Bucharest; Monday, 23 October, 2017

Given it was Monday a lot of sites were going to be closed, so I took advantage to have another decent lie in and a late breakfast before heading out.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bit of a wasted trip as the Natural History Museum that I headed to was closed – despite Google Maps and the website saying it was open. It turned out that the summer season had ended the previous Friday, but sites that are open on Mondays in the summer hadn’t all got around to updating their information.

I headed back into town and was going to visit the ruins of a palace from the time of Vlad Dracul (Vlad the Impaler), but that turned out to be closed also as it was undergoing restoration – this time having been like that since 2015!

So instead I had a bit of a wander around the old town and then over to Union Square to take some photos down to the parliament palace. I wandered back to the metro to catch it back to the hotel at which point I spotted the bus stop for the buses back to the airport – and more importantly – how busy they were.

My original plan had been to head back to the hotel, have a spot of lunch and then pick up the bus back on the main road, but it was clear if I did that I would probably be standing for the best part of an hour back to the airport so instead I headed back to the hotel, picked up my bags and headed straight back to the city centre to catch the bus.

I just missed one as I came out of the metro station, but I was quite glad for that as it was standing room only on that one. I walked down to the bus stop and the next one out was already sat waiting, with people already on board, so I could get on and get a seat.

By the time the bus pulled out 20 minutes late there were only a handful of seats left and they had all gone at the next stop near the University, so by the time it got to the stop near my hotel it was very full and several people I recognised from the hotel were struggling to get on.

From there it was a long and at time tortuous ride out to the airport with every set of lights on red for three or four minutes at a time, but we eventually made it whilst the checkin area was being set up. Once setup was complete I could checkin, pass through security and have a much later lunch than I’d anticipated before the flight started boarding.