Sunday, March 3 – transit from Harrow on the Hill to Bucharest, Romania

I have a 10am departure from Heathrow on British Airways, so I left the flat around 6:45am to catch, you guessed it, the SL9. The nonstop flight to Bucharest took around 3 hours, and the round trip cost was $188.

Travel Note: This is my second round trip on a British Airways A320 (also to Sofia). The legroom is brutal! My knees are right up against the seat in front of me. And there’s no hard back surface at the lower end of the seats. I can therefore feel the knees of the person behind me in my lower back. Fun!

The flight was packed, with an arrival around 3pm (Bucharest is 2 hours ahead of London). Like Sarajevo, I received zero questions from the immigration officer. I guess they’re just happy to have visitors (this time of year)!

My transfer options included a bus or train into the city. I decided to splurge though (very uncharacteristic, right?) and went with a $15 / 25 minute Uber ride. Fortunately the Europe eSIM on my phone worked here in Romania. That made using such things such as Uber more economical.

Travel Tip: I use ATMs to obtain local currency when traveling overseas. I’ve mentioned numerous times that I have a Schwab debit card that offers zero foreign transaction fees, and reimburses all ATM charges. A great card for international travel! This specific tip though relates to the use of overseas ATMs: You will invariably be prompted to accept the currency exchange rate calculated by the bank operating the ATM. If your debit card doesn’t charge a foreign transaction fee, then decline this conversion, because your card’s rate will always be better. (Same goes for using Paypal for foreign transactions; always choose the local currency rather than the U.S. dollar conversion)

Following check-in, I took a little stroll around the area of the hotel.

Monday, March 4 – Bucharest

It’s a beautiful day, let’s roam! But first…

Bucharest is a little spread out, but definitely a walkable city. I have a few specific places I want to check out today, but am also happy to just see where I randomly end up.

My first stop is the Village Museum. It’s a little bit of a walk to get there though. Here are a few sights from the journey…

Bucharest is nicknamed The Little Paris. Obviously you can see the similar architectural styles. However, the similarities only present themselves in isolated areas of the city. In my mind, Buenos Aires provides a more consistent comparison to Paris.

The Village Museum or National Museum of the Village Dimitrie Gusti is an open-air museum that showcases traditional Romanian village life. The museum contains 123 authentic peasant settlements. The entry fee was 30 RON ($7).

My next stop was Cismigiu Gardens…

A LOT of walking today! I’ll provide a daily summary of steps at the end of this journal entry.

Tuesday, March 5 – Bucharest

I’ve booked an all-day tour today. The itinerary includes visiting two castles and a medieval city. I had to be at the pickup point no later than 7:30am, which was a little ways from the hotel. So sadly no breakfast this morning.

The cost of the tour was $27, which I thought was amazingly inexpensive.

Peles Castle

Our first stop is Peles Castle. The drive from Bucharest took about 3 hours. The castle was built between 1873 and 1914 for King Carol I of Romania. Unfortunately during the low season the castle is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. (I knew this when I booked the tour, but going tomorrow wasn’t an option, as you will see…) However, we were able to walk the grounds.

Brasov

Next we visited the city of Brasov, which dates to the 13th century. It is located in the central part of the country, north of Bucharest and is surrounded by the Southern Carpathians and is part of the historical region of Transylvania.

The old town was easily walkable. We were given free time to do some exploring on our own.

Bran Castle

Our final stop today is Bran Castle in Transylvania. The castle was built by Saxons in 1377, and is marketed by Romania as Dracula’s Castle. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a work of fiction however, and there is no evidence that the author knew anything about this castle. I have a feeling this is going to be kind of touristy (which I tend to avoid!), but I just couldn’t resist, being that I was so close to Transylvania!

This was a good day. And long! Bran Castle was rather touristy, but I have to admit I enjoyed it. The other two stops were fun too! I left the hotel at 7am, and got back around 7:45pm.

Wednesday, March 6 – Bucharest

I spun my wheels a bit today. I think I have to chalk it up to laziness. Or hubris?

I wanted to take a tour of the Palace of Parliament, and assumed that during the low season I could just walk up and make it happen. Nope. And that wasn’t the only issue.

The Palace of the Parliament is massive. It covers nearly 4 million square feet. It was constructed over a period of 13 years (1984–97) under the direction of Nicolae Ceaușescu, the president of Communist Romania.

The Palace complex covers a huge city block and is surrounded by a wall. According to Google Maps, the visitors entrance was to the left as you are looking at the Palace. Wrong. The guard at that gate instructed me go to the gate on the opposite end of the property. Okay. When I finally entered the visitors area I noticed there were a lot of people waiting around. Mmmm. Not good. Then I saw a sign indicating that visitors taking the tour were required to present photo identification. That could be a problem. Speaking to the woman at reception confirmed my suspicions: The tours were fully booked until 3pm, and I would need to present my passport to take the tour, which I had left at the hotel (I did have my driver’s license, but that was not good enough). By this time I was kind of frustrated (mad a myself), and decided to just forget about the tour. Plus, I had plans for later in the day and didn’t feel like coming back here in the afternoon for the tour (the Palace is a little ways away from my hotel).

Next I wanted to check out a subway station I had read about…

While in Old Town, I picked up a postcard for Oliver at a souvenir shop, and mailed it…

I’m attending another opera tonight. More specifically, Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) by Jacques Offenbach.

Now, I booked this online before traveling to Bucharest. While reading about the performance, I noticed that the start time was 6:30pm. That seemed kind of early to me, but really didn’t pay too much attention to it. Well, after arriving in Bucharest and learning more about The Tales of Hoffmann, I realized that this performance will have two intervals and runs 3 hours and forty minutes. This is like the Scorsese film of operas! I’m not sure if I’ll be staying for the full performance. We’ll see…

It was a fun performance, with beautiful sets. I’m ashamed to say though that I left during the second interval. Just a little too long. Please don’t judge me!

Thursday, March 7 – transit from Bucharest to Harrow on the Hill

My flight back to London isn’t until 4pm, so I believe a little more roaming is in order!

Well, my time in Bucharest is coming to an end. I decided to go with another $15 Uber to the airport. This trip had some issues though. First off, the car reeked of cigarette smoke. Disgusting! And secondly, I think the driver tried to pull some sort of scam on me, telling me his app was indicating that I had cancelled the ride and I would have to rebook the trip. Um, I don’t think so. My app was stating that the ride was still active, and I had also received an email during the ride from my credit card company indicating the charge had gone through. (the benefits of having internet access) I relayed this information to the driver and it pretty much shut him up. (he even messaged me the next day via Uber, but I ignored it)

Getting through security at the airport was pretty chaotic. Hard to believe they are really part of the E.U.! And the boarding of the flight was a mess; not by groups, no lines, just a free for all! Oh well, I survived. The flight on the A320 was pretty full, but I luckily had an open middle seat next to me. And upon arrival at Heathrow I had to endure another bus ride from the plane to the terminal. It’s hard to be me. Haha!

I grabbed the trusty SL9 for my ride back to Harrow, and was in the flat around 8pm.

Bucharest Information

• The population of Bucharest is about 2 million
• The tourist area is a little more spread out than Sofia
• I would put it ahead of Sofia in terms of infrastructure
• Yes, there is a lot of smoking here (like Sofia and Sarajevo)

Much walking again on this trip. Here are the daily step totals:

• Sunday: 18k
• Monday: 31k (new max for this winter)
• Tuesday: 16k (a lot of time on the tour bus)
• Wednesday: 27k
• Thursday: 19k