Travel Bucharest in safety - find out how!

Travel Bucharest at your own peril. I can't think of any real safe way to cross Bucharest. I guess the Metro is the safest. The problems with the metro are a few fold. The first are the complete lack of signs at the stations - so when you are sitting on the metro, the chances are that unless you are on one of the latest trains (funded by the EU - presumably after getting lost themselves in Bucharest), there will be no indication of which station you are in.

Also all the metros stop at 11.00 pm - so just as the evening is warming up to its amazing crescendo, it is time to depart and run like billio and hope you are not too late - not an ideal way to travel Bucharest in safety.

Getting a bus is a nightmare at all times and really not recommended to travel Bucharest in safety. You will be amazed at exactly how many Romanians fit into a bus during rush hour - why they don't lay on more buses than their already frequent timetable is beyond me. Anything fragile will get broken - anything not deep inside your inside coat pocket will get stolen and it is generally not an experience you want with a large foreigner rucksack declaring you are an easy target. In addition, no matter what, you must get you ticket stamped - there is likely to be only one functional ticket machine and it won't be at you end of the bus! Being a foreigner makes you the prime target for ticket inspectors looking for a fast buck.

Taking your car here to travel Bucharest in safety is in realiity all the more of a white-knuckle ride. After 8 years, I am oblivious to which side they pass. The Romanians will pass on the most empty looking side - then do a sharp left 10 meters down the road, forcing you to slow or slam into them.

Zebra crossings are a particular problem, as Romanians like to stand next to them for a chat. There is a motorist rule - I have no idea if it is a law or not - that if the pedestrian is not on your side of the street, you do not need to stop. Twice I have been crashed into while waiting at a zebra crossing - once because I stopped, the second time I stopped, the woman's mobile phone on the back seat was ringing and she was looking for it while driving... Romanians are without doubt the worst drivers going but then again, a little brown envelope stashed with cash to the right person still gets you a license - even under the noses of the police here.

Walking has its own perils, not a way to travel Bucharest in safety. The Romanians love removing drainage covers. Instead of replacing them, they then put bunches of trees, plastic bags and anything else they happen to find in the hole. So be careful as any innocent looking puddle could be an open hole into the sewers. Even those with a lid are not safe as occasionally your extra weight can cause them to cave in.

Because Romanians have an insane belief that bigger is better, my little old Dacia is laughed on and as many people as possible have bought a four by four. Not ideal for the city, so the Bucharest parking problem just gets worse as they park all over the pavements. We did this once and another car blocked us in - we needed to get the police to remove it, as Irina was 8 months pregnant at the time! All these big cars create huge amounts of pollution, so when you are walking, you breathe in ridiculously high amounts of pollutants. I did try to walk more often until I decided it would be the dong of my health.

I use to cycle my bicycle everywhere. Cars park on the hundreds of kilometers of cycle track, the pollution and open man hole covers - not to mention the insane reaction of every street dog to bark and bite you - I quickly recovered from this desire. This is before you add into the equation the dangerous Romania drivers who will happily try to kill you, the permanently adverse weather (too hot, too cold or raining) and the belief of Romanians that getting the slightest wet due to sweating or the rain brings on immediate chest problems and death.

This leaves the taxis - the worst option of all! I need to be very desperate and in the company of Romanians before I enter one. There are honest taxis, such as Speed Taxis and Chris taxis - it is the independents you need to watch out for. They happily rob anyone. They have extremely high prices written in such a way to look smaller. They will switch off their meter half way through a journey and make up a number. The list is endless. The independent taxi driver will most often be found outside malls, Gara de Nord and Banasa airport. To avoid them, simply check the side of every door and check the amount on the inside window of the passenger side to check they all match. If you get caught out, unless you are exceptionally strong and well built, you need to pay ad remember it as another tale to tell friends back home.

These are my experiences of how I travel Bucharest - oddly the same stories are repeated again and again in every travel guide, so we have all been repeatedly stung by the transport networks of Bucharest. Please tell me your experiences of life in Bucharest and which way do you like to travel?

How would you recommend I travel Bucharest?

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