Trip Report - CX103

Back home! Woohoo! Now a review of the second segment of our flight back home - Cathay Pacific from Brisbane to Hong Kong, via Cairns.

I pick up where I left off in Hong Kong Airport, where we made the transfer from the arrivals to the departures area and waited for boarding. During that time, I took some plane geek photos. There were quite a few A380s, as well as an area where you could see the planes right as they touched down:

Plane geek photos in Hong Kong

We were introduced to the new liquids rule for flights into Australia - now it's identical to the US, you can't even refill water bottles after security, as there is a second check at the airbridge. I have no idea why, that's the whole purpose of security screening is it not?

We got access to a small priority queue as premium economy passengers, although we were basically lumped together with everyone at the liquids checking area halfway along the airbridge. The Cathay flight was on an A330, so a bit smaller and a few less people to deal with. The flight left late, but we managed to 'make up time' by the time we arrived in Cairns and then Brisbane. They are on time 80% of the time for a reason...

Our ride back to Oz

They served dinner - the only meal offered on the flight, despite the fact that we would arrive a few hours after breakfast. The food was a vast improvement on Air France's offering:

Dinner on Cathay

I know that people don't always like Asian food when they have just spent two weeks on Asian food, but it was quite nice having come from European foods. Bok choy and chicken with rice and Haagen Dazs was just the ticket! Cathay was much better and came around much more frequently with drinks and the like.

We arrived in Cairns a bit before 4:30. The airport was completely dead, but the security staff were surprisingly perky, and were up for a good chat while we waited for all the people in front of me to empty their bags of their stuff like amateurs. Dad made the observation on the way over that all the Asian tourists seemed to go to Tropical North Queensland, and indeed the flight was decidedly more empty after the Cairns stop.

Just after departure in Cairns, I managed a really nice photo of the sunrise with my phone. It never ceases to impress me:

Sunrise over the Pacific Ocean

Our entertainment system from Cairns to Brisbane consisted of watching the entertainment system being reset, and watching the Linux OS start up. Not so amusing for several other people, but surely you don't need entertainment on a less-than-2-hour flight?

Entertainment

In fact, I lie. We got a small breakfast pasty. Quite delicious too. They even came back with a hot chocolate after they said they couldn't source me one. They shouldn't have bothered - it was hot but it wasn't chocolate - it must have had a quarter-shot of chocolate in it.

Arrival in Brisbane, and fast forward to, well, fast-forwarding through the ePassport section and bag pick-up. Again, our 4 bags were literally in the first dozen to come out. My luggage has shown up early for the entire trip!

Trip Report - AF188

Greetings from Honkers, the midway point of our journey back Down Under.

This is my first time flying somewhere other than the back of the bus (economy class), with my upgraded return sector to premium economy so I could fly with dad. With Air France's premium economy comes several priority accesses to queues, including check-in and passport control.

Our experience began interestingly at the first of these priority queues, at check-in. As you know, check-in typically opens 3 hours before. We asked the 'greeter' at the priority queue if we could check in before then, and she said "yes, yes, the economy check-in queue is over that way". Ah, you don't even want to ask if we have a priority ticket? I may never travel premium class again, but really?

A quick check-in process would have combined with an even quicker passport control, had the priority passport control access not been seemingly blocked off. I said to dad, "let's see if it's open". We were allowed through, by ducking under the temporary barrier. So Air France gets a very low mark so far.

The priority access was very quick though, once we figured it out. We had a couple of hours to kill, but decided against 25 Euros each to access the premium lounge, which is a compromise - you can buy access, which economy passengers can't do.

Eventually boarding time rolled around. It took near enough to 40 minutes to cram the 500 people on to the A380. We made our way to our seats, once again at the back of the upper deck:

Premium economy

They say first impressions are lasting impressions, and it was about what I expected. It was a decent amount of extra space, but not amazing. Food and drink service was reasonably plentiful throughout the flight, although it wasn't that much more frequent than what I experienced in economy on the way over:

Dinner and brekky

Here you see Air France's two meal offerings. The dinner was quite reasonable, with a pineapple upside down cake and a bit of stale bread (stale bread seems to be a thing on Air France, judging by internet reviews). Breakfast was worse. A sausage with some beans and eggs that didn't even look like eggs. More stale bread. Even the hot chocolate wasn't that great. And to think this was on the A380, which Air France spruiks as the 'best of the best'. I don't think I'll be back.

The flight was on time though, so I guess that was something. A quick look around at Hong Kong Airport, before we board our Cathay flight back to Oz!

Au revoir, Europe!

Well, we made it to the airport safely! Now all we need to do is make it home.

