Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Bucharest

Bucharest – Capitoline Wolf Statue

Known locally as the Statuia Lupoaicei, this statue was given to the people of Romania in 1906 by the Government of Italy and is a copy of a similar one in Rome. The Italians gave statues like this to numerous countries and it depicts a wolf nurturing Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome.

For many years this was located at the Piata Romana (the Roman Square seemed an appropriate place for it), but it’s now at the intersection between Bulevardul Ion C. Brătianu and Strada Lipscani. There are over twenty-five Capitoline Wolf statues across Romania and I can’t imagine that any other country, with perhaps the obvious exception of Italy, has more.

February 20, 2020
Bucharest – Bucharest Airport (TAROM Business Lounge)

There seem to be two airport lounges that Oneworld status customers can use, but apparently they’re very similar and this is the one that I found first. It’s clearly signed when walking towards the gates, up one set of escalators. The staff member at the reception desk was helpful and the sign-in process was quick and easy.

The main corridor of the lounge, there is food and drink on both sides with the seating area at the rear.

The lounge interior, all quite modern and airy in its decoration. I thought that the temperature was just a touch too hot when I visited, which was mid-February, so I suspect that it might be quite challenging in the summer months, unless they have some excellent air conditioning.

There were some spirits, wines and soft drinks.

The bulk of the food offering was really crisps and snacks, with a choice of three different flavours of crisps.

I didn’t turn the crisps down, that would have been rude. The coffee was rather bitter, but the orange juice was flavoursome. There were also some sandwiches, which weren’t particularly a taste sensation if I’m being honest.

This was the only beer available and I decided to give Ursus just one more chance, having had it at the Ibis hotel as the welcome drink. I’m pleased that it is consistent, it’s a truly awful beer in a can as well as on draught. Entirely devoid of flavour, taste or any complexity at all, it’s slightly pointless.

In terms of dining, the airport has quite a strong array of options in their food court, so anyone wanting something more substantial would probably be better heading there. However, the selling point of this lounge is the relaxing environment and a place to get work done, with some excellent views of the runway. There weren’t very many power points around the lounge, although they did have charging stations where people could leave their phone to charge. Unfortunately, I’m not very good at leaving my phone, I worry about it…..

There’s a smoking room at one end of the lounge, which was fortunately nowhere near me, although for reasons unknown to me, they allow vaping anywhere in the lounge. There aren’t any toilets within the lounge, but they are just a short walk around the corner and given that closeness, I’m surprised that they weren’t part of the lounge’s footprint to save guests leaving and returning.

Anyway, the lounge was clean and comfortable, although certainly not exceptional in many other ways. The staff all seemed friendly and helpful, that added to the warmth of the atmosphere somewhat, so it was a comfortable place to spend a couple of hours. I’m not sure that I would have paid to get in the lounge though, unless someone wants a little privacy and quiet, it would probably be better to find a table at one of the restaurants in the airport’s food course. But, since this was free (well, as part of my ticket), I was entirely content.

February 20, 2020
Bucharest – National Museum of Art (Beheading of St. John the Baptist)

This cheery little number was painted in the fifteenth century in the Tuscan area of Italy, later becoming part of the collection owned by King Carol I of Romania. I assume that the viewer of the artwork is meant to appreciate the sacrifice made by St. John the Baptist when he was killed by Herod Antipas, but it’s all a bit unpleasant for my liking.

Caravaggio painted a well known artwork on the same subject, which is in St. John’s Cathedral in Valletta, Malta, but at least that one is a little less dramatic in terms of the head being cut off. Unfortunately, as with many other artworks in this gallery, there’s nearly no background information to the painting.

