An old train parked on Santos beach in the harbor town of Mossel Bay in the Southern Cape of South Africa has been converted into a pretty little hotel. Called the “The Santos Express Train Lodge” or simply “Train”, the lodge sits on a pair of abandoned rails roughly 30 meters from the sea. There are seven coaches, of which four are identical with sleeper compartments, sharing two toilets and a shower. The fifth coach is converted into a 16 bed dormitory with a self catering kitchen. The last two coaches, the “Royal Ladies”, are two vintage coaches dating from the early 1920`s, each containing two very spacious suites. In addition, there is a restaurant that serves a good range of traditional South African dishes, such as bobotie (a dish of spicy ground meat with savory custard topping) and waterblommetjiebredie (water-flower stew).