You can see some photos of today on Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645709737341/

After getting mum to the train station well before 8, we headed to the Port of Dover, where we drove onto our ferry to Calais. This particular route is one of the busiest large ferry routes in the world - there are many, many crossings each day. The 90-minute crossing was fairly uneventful, although I did capture a couple of wicked photos of the white cliffs as we left:

The White Cliffs of Dover

See you later, England!:

See you later, England!

There was a complete absence of border control of Calais - you literally just drive off the ferry straight onto the motorway. We decided to go along the road nearer the coast, rather than just using the motorway. Our planned route took us past some spectacular scenery and over the city of Boulogne-sur-Mer. We wound up in Abbeville, where we had a brief look around:

Abbeville

After we found out the nearby Chateau was shut, we soldiered on towards Paris. By complete accident we went past Chateau de Chantilly around sunset, which was just magnificent:

Chantilly

After another hour or so, driving through some dense forests and sparse farmland, we made it to Charles de Gaulle Airport - the Renault lease car drop-off point, to be precise. It’s some distance to CDG, transport to which is provided free of charge with a transfer van.

I’ll upload a couple more blogs detailing our whole airport-airline experience until Brisbane. Au revoir until then!

Crossing the channel

After two days of hectic travel, we have arrived in the UK. It's nice to be back in a country that speaks English again! It means I can purge all the foreign languages out of my system - for the time being at least.

For the last two days, I've added quite a few photos to the Flickr driving set:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645709737341/

First up on the first morning was a quick whiparound of Avranches, the small town where we're staying. It's a fairly small town, but it's got a decently-sized tourism office because it's so close to the Normandy-Brittany coast. In the town there's an obligatory enormous cathedral, a ruined medieval castle and a memorial to General Patton, who broke through a German frontline in the Great War, which ultimately resulted in the liberation of France in just two days!

A whiparound of Avranches

From there it was a loooong drive to Le Havre. Mum had previously wanted to stop by some D-Day related stuff, like Omaha Beach, but we ended up just driving through a couple of towns near Le Havre. They are collectively known as Deauville-Trouville, and are well-known for their seaside location and old buildings. But 'The Parisian Riviera'? Get a grip! They're not that impressive.

Deauville-Trouville

We eventually made it to the Port of Le Havre, and queued up to check in. Just like boarding a plane, you have to check in with your car at least 45 minutes before the scheduled departure time. We were ushered onto the car deck just over an hour before a scheduled 5:00pm departure on our ship, which was called the Seven Sisters.

For those that haven't used a car ferry before, you basically have to get what you need from your car - you can't access the car decks while you're sailing. Once you've done that, you head upstairs and try and snare a seat. I found some seats that were quite comfortable, but they were right near the playground area. Run away! We went up a deck and found some identical seats with no kids. Great!

We actually left Le Havre about 15 minutes early - probably because the decks were less than half full - not before I got some good shots of the waterfront of Le Havre. Good thing about a nice camera - the shutter is too fast to worry about the ship's list:

Le Havre waterfront

We settled into a five-and-a-half-hour journey. Mum's a poor sailor, yet she managed relatively well - she said afterwards another hour might have been pushing it though. We actually found a cabin of sorts fore of where we were - it was very dark and quiet, with next to no people in it. It seemed to be a 'quiet zone' - nobody was talking at all. It was marvellous.

We hadn't had lunch, so I headed down to the restaurant at about 8. I decided to try a British fish and chips - the prices were quite reasonable for ferry and ship standards, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. The fish and chips was typically British - the fish was lots of batter and not a lot of fish, the chips were almost crispy.

About an hour before arrival in Bournemouth, the sun started to spectacularly set behind some clouds. There were a lot of people out on the decks, but I managed to find myself a quiet spot and started snapping:

Sunset from the Seven Sisters

Our overnight tonight was a hotel just off the main East-West motorway, surprisingly quiet so close to the motorway. Free WiFi, free parking, less than $100 a night. Sold! We found out the next morning that there was a mill museum next to it. Not that we could go, because it was closed for the entire month. Slackers!

Our initial plan for day two was to make quick stops in Torquay and Plymouth. I hadn't read much about them personally, but mum wanted to go to Torquay and dad wanted to go to Plymouth. It became inherent after about an hour on the road that that wasn't going to happen.

OH MY GOD THE TRAFFIC IN THIS COUNTRY! Evidently we got the worst end of a bad Saturday afternoon, but all the A Roads, as they're known here, were stupidly busy. We made multiple detours on back roads to beat the traffic.

We cruised along near the coast for quite a while. We quickly drove through a couple of towns, including Dawlish, but decided there wasn't enough there to warrant a stop. Frankly, I thought the countryside looked much better than the towns:

The Devonshire coastline

We crossed through a couple of nice towns and made a lightning-fast stop on the beach in Torquay. Enough to get a few photos:

Cornish coastal towns

Eventually we made it to Plymouth, where we looked at a railway bridge named after Isambard Brunel, an English rail baron and one of Britain's most influential entrepreneurs. To put it in perspective, he was named second in the '100 Greatest Britons' survey, behind only some insignificant guy named Winston Churchill. The bridge wasn't that amazing, but it was a fantastic legacy to a great man's work.

