Bucharest and Romania From a Turkish Guy's Perspective

Turkish embassy is located in a central location (Calea Dorobanți 72) in Bucharest. It is easy to reach and I can say they are fast responding. For any related subject, like to get some document, renewal of id cards etc., first you have to make an online appointment from web site. With your personal info, you will be able to choose date and time from web site. Nearest 2-3 days are mostly full, so probably you will find empty slot next 2-3 days in calendar. In morning, embassy takes the applications. In the afternoon they return back the prepared documents, requests. To take back your document in afternoon, you do not need to make another appointment. In the same day or as they inform you in set day, you can go and get your documents. Some operations require payment in EUR. So have with you some cash EUR. Also some applications needs special forms, documents or photos. Read from the web site the necessities for that application type. Just against the embassy there is a Photo & p...

Turkish driver license is internationally excepted in Romania and European Union so if you have a valid Turkish driving license, you can drive car in Romania. But when you get residence permit in Romania, you have to change and get a Romanian driving license after a limited time. Actually this is a procedural and documentation process you have to follow.  1. Up to time you have a residence permit, you can drive car with your Turkish driver license. 2. When you get you residence permit, make an application to Romanian authorities with your work/ residence permit documents and Turkish driving license. 3. They will take your Turkish driving license, take your photo and you will have a face-to-face application.  4. After this, they will send the prepared Romanian driving license to you with Romanian Post. It may take 2 weeks to 1 months. 5. While you are waiting your Romanian driving license to be prepared, they will give you a temporary paper which indicates your license is in pr...

To travel to Romania from Turkey, either you should have a valid Schengen Visa or you should get a Romanian Visa. Romanian visa is get from the Romanian consulate/embassies in Istanbul, Ankara or Izmir. Online visa application site is below. https://evisa.mae.ro/ Step by step I will try to explain the process and critical steps. 1. Before application read from Romanian consulate web site the last regulations and documents needed. For online application process you have to make ready the soft copy of these documents to be uploaded to the web site.  Based on Tourist Visa or Business/Work Visa application, document set changes a little bit. 2. For Tourist visa prepare pdf/image versions of documents in your laptop ready. Valid Passport (Image/copy of all processed pages) Bank Account Statement (min 2000 Euro in your Account) Plane Reservation Hotel Reservation Travel insurances (EUR 30.000 coverage) – validity of you travel minimum Photo - Schengen Visa format (have min 2 physica...

One of the best places and activities in Bucharest I can say is Therme Bucharest. I definitely advice you to go there if you like pools, relaxing and sun in summer. You can spend a full day like in a summer holiday village in Antalya and relax. Therme is located nearly 20 kms from the city center, in north of the city just some km away from the Henri Coanda airport. It is one of the biggest pool and spa complex in Europe. I think Bucharest people is very lucky to have this facility. You won't feel that you are living in a city without sea, anytime in winter or summer you have the good quality relaxing, swimming facility nearby.  There are 3 options to get to Therme: (1) With you own car, I think the best (2) By taxi or uber/bolt (3) By shuttle buses which gets on from Romana Piatsa Square and scheduled intervals were you can find from web. There are 3 parts in Therme Galaxy : For families, which has huge indoor waterslides, a wave pool, children pools. Can noisy a little bit b...

After you rent your house, possibly there will be some missing furniture you will need or you will want to decorate according to your needs.  For example, mostly rented flats don't have special child bed or child room furniture, so you may need to buy some extra furniture. There are two main options: to buy it from the big shops by seeing yourself or buying online. Buying online has usually more choices and cheaper. But there is a risk of the furniture not to be as you expected in comfort and other properties. Also sometimes it may take 3-4 weeks for delivery. Here are some big merchants and online shops where you can find many options. I prefer Ikea for small and useful things mostly. For big and specialized furniture, I can recommend vivre. You can check these web sites and have an idea based on your needs. https://www.ikea.com/ro/ro/ https://kika.ro/ https://mobexpert.ro/ https://www.dedeman.ro/ https://www.casarusu.ro/ https://jysk.ro/ https://www.vivre.ro/ For online shopping:...

If you are an expat having a child and planning to move to Romania, one of the first things you will search will be international schools or kindergartens. There are two options: to choose a local Romanian school or an international school. It depends on your preferences, budget and personal planning. School location is important because it may effect your decision of flat also.  Actually there are limited number of International schools, nearly 10-15 which are mostly located in northern part of the city. I will not evaluate them since I don't have detail information and I am not an expert on the topic. From the experiences I had, I will give some of the options you can choose from. You can find on web more details and evaluations of each school. I believe one important criteria will be closeness to home. Otherwise your child can spend 30-40 minutes in Bucharest traffic in mornings and evenings. Erou Iancu Nicolae Street is famous with schools in the north of city and others are m...