A friend of mine in France wants to go to İstanbul by train and later continue to his country Syria. Has any of you travelled to Turkey by train from Europe? He would like to have some information about this long journey from someone who has experienced it before he makes up his mind. It seems a bit long but he likes to have adventure.

On our recent trip we went first class sleeper overnight from Istanbul to Ankara then back from Afyon.It was really comfortable-get on,go to bed, wake up at your destination.
My husband would like to do what your friend is doing especialy the train that goes all the way to Syria.

Wow looks great - thank you Peacetrain for thanking Sonunda and to Meltem for starting this thread, to Peacetrain for never changing and for being so very very nice on occasions and to her mother and father for bringing her into this world (and thus into our lives), and to all the weather forecasters getting your forecast wrong today when you said it would rain, and to the inventor of sunglasses for helping me to shield my eyes from the sunshine that Peacetrain brings to this site

Oh!

İstanbul- Aleppo train does not work at the moment.

"It's reported that due to engineering work on the line, this train won't run between 15 June & some time in August 2008."

There's another option after arrival to İstanbul, but it's not direct, you have to do train + 2 buses

However, to my surpise the fares are so low, for the direct train, it costs just 80 dollar.

Wow, only $80? I would expect it to be more like $800! heheheh This whole idea seems interesting, but only if you were stopping in the countries on your way... but simply to go by train seems like a lot of pain.. :-S