Bucharest city transfer · City transfer in Bucharest
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City transfer in Bucharest
City transfer in Bucharest
The Henri Coandă Airport (referred to as "Otopeni" on airline tickets) is serviced by train, buses and taxis. The train service is called Henri Coandă Expres. Train tickets can be bought inside the airport at CFR ticket counter (as of March 2009, the price of one ticket is 6 lei). The train station is, however, 2 km away from the airport, but there is a shuttle bus that transfers the passengers to it. The shuttle bus transfer IS INCLUDED in the train ticket. Once you reach the train station, there is another 30 minutes until your reach the main train station Gara de Nord. The total duration of the trip, from airport to the Gara de Nord train station is approximately 50 minutes. From the Gara de Nord train station, you can take public transport (Metro and buses) or you can depart by train towards other cities in Romania. The train service is available between 6 AM and 11 PM. Timetable for Henri Coandă Express is avalible here:
There are just two bus lines to the city, bus 780 which goes to the main train station Gara de Nord and bus 783 which heads to downtown; they run daily (including on weekends and holidays) from 5:15 - 5:30 AM till 11:00PM. A one way trip with any of them costs 3.5 lei, but for the 783 bus the cheapest option available is a two-trips card which costs 7 lei. Tickets and cards can only be purchased from the booth in front of either the Arrivals or Departures terminals and not from from the driver. Remember to validate your ticket on board the bus. The bus is far superior to the train in terms of both time and cost.
When catching the 780 bus from Gara de Nord train station to Otopeni airport (Henri Coannda), note carefully that Gara de Nord is not the end of the bus route, hence, the 780 buses that pass Gara de Nord actually run in two directions. Therefore, at Gara de Nord, to catch the 780 that takes you to Otopeni airport, you need to catch it from the 780 bus-stop that requires crossing a road, i.e. not the 780 bus stop that is directly outside the Nord station. Best to ask locals where the correct bus stop is. Also, you need to buy the Express ticket before getting onto the 780 bus because you cannot buy tickets on the actual bus.
During the night, only taxis are available from Henri Coandă Airport. The only taxi service allowed to offer transfers from the airport is Fly Taxi (the airport has auctioned the service), all others being pirate taxi services. Up until a few years ago, there was a taxi mafia running there during the night, charging €20-30 to get you to Bucharest (when normally the price would be around €10). Sometimes this still happens, therefore, look for the authorized taxi service, do not bargain, demand that the meter be used, and look for the tariff on the meter (for extra-urban trips, current tariffs are around 2-2.2 lei/km (0.6-0.7 €/km) and the distance to any place within the city is 12-20 km). Fly Taxi's rate 3.5 lei/km (2/2009). Remember that for €30 you can get anywhere in the country by bus and train, so think twice before you decide to pay a taxi driver the same for a drive of less than 10 km.
Situated in Bucharest proper, Aurel Vlaicu airport is more easily accessible, either by taxi or public transport. Taxi fares should be 1.4-1.6 lei/km (0.4-0.5 €/km). Do not bargain, demand that the meter be used, and remember that downtown Bucharest is about 6-10 km away and there is no place in Bucharest further than 20-25 km. Bus lines 131 and 301 connect it with Piaţa Romană in downtown Bucharest and bus line 205 with the Gara de Nord train station. Bus tickets must be purchased in the big booth at the bus terminal, and cannot be bought from the driver.
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Bucharest Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.