Eventually we made it to dad's friends' place. They live in a tiny suburb in the town of St. Austell. It's pretty central in Cornwall, making it easy to explore in any direction - except for south, it's almost right on the sea. We'll be staying here for four whole days. We'll probably go down to St. Michael's Mount, but the rest is up in the air. Catch you next time!

A big day of travel

Today was my 'monster' day of travelling. I was meeting up with dad at the end of today in Arinsal, which is a tiny town about half an hour north of Andorra la Vella, the capital of Andorra. Yes, here's how to Google it because you don't know where Andorra is: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=andorra

This necessitated getting a train from my accommodation to the airport, a flight from Rome to Barcelona, a bus from Barcelona Airport to Andorra la Vella, and a local bus from there to Arinsal.

I'd bought a train ticket the night before, and the trains are quite frequent to the airport (every 15 minutes from 5:30am). The train left on time at 7:30, and I got to the airport in plenty of time for my flight with Vueling. Vueling is a Spanish low-cost airline with a base in Rome and Barcelona, so I thought they would be organised. Eeeeeeh! Wrong answer.

I arrived at the check-in area, where there were two separate queues - one for bag drop, one for check in. Both were so long I couldn't tell which was which, until I was told that I was in the check-in queue, not the bag drop queue (I had checked in online the night before).

Both European flights I got were completely paper-free - Vueling and Airberlin both accepted the mobile boarding pass at bag drop, at the gate, and on the plane. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER VIRGIN/QANTAS/JETSTAR/TIGER!

I was waved into an express queue, because the normal queues were moving a little slowly. The 'express queue' had about 10 people in it, and we were waiting in that queue for 25 minutes. Go figure. I went through in about 60 seconds, if that. Bloody novice travellers!

Having joined the uber-long security queue, I realised as I got to the front I had a full water bottle. D'oh! By this stage all my 'stuff' was in the box, and I was ready to quickly nick off to the rubbish bin to empty the bottle, less than 100m away. The nazi in the security queue made me pack all my crap BACK INTO my bags, go and empty the bottle, and rejoin the back of the queue. NOT HAPPY!

Vueling's flight schedule is identical to those in Australia. Our '1 hour and 50 minute' flight was delayed by 20 minutes leaving. Announcement: 'flying time 1 hour and 20 minutes, we will arrive 5 minutes early!' Congratulations, Vueling:

Our ride to Barcelona

After flying over the Tyrrhenian Sea and the island of Sardinia, we arrived in Barcelona, and to Vueling's largest terminal. We were dropped on the middle of the tarmac, to get a bus past about a dozen other Vueling planes. The terminal was actually quite nice, with lots of duty free shops but it was a wide-open space and not packed with people.

At the baggage claim (one of 18 in just one terminal!) I met an Australian girl who had been waiting 15 hours for her luggage from Paris. She was only staying in Barcelona for one day, and Vueling had promised her 4 times that 'it would be on the next Paris flight'. She was one of 20 people from 3 flights from Paris waiting for their bags. And Vueling said they required receipts for food reimbursement, but security wouldn't let her out, and then back in, to buy food, and the only thing in the terminal were receipt-free vending machines. Ouch!

I again had the magic touch, my bag was the second one out. After asking the information desk where I could find the long-haul bus terminal, I headed in the general direction and found the bus stop. I was originally supposed to wait nearly 4 hours in Barcelona (in case the flight was delayed) for the bus, but there was one there leaving two hours earlier. With my atrocious Spanish, I eventually found out that I could jump on the early bus.

The travel time to Andorra was just under 4 hours. In that time, we passed through some spectacular scenery in the Pyrenees:

The Pyrenees opening out

Once we arrived at the bus station in Andorra la Vella (which was very busy, because there's no airport or train station in the entire country), I managed to find the local bus stop, where I waited about 20 minutes for one of the local buses. The buses are quite small, seating about 40 people. Eventually the bus showed up and a hair-raising half-hour later I arrived in Arinsal. The bus stop was right outside the hotel!

I signed in to the hotel, and found out that dad had stayed here for an extra night. Dad eventually got back from a walk 'up the hill' across from the hotel, and after a couple of hours we headed down to the in-house restaurant. As part of our hotel rates, we managed half-board for an extra €5 per person. It was an amazing investment - it's a full 3-course meal every night:

Tonight's menu

I had the Putanesca pasta, grilled pork chops and lemon sorbet. The quantity was amazing, and the quality was pretty good for the price we paid.

