customs will make an
