Time for more travelling and new countries! Unfortunately I had a bad cough/cold a couple of weeks ago that I have just recovered from, but Lyn is still suffering from a lingering cough. Hopefully this will disappear in the next day or so.
The trip started with an Uber from home to the Ottawa Rail Station to catch …… a coach! Since Greyhound Canada bit the dust, there is no mainline bus terminus in the city, they use the train station instead. As a result the signage isn’t that great. A coach arrived at around the right time so we followed about 50 other people to line up for it. There seemed to be a few more people than there were seats! When the driver checked our tickets he shook his head and said the Airline coach is the one behind! We sheepishly headed to that coach, noting there was a small sign on a pole identifying it as the correct coach. There were only about 10 people on it! We got to Montreal and checked in, amazingly the aircraft was on time as it was over an hour late coming in from Amsterdam due to a “last minute technical repair”
Once on the aircraft, operated by KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) I was amazed to find everything was in English, passenger announcements, signage and even the safety video. No Dutch and no French. Airlines in Canada have to be fully English and French and risk lawsuits if they are not!
The crew’s English was excellent, as was their attitude and service, very impressed. Even the Captain came back and introduced himself prior to start-up. At the end of the flight we were each given a Delft pottery house filled with Dutch gin! Delft is a Dutch town famous for its blue pottery. The KLM Delft houses have been a tradition for a number of years with 103 different models!
We had a 90 minute connection in Amsterdam, which was just about enough as it was the early morning rush and immigration was busy. We had a 2.5 hour flight to Bucharest which went fine, then an Uber to the hotel. We grabbed a quick nap at the hotel and then went for a short walk around the area, managing to grab a geocache in the process. We were also looking for a place to eat later in the evening as the hotel only has a Sushi bar.
I have no idea why this bear was plastered over the roof of an old Fiat 500, but it made for a photo-op!
Tomorrow, health permitting we’ll do a little more touring in the city.