That's all for today from Arinsal, until tomorrow, when we're planning on a hike (or walk) in the Pyrenees.

Trip Report - Frecciargento

Today was my last high-speed train, for this journey anyway. I got a Frecciargento (literally "Silver Arrow") from Venice to Rome.

I had decided to walk the 20 minutes or so to the station, rather than pay the outrageous fare for the water bus. Once I got to the station, I had about half an hour before departure. For those that aren't aware, a fair amount of toilets in Europe charge an entry fee - the ones at the station in Venice charge an outrageous €1. The one on the train was free.

Once the train arrived, everyone piled in. I had reserved a seat, which apparently everyone on the train had done. Santa Lucia was literally where all the tourists got on, while all the locals got on at Mestre and Padua. All the American tourists rudely crammed their luggage in the overhead storage, leaving no-one with any room to put small bags. Bloody Yanks! The seats were about on par with the ICE ones, with a small fold-out table in between and minimal legroom:

A seat on a high-speed Italian train

Once the train filled up in Padua, everyone was crammed in quite tightly. The train was basically full until we reached Florence, where almost every tourist piled out of the train again, leaving it quite empty. We got to stretch out and enjoy the Italian countryside as it rocketed past at 250km/h:

The southern Italian countryside

Apparently the names of the three high-speed trains in Italy are based on their speeds: Frecciarossa (Red Arrow) is the fastest at 300km/h, Frecciargento is in the middle at 250km/h and Frecciabianca is the slowest at 220km/h. We wound up in Rome about 5 minutes late, having mostly made up a 15 minute delay in Florence:

Frecciargento leaving Rome Tiburtina

I spent the rest of the day chilling in the apartment in Rome. I'll have a detailed report from Rome tomorrow. Bye all!

Trip Report - ÖBB overnighter

My overnight sleeper experience was massively improved today by my realising that the train departed Westbahnhof at 8:56pm, not 9:56pm. That could have been awkward.

This was my first time getting an overnight sleeper train for the purpose of getting from A to B (yes, mum, there was "that other one", never to be spoken of again). I had no idea what to expect, and bought a whole bunch of food beforehand. I stocked up on dinner with a noodle box, and stocked up at the train station on a few different pastries, as well as some fruit.

When I arrived about 20 minutes before departure, I was confronted with a weird-looking ticket, until I realised that 403 referred to the carriage number. Why they aren't just 1, 2, 3 I don't know. I'd booked a 3-seater sleeper for myself. Once I found the correct compartment, I discovered that while it was fine for me, it would be a little cramped if three people booked into one compartment:

My room for the night

I also discovered that breakfast was included with a sleeper room. Great - my pastries live to fight another day!

The breakfast menu

There was a single conductor for each carriage, meaning that there was one conductor for about every 20 passengers. Further down the carriage was a family of Americans. The three daughters were going on a lightning tour of Europe as a post-graduation holiday - just like me. I talked to them for a while after we left Vienna, talking about what we had all done and what we were doing next.

There were quite a few stops between Vienna and Venice. Most of them were short two-minute stops, but there were a few longer stops as well - in Salzburg for an hour and a half, in Villach for an hour and in Tarvisio Boscoverde for 25 minutes. At about 11, I sat down and ate my noodle box for dinner, after the conductor brought around a small fruit salad:

Noodle box for dinner

It's now half past nothing in the morning, and we've been in Salzburg for about half an hour. The station is actually quite busy early in the morning, with several trains to other places in Europe:

Half past nothing in Salzburg

After the conductor turned down the bed in my compartment, I settled into a fitful sleep. I didn't get a whole lot of sleep, but it was still better than nothing. I had to get up a few times to silence some creaking noises supplied by the wardrobe and window shade.

At about 5:30 in the morning I lifted the window shade to some absolutely spectacular morning fog in the north of Italy:

The rolling Alps in the morning

The conductor told me there would be a significant delay between Udine and Treviso as there was track work going on. Breakfast ended up being a solid spread, with yoghurt, hot chocolate, juice, bread rolls and various spreads:

Breakfast translated to the plate/tray

Once we passed the Alps, we started getting into flatter Italian countryside. As promised, we crawled very slowly between Udine and Pordenone. The delay ended up being over an hour and a half - lucky I didn't have to be anywhere in a hurry!

The bridge connecting Venice to the mainland is a fairly long one - it gives you a good indication of just how isolated the city is. We pulled into the station and disembarked to searing sun, which was better than the spits of rain in Udine:

Made it to Venice!

I took the water bus from the station to my accommodation in Zattere, on the south of the island. At €7 for a one-way trip, I will be making the 25-minute walk to the train station on the way back.

See everyone from Venice tomorrow!