Tag Archives: hotels

The Flight

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Boarding the plane was pretty darn quick. It was all done by facial recognition … except when it wasn’t. The camera didn’t see to recognize Dan! He had to then have his passport scanned and all was well.

We got to our sets (row 5, Polaris). I know, I know, fancy schmantzy … but these days I just can’t deal with tight spaces and the inability to sleep. Plus I blame my brother Greg who got us seats in business class once. He suggested we wouldn’t be able to go back and he’s mostly right (we do premium economy on occasion).

We were offered a drink. Speaking wine for me, water for Dan. Yep, he lives on the edge. Then it was a bit of sitting, followed by taxiing, followed by taking off. It was smooth until there was mild turbulence, which they apologetically said would delay our meal. Not that we were hungry anyway.


After a bit of time I looked at my watch. 4:20 AM.

No, not in San Francisco. But when I get on a plane I set the watch and iPad to the destination time, hoping it will get me to accept the huge eight hour time change.

I did a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, and read a bit, but my brain really didn’t want to concentrate on anything. I actually wanted to sleep! Sort of a good thing, but there was dinner to eat. What to do? (Some people suggest you do NOT eat meals on the plane: I’ve yet to convince myself to do that.)

What to do was start writing this.

Food was a bit late, due to turbulence, according to the announcement, but eventually we received our drink and warm nuts, followed by the appetizer. That appetizer was lovely, and was enough for a full meal as far as I was concerned. That turned out to be a good thing: our dinners were not quite so appealing.


After dinner it was lights out for the two of us, and we did a good amount of sleeping. Dan is, in fact, continuing to sleep as I type this. But it’s 11:35 AM at our destination so I’d prefer to try to stay awake now. (It’s 3:35 AM at home.)

Where we are:

Breakfast was served near the end of the flight. I would have preferred lunch, since it was lunch time at our destination, but since I only eat two meals a day anyway, I sort of tried to convince myself it was lunch. It was, as usual, too much food and not terrifically exciting.

This flight really flew by. Yep, that’s about how funny I can be! And then we arrived.

Hello Heathrow!

We went through the passport control in mere minutes, but oh all the walking one does before and after that. It’s a great way to get steps in after such a long sit, though!

Then it was Heathrow Express to Paddington Station.

From there we had to find our way to our hotel via the tube. It took a while, but we did figure out how to do that.

Oh … but it DID take us a while to walk from Euston Station to our hotel. One of use (me!) was using a map app and got confused. Then someone else (he!) took over and managed to also get confused for a bit. We figure this is par for the course and today we had a number of “oops!” moments so perhaps we got it out of our systems early. Who knows? but we got there. Eventually.

Side note: we had to opt for roller bags due to the things we (Dan, really) needed. I’m so torn between the roller bag and our packs. My back isn’t great, and I have neck problems, so a pack hurts, but it sure isn’t fun carrying luggage up stairs, and there were a lot of stairs to get from one place in the tube to another.

Our hotel is nothing exciting, but it will suffice: we are only here for one night and tomorrow we take a night train to our destination. London was just a quick stop.

After dropping off our stuff we went to find an ATM and then a pub. Well, except I first realized I’d left my phone in the room so we had to go back. Another mistake!

ATM was found, money was pulled from there, and off to The Lamb we went. Dan ordered fish and chips and I had a chicken and leek pie. Both were yummy pub food and just what we wanted for our first night here.

Cheers!

On our walk back to the hotel we went past this interesting building.

And then it was time to finish this blog, post my daily flora photo, and hit the hay.

I’m not sure I will be able to post every day: it will depend upon time and internet access. But I will actually write every day so I can post later if things don’t work.

For now … cheerio!

Hello Lisbon!

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So here we are … in Lisbon once again. When we were here last we had such a lovely time, so it seemed a good place to start our Portugal journey.

The flight from Munich to Lisbon was quite uneventful. I had a window seat so I did enjoy the view. I will post photos when they finally appear on the iPad. (It seems to take a while for them to get in the cloud. No clue why.)

Disembarking from the plane we then had to get a shuttle to the terminal. We were at this airport on another trip and I sure didn’t remember that … but I forget things easily. That is one of the big reasons for this blog, in fact. It’s very helpful to look back at entries!

Getting a ride to the hotel wasn’t entirely uneventful: Dan ordered a Bolt, and while we were charged he then got a message that there was no internet connection, so we hadn’t a clue what car was coming (IF it was coming), so I had to order an Uber. But after a bit of a wait we got our car, with a very talkative driver from Bangladesh who is here to eventually get a Portuguese passport if I understood him correctly. He got us to our hotel after midnight. But of course we aren’t on Portugal time so it doesn’t feel all that late to us. Our room is typically small, with barely a spot for luggage, but hey, it’s Europe and we are more than happy to be here!

Stay tuned for photos at a later date … hoping soon, but we’ll see. UPDATE: Done!

Funny side note: while I’m a stickler about hanging up clothes at home, the person now unpacking and hanging up clothes is Dan. We seem to switch roles on vacation. Go figure!

Lodging

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Some might wonder how I figure out lodging. Or maybe no one does. It could be I’m writing this for myself. Who knows?!