February 20, 2020
Bucharest – National Museum of Art (Hall in the Hradcany Palace by Aegidius Sadeler the Younger)

A rather lovely painting of the interior of the Hradčany Palace, or Prague Castle. It was painted by Aegidius Sadeler the Younger, who lived between 1570 and 1629, when he died in Prague. This is another mildly frustrating effort by the National Museum of Art, with no background offered to the artwork at all, other than it was part of the collection acquired by King Carol I of Romania. Beyond that there’s no provenance, no date of painting or anything to tell more of the artwork’s story.

My photo of this artwork is pretty poor, but there’s a lot going on in the painting, it makes the castle seem like quite the hive of activity in the early seventeenth century.

February 20, 2020
Bucharest – National Museum of Art (Hercules and the Nemean Lion by Pieter Paul Rubens)

This is one of the highlights of the National Museum of Art, although there’s not much made of it in terms of providing a background to the painting, even on the museum’s web-site. The artwork was painted in 1608, although the gallery don’t mention that, and it was part of the collection purchased by King Carol I of Romania. There seem to be copies and sketches for this painting located in numerous galleries dotted around the world, but none of them make reference to this artwork in Bucharest. All moderately confusing….

February 20, 2020
Bucharest – Dying for Freedom

Aici s-a murit pentru libertate means “here he died for freedom”, a reminder of the revolution which broke out in this area of Bucharest on the 21 and 22 December 1989. The sign is placed on what is now known as Piața 21 Decembrie 1989, the day it all went a bit wrong for Nicolae Ceaușescu.

February 19, 2020
Bucharest – The Coffee Shop

This small chain of coffee shops has outlets primarily in Romania, but it also now has a presence in Hungary and Bulgaria. It’s not the most innovative of shop names, but at least it’s descriptive I suppose. This shop is the one on Strada Academiei, in the Old Town area of Bucharest.

There was a friendly welcome from someone stacking the shelves when I entered, with the staff member serving at the counter also smiling and seeming being keen to engage. Unfortunately, his English was just a little limited and my Romanian isn’t quite fluent, but we were doing well until he asked what type of bean I wanted. I asked for a rich or dark coffee bean, primarily as I don’t really know anything about coffee, and fortunately another staff member in the shop overheard and was able to decipher me and was able to suggest the Burundi bean.

And the coffee was absolutely delicious, rich, chocolately and smooth. It’s not a large cafe, primarily two tables by the windows and a longer table at the rear, but there was a relaxed feel to the environment and it felt like a welcoming place to be. The cafe was also spotlessly clean and the coffee itself was well presented. If I see any of this company’s other outlets in the future, I’m sure that I’ll pop in.

February 19, 2020
Flights – Bucharest to Heathrow T5 (British Airways)

With my time to Bucharest over for this year (or at least I have no plans to return this year), my flight back was the BA887 service from the Romanian capital to London Heathrow T5.

I don’t always see the British Airways aircraft landing whilst waiting to go back to London, indeed I very rarely see it due to the layout of airports, but I did today. Here’s the aircraft landing in Bucharest, just a few minutes late. The aircraft is an Airbus A320, registration G-TTNH, introduced to the BA fleet from new in January 2019.

The boarding process was well managed, Groups 1-3 boarded first in what seemed an organised little arrangement, then Groups 4 and 5. The staff members were friendly, it was all quite a relaxed affair.

I had an exit row seat by the window. I’m going off these exit rows a little as I have to put my bag into the overhead lockers, and I like it being nearby. Anyway, there wasn’t too much pressure on the overheads today and so it wasn’t a difficulty. The seat next to me was kept clear, which is a handy feature of FLY, with a gold status member in the aisle seat, and my lesser status by the window.

The flight was free from any issues, which is just how I like them. I fell asleep for about an hour, watched everything I’d downloaded from Netflix and then, a few minutes early, the aircraft was ready to land. The crew and pilot announcements were all professional and timely, but I miss the drop-down screens as it was nice to see how much progress we’d made. I think on airlines with wi-fi fitted that this information is freely available, but this wasn’t a wi-fi enabled aircraft.

