Back to Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport and The Visa Satellite Lounge (Non-Schengen)
Miles to Bucharest
Let’s head back to Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport. The bus sounds like a good idea… doesn’t it? At least there’s a lounge at the end of the rainbow…
In this adventure
- The Last Gasp of Silver (or British Airways did us all dirty)
- Off to Heathrow and the wonder of Terminal 3
- Lounging around Terminal 3 with Cathay Pacific and Qantas
- BA886 London Heathrow to Bucharest Henri Coandă (Club Europe)
- Exiting Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport and into the City – Of Trains and Trams
- The Mercure Urinii – An Accor ALL Hotel
- A Nighttime Walk with an iPhone
- A Morning Exploration around Central Bucharest
- Back to Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport and the Visa Satellite Lounge
- BA887 Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport to London Heathrow (Club Europe)
- Two Trains, A Tube and a Bus to Home
- Silver retained. But a New Battle awaits
With time ticking on, I had to make a decision – how was I getting back to the airport? I looked at where I was – the Arcul de Triumf. There was a bus stop in the distance ahead, heading out of the city… or a stop further back into Bucharest and try for a bus stop nearer the city centre.
Given that it was a shorter walk, I turned south, and exercised my muscles and walked a little further back to the city, down Ambassadorial Row, and enjoyed the urban walk back into the city.
It is a real country anyway.
An urban park.
Eventually, I neared Piața Victoriei (Victory Square)… where there was a protest going on.
Oh, I do choose these days when I travel, don’t I?
Crossing the street to avoid the protests, eventually, I made it to the bus stop where the 100 would depart from. With the train timetable to Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport not a clockface one – plus I was nowhere near the North Station neighbourhood, so catching the 100 seemed a good idea.
And yes. I could have used an Uber or Bolt (it was cheap enough). I just wasn’t feeling social enough to deal with an Uber.
The good news is the 100 uses a bendy bus (articulated bus), with the option to pay on the bus. The bad news – it was not a bus set up for airport traffic, but rather a city bus – thus there were limited seating options – so for me, it was standing room to Bucharest Otopeni (Henri Coandă) Airport. At least the 100 is a limited stop service, with a stop at Bucharest Băneasa Airport (which seems to be the home of Wizz Air).
I just hung on to a pole as the journey continued, as the bus made its way to the airport. For those of you who are mad enough, it is theoretically walkable. But with a 3 lei charge (51p)… just pay the bus fare.
It was busy.
Or if you’re fancy and planned enough, grab the train for 6 lei. Check the timetable though.
Passing the Arcul de Triumf
Casa Presi – The House of The Free Press
Trupeters at Monumentul “Aripi”
Car dealerships are wild.
Closign in on the shopping centre and hotel near the airport.
Nearing the airport, as the bus passes the train station.
There are two stops at the airport – One at Departures and one at Arrivals. I jumped off at the Departures area to check the state of play.
Departures
With the BA check-in not open, I self-checked in using the app and grabbed an electronic boarding pass. Considering I had no luggage to check in, this seemed to be the easiest way round.
That out of the way, I had 100 lei burning a hole in my pocket. Time to do some random spending.
Thankfully, there is a Carrefour Express at the airport. What better way to burn at least 60 lei on things I don’t need and perfect for gifts? Besides, it allowed me to explore the airport landside.
After getting some random tourist tat and waking back through the terminal (and taking over a few Pokemon Go gyms), it was time to find a queue to clear security.
Truth
Screening here was more the traditional X-ray machine, so laptops and liquids were out, and you needed to collect your trays. One tray of mine passed – the other with the backpack needed a rescreen. Once that was done, I was on my way through the terminal.
Qatar Airways Airbus A320 and flyDubai 737
Eurowings AIrbus A319
Crouching Tiger, Hidden airBaltic A220-300
Anything to declare?
A painless enough process, as I passed the nice windows, and back into a hallway with portholes. This airport does love them.
Now you’re thinking with Portals.
Eventually, I entered the duty free shop and in the main departures area. Ideally, looking at the prices – they looked initially cheap… until I realised I was reading the Euro Price as opposed to the Romanian Lei price.
Duty Free
Oopsie.
Thankfully, there wasn’t much to grab my interest, so I proceeded onwards, spying a TAMRON aircraft in a retro livery.
airBaltic Airbus A220-300
TAMROM Boeing 737-800 Retrojet
Turboprop parking
From there I headed onward, as the lounge I would need would be beyond the Schengen Border Control.
To the Gates and Non-Schengen land.
Enjoying my Brexit benefits of queues and delays.
Given a Qatar Airways and Pegasus Airways flight was heading out, it was a little chaotic to go through the immigration queue.s
After clearing the immigration podium, I was in the mood to sit and do nothing… so the lounge was calling me.
Visa Satalite Lounge (Non Schengen)
Going to the lounge – the first thing I noted was it was… cramped to put it mildly. The agent confirmed this was the correct lounge I was meant to head to. They took my boarding pass and wrote on a sticky slip my details.
With that, I was allowed in.
Heading into the lounge, it was a tight space….
I began a short hunt for a parking space, finding a nice table in one of the pod areas.
When I left my table…
With that, I wandered through the food and beverage selection. I think the best description of it is … limited, with warm baked items and nothing that could be described as healthy.
I loaded up on chicken nuggets, croquet, pizza and some drinks and headed back to my table, where a family had commandeered the place.
Peanuts and pretzels
Spirits and wine
Hmmm
Bacterial fermentation of milk.
Sweet things
Sigh.
I was not in the mood for that game today. I could have gone all territorial, but I moved my stuff along, gave a look of disapproval and continued.
The hot items were forgettable, but at least it filled time in. At least I had a view of the arrivals at Bucharest Airport.
Hey. A free view with possibilities for content? I’ll take it.
For the nerds and photographers, I’m still using my Canon EF70-300mm DO IS lens. I’m coming to like this lens a lot, mainly as it is compact compared to the other lenses I carry (and besides, the 100-400mm looks stupid on EOS R50).
I’ll need to do a proper writeup sometime, when I get more than a few weeks to myself. Whilst it has its faults, its compactness makes up for a lot of sins, especially when trying to travel light.
TAROM Boeing 737-800
Air Serbia ATR72-600
TAROM Boeing 737-800
TAROM ATR72-600
The family played with their child, trying to tire them out. I was quietly wishing that I had brought earbuds with me (and for those who know me for “value” earbuds, the current ones I’m driving… are a little different. A story for another day).
Pods.
Eventually, I spotted a Chatham Dockyard tail start taxiing in, indicating that my flight hadn’t been impacted by Storm Éowyn.
One small thing.
Although, if they had cancelled the flight and put me on one the day, I wouldn’t have argued much.
Flying the flag for you.
With the Airbus A320 reaching the gate just under the lounge, it was time to start getting the baggage together, whilst watching the arriving passengers disembark.
TAROM Boeing 737-700 in SkyTeam colours
Well, there’s no point running down to the gate just to wait with the masses for no apparent reason – especially when the passengers are disembarking, taking their time leaving the aircraft.
Eventually, with the arrivals petering out, I headed out the lounge and downstairs to the gate, where boarding had commenced.
With priority boarding called, I headed to the podium to be scanned. With my boarding pass scanned, I was allowed to proceed.
It was time to Go West and homeward.
Next:
British Airways BA887 Bucharest to London (Club Europe).
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