View the route
Date of the journey:- September 2019
Distance travelled:- 122 miles
Our quest to get from Bucharest Romania to Veliko Tarnovo Bulgaria was completed by bus. Using the Flixbus company, we booked the 3.75-hour journey at a cost of 20 euros for both of us.
The bus departed from the Autogara Militari in the city. To get there from our accommodation in the Old Town, we walked to the Gradina Cismigiu bus stop. From there we took bus number 138 towards Cartier Militari. Alighting the bus at Valea Cascadelor, 19 stops later, about a 40 min journey. The bus station is about a 100m walk from the stop.
The journey through the Romanian countryside was pleasant. Travelling on a comfortable air-conditioned bus with a clean functioning toilet along with limited WiFi permitted the uploading of photos onto our blog.
The crossing of the river Danube at Ruse marked the border crossing between Romania and Bulgaria.
Passing straight through the Romanian passport control without any problems, taking around 40 minutes at the Bulgarian checkpoint. Border Guards came onto the bus collected everyone’s passports, and took them into the control building for scanning.
Checks complete. Guards reboarded the bus, dumped a large pile of passports with the driver, and went on their way. With a passenger delegated the task of returning everyone’s passports!
Beware when travelling on these buses. Our driver’s knowledge of English was very limited, he was quite abrupt when we attempted to speak to him.
Pulling into a bus stop the driver announced that it was a short break. Unbeknown to us, it was actually our stop. After a short break, the driver did a head count and scratched his head! Then we got underway again. Luckily for us, we checked our location on Google maps as it seemed as though we were actually moving away from Veliko Tarnovo. We stopped the bus and got off, in the middle of nowhere.
With the help of Google maps again, we soon got back on track and on our way to Home with a view, our Airbnb accommodation.