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-   -   Transylvania to Pennsylvania and beyond! Day 1 - Heathrow to Bucharest (https://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1139782)

BONZO 3 Aug 19 09:49 PM

Transylvania to Pennsylvania and beyond! Day 1 - Heathrow to Bucharest
 
Tuesday 9th July 2019

Cast list (the usual):

Me: Shaun, Intrepid Traveller

Her: Alison, Slightly less intrepid traveler, but planner supreme and finds the good deals!

Trip Report Index HERE

So, here we go on another seemingly random trip! (See pre trip report for further details!)

The night before I couldn't sleep last night for some reason, possibly the normal pre-trip excitement or the worry about trying to get round the M25 on a work day. I normally come off at Junction 5 on the way to work every morning so I’m well aware of what the traffic can look like!

Anyway, the alarm went off at 6 am, we carried out our morning routines, checked the traffic and hit the M25, luckily traffic was flowing as well as can be expected. We arrived at Heathrow and parked in the Long Stay car park.

After a quick bus ride and seamless check in via the First Wing we settled down for breakfast where I had my obligatory guilty pleasure of a full cooked breakfast.



Alison settled on the more healthy option of muesli and coffee.



We wandered back into the lounge to settle down in the comfy seats when we noticed there was a summer gin promotion in the patio area.





Not sure if it was deliberate or not but not much gin to be had and the chiller cabinets were warm. Well we just added ice as it was before 10 am but surely its 5 o’clock somewhere?;)



We checked the boarding information and noticed that we were departing from gate A1! I don’t think you can get any further away from the lounge so left the lounge in good time and wandered down to the gate.

Once on board I had two pieces of good luck. (1) Someone had left a copy of “Closer” behind :omg: and (2) they had the new Speedbird 100 from Brewdog available.





Time passed by as we flew to Bucharest (just over a 3 hour flight) and was uneventful, or at least I think it was as I had a bit of post meal / drink snooze before landing.



We had pasta for our meal (we always quite enjoy the BA pasta!)



We left the plane and used the EU passport control queue and through to pick up our luggage.

Based upon our research we knew that using a taxi may well lead to significant over charging so Alison had pre-booked a private taxi in advance to pick us up. As we were a bit late the driver had called Alison a couple of times but her phone was on silent mode. She decided to call back but somehow managed to face-time instead! – How embarrassing! ;)

We cleared customs and found the driver waiting for us with our name on a board and headed over to the car park opposite and we made some small talk whilst we made our way to the city centre and hotel. Typically it was now 5pm and the roads were grid locked. We peered out the window and took in some of the sights including their own Arc de Triomph!



We eventually arrived at the hotel





and were pleasantly received by the guy on the check-in desk who arranged for us to have a takeaway breakfast as we were leaving so early the next morning.

The room was clean, tidy if slightly old fashioned but suited us perfectly for the one night’s stay.





We had a quick shower and walked out to the old town for a bite to eat and a look around. The old town was an interesting mix of old architecture, churches and bars, mainly pedestrianised and plenty of food and drink options to choose from.



We stopped at the City Grill for a bite to eat and people watch, lovely skinless sausages for me and burger for Alison. All very nice even if a bit salty, as was much of the food here in Romania. We sunk a couple of beers as we sat outside and watched the world go by.








We took a short stroll back to the hotel where I had another pint (must be all that salt) followed by a coffee before calling it a night on our first leg.



An early start tomorrow - so far we've done flight 1 (of 8!) and tomorrow we're flying to Philadelphia!

Melbatb 4 Aug 19 08:24 AM

I love your quirky routings!

Looking forward to reading the rest!

CrispyA 4 Aug 19 07:51 PM

Very nice for a quick visit! Look forward to reading the rest

Cutiepie 4 Aug 19 07:59 PM

Love your reports, looking forward to the rest:)


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