In my previous place of residence, I house shared with a couple of guys from Romania and I sat and chatted with them about what the country was like. I was intrigued and decided that I wanted to go to Bucharest. I booked my tickets for November 2017 and it turned out I wasn’t able to go due to BA changing the flight times. It would have meant I would need an extra day off work and I had no annual leave left. I had to cancel it but I was determined to get to Bucharest.
Fast forward to April 2019 and I got to realise going to Bucharest. I managed to convince the young un to come along with me. I don’t think he was overly impressed or keen on the early morning start we were going to have to do. Our flight was at 08:20 and I live about 90 minutes from the airport.
I set an alarm (which I thought was for the same time we left Peterborough for our trip to Lviv) and it turns out I set it an hour later than it should have been. I commented on the drive that we didn’t have as much traffic when we went to Lviv. I then checked my calendar (because I schedule EVERYTHING – much to the chagrin of Jason. Haha) and realised we left an hour earlier. Still, we made it in time and also had time enough to eat breakfast. We were still upset that BK was closed! Grrr. We were looking forward to that.
The take off from Stansted was way better this time round, but the landing in Bucharest was awful. It was so windy and the plane was rocking for most of the descent. I wasn’t overly keen on it but Jason found it somewhat amusing that I was so scared. I know… rude much!
We landed and managed to find a kiosk to book a taxi. I wasn’t really feeling the whole public transport thing. We tried for about 15 minutes before we were able to book one. We saved about 45 minutes doing it this way. I would highly recommend doing it this way. Though… the drivers are mad crazy there. No lane discipline. Horns galore. Roads are crazy. Several times I thought our number was up in the taxi.
We made it to the hostel safe and sound. However, the hostel was somewhat of a hippy paradise. I take no responsibility for this one as I let Jason choose. It wasn’t a bad choice and it was close to the tram. I just wasn’t a fan of the new age, hippy vibe it was giving off. We even were asked to take off our shoes and use the house slippers. No thanks. We just wore socks indoors – thankfully not a lot of time was spent indoors!
-
The first day we were here consisted of getting settled and somewhat unpacked and then finding food. I had to change into shorts as it was nice and warm. It must have been warm as Jason even wore shorts and didn’t whine and moan (ok, maybe a bit strong of a phrase to use but sorry not sorry) about it being cold. Haha. I think he did it so he could try and entice a tan!
We found the tram stop quite easy and went to Unirii Square to have a bit of a look around. When we got off the tram and crossed the road, I noticed the Palace of the Parliament in the distance. So surreal to be here after seeing it in pictures. We had a wander around and decided we wanted food and we chose pizza. I borrowed the young uns phone to have a look and started walking – only to realise I was walking in the wrong direction. He corrected us and we didn’t even realise but we were sitting not far from a pizza joint. It was not good though. She said her English was good and we asked for no olives on the pizza but they came on the pizza regardless – after we said it wasn’t good she realised she forgot to say no olives. I had McDonald’s for that meal.
After we were done we had another wander and then headed back to the hostel. Jason chilled and I went for a wander. I found a church and had a look round the grounds. I went to go in to look but there was a service going on. I decided to head to Unirii square and walk around there. After I was done with that, I got the tram and just travelled on there until I found something I wanted to check out. I got off at Park Carol and had a quick look and kept it in mind for somewhere to go back to with Jason.
I went back to get him for dinner and we found a cafe for hot chocolate and then went for some KFC.
This ended the first day. Below are some of the pictures from today.
We got to the airport and struggled to find screens to tell us where our gate was. I took us to the wrong part – who’d have thought we needed to be through passport control! Haha
The flight home was ok until we got to Stansted and it was windy and i’m almost certain we had to do a side landing because of the wind. The plane was swaying so much. Jason, yet again, got a kick out of seeing me struggle with it. I mean, what kind of friend does that like! Tsk tsk!
Turns out this time at passport control I had the issue and Jason got straight through. It was so good to finally get in the car and get home and to my own bed.
Bucharest is definitely worth a visit and you can tell it is a communist city.