Our Second Big Adventure: Romania-Bulgaria

On our Erasmus year, we have travelled a lot as you already know, but there have only been three really big trips:

- Malta

- Romania-Bulgaria

- Slovenia-Croatia

Here I want to tell you about the experience we had on the second trip (Romania-Bulgaria), and tell you about the mistakes we have learned from:

Flight from Palermo to Bucharest (Romania)

I don’t know why we flew from Palermo when that airport is super far from us, I suppose it's because it was cheaper from there. From our Erasmus city (Messina), the nearest airport is Catania, which you can get to easily and on the bus it costs €9. 30.

How to get from Messina to Palermo airport

Well, it's a hassle! It's much cheaper to get to Catania, so the flight from Palermo must be a lot cheaper to compensate for it.

There were six of us, we caught the train from Messina to Palermo Centrale (I think it's about €8) and from Palermo to the airport we got a big taxi so that we could fit in all of our luggage. This taxi also picked up another 2 people en route and it cost €7 per person.

Another option is to get from Messina to Palermo via bus. There is also a bus from Palermo to the airport that costs €6, one euro less than what we paid for our taxi. However, the bus takes a longer route and so arrives later. So for six people we thought it would be better to take a taxi for one more euro each. Although, thinking about what I just told you, we did pick up two more people up on the way… anything to get by. I think that the taxi driver went to the bus stops to pick up people waiting for the bus.

If I did this trip again I would get the flight from Catania as getting to Palermo airport wastes a lot of time.

Currency Exchange

Although Romania has been a member state of the European Union since 1 January 2007, it doesn’t use the euro. At the moment its currency is the Romanian Leu (RON), but it has agreed to accept the euro once it meets the necessary requirements. It is currently in the process of becoming part of the Schengen Area.

The following image shows you the Romanian Leu-Euro conversion rate, where you can clearly see the low value of the RON, nearly 5 times less than the euro:

How do I change money once I’m there?

Once you arrive, there are lots of places where you can exchange money, but watch out, you have to be smart and compare rates to find the best because different places have different exchange rates.

Another option is to withdraw money from your card at a bank there or pay for things on card.

Here are some of the notes that we withdrew. Although it seems a lot for the number of notes, it wasn't that much money:

Driving in these countries

They drive like crazy people over there. We came from Sicily where we lived on Erasmus and their driving is bad enough!

They do some curious overtaking at incredible speeds and basically just do what they want.