I still don’t really like the Buy-On-Board (BOB) strategy that BA implemented, when they started to charge for food and drink in Euro Traveller. The food and drink is a little immaterial, but it allowed the crew members to engage with customers and it also broke the time up a little bit. The BOB didn’t take much during the flight, or at least, it didn’t whilst going by the rows near to me and before I fell asleep….

The aircraft landed at A Gates and that meant just a short walk to border control without walking from B or C Gates. Very impressively, it took me less than twenty seconds from entering border control to leaving it, as there was no queue for the kiosks and my passport was processed within two seconds. Marvellous.

February 19, 2020
Bucharest – Hotel ibis Bucharest Gare De Nord

Located near to the railway station which it takes its name from, this is a large Accor hotel and it’s ideal for the metro which is about 50 feet away. The check-in process was smooth and the staff member was pleasant and helpful, so all positive first impressions.

Very kindly, the hotel had upgraded me to a suite. I liked this.

The welcome gift. There were also around six tea bags, but these never got replaced during the week. I’m never sure of the logic of giving a few tea bags and then not replacing them, but I asked at breakfast if I could take a few, and I think they were happy if I took the entire box. But I didn’t, I have enough to carry.

The drinks voucher.

Frankly, the beer choice were dreadful and the Ursus had no discernible flavour, taste, aftertaste or indeed anything positive about it at all. A completely pointless product. It’s fair to say that I don’t like Ursus.

The breakfast selection, with a decent amount of choice. The staff did struggle some mornings keeping this stocked though, especially when larger groups all came down at once.

And here’s one of my random selection of items….

Incidentally, on that day I went back for something else leaving the tray above on the table. A staff member decided that it must be finished with, and I only just salvaged the tray back before everything on it was thrown away. I’m not quite sure why she thought someone was abandoning that much food, but there we go….

OK, as to the hotel. There were serious noise issues from the rear of the building, namely the glass recycling bin which created problematic levels of noise throughout the night. The worst problem though was the temperature in the hotel, which was set to be permanently too hot, a complete waste of the hotel’s resources in my view. I left my window open the entire time, and that only mitigated the problem with the temperature rather than completely solving it. Unfortunately, the seating area room of the suite didn’t have a window, so I didn’t spend that long in there. It’s hard to complain that I had a room in the suite that was too hot, since I didn’t pay for that extra space, but it was a shame. The hotel needs better air conditioning, but it’s clear that the building is due for a refurbishment, so perhaps it’ll be added at that point.

Anyway, cleanliness was excellent throughout and the staff were always helpful and friendly. For the price, which was around £25 per night including breakfast as part of the Black Friday offer, I was suitably impressed. All rather lovely.

February 19, 2020
Bucharest – 780 Bus Service from City Centre to Airport

And so, back to the airport…. It’s not too long a bus journey back to the airport, it takes around 50 minutes from the city centre.

For those leaving from Gara de Nord railway station, the bus stop to the airport is at the red dot. It’s not amazingly signed when there, but there is a timetable on the little ticket office (well, ticket shed) door. Many people will already have a ticket as, generally, you can only buy a return from the airport (although two people can use the ticket at the same time instead of one person using it twice), which is what I’d done. For those who haven’t got a ticket, it needs to be purchased at the shed door before boarding, I’m fairly sure that the bus driver can’t sell tickets. After boarding, it’s essential to validate the ticket on the, well, validator.

For those not paying attention there is the potential for error as the airport bus goes by Aurel Vlaicu Airport, which is no longer in use for scheduled flights. I did see two people getting out with big bags, either they knew what they were doing, or they’d got off at the wrong airport. The city’s main airport is Henri Coandă International Airport at Otopeni, which is the last stop on the bus route so it’d be hard to miss it. In a few years, this bus isn’t likely to be the best way to get to and from the city centre, the Metro system is being extended to reach the airport. But, for today, the bus turned up on time, was clean and everything ran to schedule.

February 19, 2020