If we are staying in a city that has a walled in area, or a formerly walled in area, I usually choose to stay in or near that. I do read up on places, both online and in various travel books (like Rick Steves). If there is a part of the city (or village) that has narrow alleys and streets I tend to enjoy staying there. I also look to see which streets are larger and busier: I don’t want those if I can help it! In big metropolitan cities I check to see if we are doing anything that might require night walking (as we did in Paris) and find a place that would allow for that. And sometimes I want to be a bit closer to the train station, as long as it’s close to the part of the city or village we want to see and is not too unsafe. I always book places that allow for cancelations, even while knowing I have to pay more then. (One of these trips I’d love to truly wing it and not book a thing, but I have a feeling my better half wouldn’t want to chance that!) Oh, and I also rarely, if ever, pay for breakfast. We just don’t need to eat that much! Sometimes a place will come with breakfast, and then we have no problem indulging.

Here is a list of where we stayed for this trip, and I’ll repost a few photos —

Heidelberg: For this it was an easy choice! We stayed with Greg and Jan. It was a great location and, well, we even got some nice meals at their place! Plus they are such fun to be with.

Riquewihr: This spot was Greg’s doing, so I didn’t have to look. We stayed at Gite Riquewihr “C’est Beau la Vie Alsace”. It was in a fabulous location. We could walk in a couple minutes time and get to the center of things. Our place for three nights was above the owners. We had two bedrooms, two baths, and a kitchen.


Nürnberg: I wanted to stay within the old walled in part of the city: Dan and I had passed through on our way to Bayreuth some years back, and I loved that area. The trouble was that we were going during a very popular time of year. They are known for their Christmas Market, and so many of the hotels didn’t allow for cancelations. Although I dn’t care to stay in an American chain, we ended up at the Holiday Inn Nürnberg City Centre. It really was a convenient location: inside the wall, but not near the crowds, and walking distance to the train station. And it was a nice place. I still would have preferred something other, but so it goes.

München: (Yes, I like to try and use the name of the city as those who live there would. I’m goofy that way, I guess.) Again, Greg chose this place, We stayed at Hilton Munich City. The location was nice. Not in the middle of the crowds, so quiet, but walking distance to a number of areas. It used to be close to the concert hall, and perhaps will be so again after renovations, but it turned out our concert was a cab drive away. Our room was very nice, but it was funny: Greg & Jan’s room had a good coffee machine. Ours did not. Greg is much higher up on the “Hilton chain” so maybe that’s why …? (And I forgot to take photos, I guess!)

Paris: For this we wanted to be walking distance to the opera house. I would have liked to find something less costly, but Paris is … well … Paris! We ended up at the Hotel St. Petersbourg Opera & Spa. The spa bit is wasted on us since we aren’t spa people. This is the place that had a small bar and had the worst cocktails ever. But I’ll let that go. Unless they ask me. The room was fine, and typically small. The one funny thing was that the toilet was in its own space and one had to walk across the room to a sink. But we managed.

Montpellier: We were quite near the Place de la Comédie, but not RIGHT in it, which would have been noisy. I thought the location of Hotel d”Aragon was great. Rooms were a bit odd, with the carpet that looked like wood. But it was totally fine. We were up one flight of stairs and there was no elevator, but we managed.

Zaragoza: Not an American chain, but a chain nonetheless, we stayed at Catalonia El Pilar. It was a good location, the room was nice, we had a good view outside our window, and it was quiet.

Madrid: We opted to stay off of busy streets, even while Rick Steves recommended some. He just advised that we ask for a higher floor on those streets. But while he might ask for a higher floor and get it, we weren’t so certain we would. So I found a place very close to the opera house (even though we weren’t going to an opera), and it looked interesting. The Hotel Meninas was really in a nice location, and it was quiet most of the time.

Manhattan: And now for the smallest and most expensive room on our trip. The only place to open luggage was on the bed, the closet could only hold Dan’s clothes, and the bathroom door ran into the bed! The room had no coffee machine, but did come with $10 for each of us each day for coffee and pastry at a bakery connected to the hotel. I think, though, it might be our last stay at the Hotel Belleclaire. It’s in a great location for getting up to The Bronx, but it’s just so very costly. (And yes, I forgot to take a photo. I think I was just so shocked by the size of the room.)

So there you go … all the places we stayed. Over ‘n out.

Ah The Searching … and Reserving … And Canceling …

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I probably mentioned this when I was working on The Big Trip, but finding lodging sure is a challenge … and a game.

I had everything booked for this upcoming trip. I do this task by first putting a spreadsheet together. I compare booking directly (which I prefer), to Expedia, Booking.com, and United’s hotel link. I also look at Trip Advisor to see how a place is rated there. I now also look at Oyster.com to see what they have to say.

I then look at a map to see how far the place is from the Center Of Things and any places we must visit, as well as from whatever transportation we will be using in and out of the city.

And I did all that. I was slightly uncomfortable with a couple of places, but I booked something just to make sure we wouldn’t be stranded with no place to sleep.

Then I step away from the computer. This time I did so for … well … maybe 12 hours or so.

And then I go back, because I think, “Hm. Can I do better?!” And today I could. I had already canceled a B&B that made me just a bit concerned: it seemed a bit too difficult to get to (they said not to follow the GPS) and possibly too many stairs for lugging luggage (gee, those two words are obviously related, yes? How did I not think of that before?). I found a better hotel, and was going to book it directly, but thought I should probably check Expedia as well (even though I really dislike using a service … money is money), remembering that on the phone you get more points or whatever it is they give you AND sometimes there is even a price difference compared to the web. Sure enough, it was less — over $100 less than I had expected to pay.

But it’s dominoes, folks.

Since I did that I thought, “I wonder if the next hotel I booked is cheaper that way as well?”

Yep. $165 cheaper in fact. (Still doggone expensive. but that’s the UK for you.)

Now that I’ve gone down the rabbit hole I’ll probably end up looking at ALL the other places I’ve booked to see if I can do better with those as well.

But first I hear an oboe calling my name.