Author Archives: BH

TRAVEL TIPS

These days you can book most things for a holiday yourself. With the aid of technology you can navigate around almost anywhere in the world.

I mainly use Booking.com to do my Accommodation bookings. Although likes of Airbnb is popular some places are banning it due to too many scams. Some Airbnb owners now also advertise on Booking.com and it is hard to tell at times, some well managed photos can take you to absolute shitholes.

On this most recent trip we did which was 6 weeks away I did all my flight bookings on the Air New Zealand website but opted to use Singapore Airlines. We did Napier, Auckland, Singapore, Manchester on the way to UK then Milan, Singapore, Auckland, Napier on the return, however, we used a partner airline Lufthansa to do both Manchester to Berlin and also Munich to Bilbao, and Singapore Airlines from Barcelona to Milan those three flights booked separately to the Air New Zealand booking. Our Flights even though we flew Air Singapore were ticketed with a code with 086 in the ticket number and showing our Koru card that allowed us to use the lounge in Singapore as we are both Koru members. We did get Koru status points for all of our flights but a small amount than we would have got had we opted for Air New Zealand planes.

We opted to use Avis Rental cars in UK, Germany & Austria, Portugal and Spain, then a train from Seville to Barcelona, and public transport such as metro, trams, buses and so on. Apart from a flat tyre in the UK and loosing about 6 hours as the car had no tax or spare tyre all that went well. I did look into a car rental company SIXT a German company as I had used them before but all the bookings I tried they had a limited kilometer usage and quite expensive for exceeding those Km. Also a few bad reports about them on Facebook and websites I checked. We drove almost 5,000 km total in the three cars.

In Berlin, Barcelona and Singapore we used the Hop On Hop off buses, each time i had prebooked the tickets which turned out to be vouchers which on two occasions needed redeemed for actual tickets. One of those was easy as there was a lady by the bus the other did mean going to a shopping mall in Singapore and locating their office to exchange whereas on every occasion I could have got the tickets on the bus itself. I had used GetYourGuide for these which I will not use next time.

We also used trains. The one I used for Seville to Barcelona was booked well ahead of time and was on RailNinja which I later found out was not good and to use TrainLine or Omio. The bullet rain was very quick and saved me a couple of days on our itinerary.
I did find a ticket machine at one rail station at St Goar was not working and that was a problem as my mobile data was not working at the time to use my train app to get a ticket, but after the data issue was solved I got a ticket on Omio and everything went well. We used trains to and from Milan Airport to central station which worked well as it was a very expensive taxi ride otherwise. So we just needed a taxi from train station to and from the Hotel.

For phone data I had a 30 day Airalo Europe which included UK. I also had Holafly data for the amount of days we needed on another device. It seemed to be a better option than Airalo. I also got Holafly data for our time in Singapore. Try and buy and install while you have good internet and in a country that speaks your language. I got one for Singapore while I was in Italy and that did not go well as all the instructions were in Italian.

City Passes are sometimes worthwhile although we never got any I do regret that. Some passes allow travel on the trams, buses, metro and some even allow entry into some attractions and museums.

Getting into Singapore on the way home we had a 3 dy stopover. Singapore needs you now to apply prior to arrival for a tourist visa which can be done with the MyICA app or online. It needs a lot of info like passport details flight in and out etc much like most visas did in the past.

Coming back to New Zealand is also handy just to use the app for returning. The App called NZTD is easy enough to use or online if you prefer.

We used the WISE card and App for some of our spending while away. We pre-loaded what we thought we may need and it can be loaded in various currencies such as we choose Euro, Singapore dollars and Pounds plus New Zealand dollars which we could convert if needed. However a big thing to remember that if you run out of any of those currencies on the card it takes it at Visa rates from your other currencies so we had a few extra fees added when mine ran out and sucked the other currencies dry. When a currency is loaded on you can pay in the local currency or take money out of ATM’s in that local currency. ATMS’ are NOT all free some have high charges, especially at Airports.

IF Paying by Visa always use the local currency echange and not NZ dollars or you end up with two exchange fees.

Translation app we had was DeepL
Travel spend was another app although I did not make full use of these two.

You can download maps of the areas you are going to be in and use Google maps offline it can save data.

Places that are popular such as Segrada Familia and Park Guell in Barcelona, the Berlin Tower and Revolving restaurant etc prebook a couple of months in advance as they fill up fast. A few places we did not prebook that when we dicided to go were booked out.

Rome2Rio is another worthwhile app for various activities and travel although I had it installed I never used it. It can do flights, trains, bus, ferryies, rideshare, rental cars and accommodation. It can also do comparrisons on any of those options.

Allow plenty of time at Airports. These days our airport experiences varied from long to quick. We had longer lines and departing each place seems to be the main checks as arriving in places seemed quite relaxed. When we went through Singapore enroute to UK we had our bags checked all the way from Napier to Manchester, that went well. However we did stay in the transit area the entire time and never came through customs or out of the airport. So we were quite surprised to have a very severe bag check leaving Singapore about 7 hours after we had just arrived. We later found out the plane was carrying on from Manchester to Houston so with potential Americans on board there was a lot more checking. We ran into that a couple more times on our trip.

Things we took: Plastic zip lock bags various sizes, meds, tea/coffee sachets, travel kettle, travel mugs, power outlet adapters, cables for charging everything, blow up travel cushion for hard long haul flight seats, all our clothing was in compression packing cubes of various sizes, laundry powder sachets (stolen from Quest Hotels we have stayed in over the years), Dish was sachets (same), travel alarm clock, ear plugs, usb charge cables for the plane (one Singapore plane had USB-A and USB-C and also a power outlet, the other Singapore planes had USB-A and a power outlet UK Plug socket adapter needed). Lufthansa had none. Panadol, GPS we took my Garmin Drivesmart 76 with Europe maps and I had put in all our accommodation and some routes I planned to take in the Garmin before I left home. Raincoat or pack-a-mac type thing each, small knife and chopping board, light weight supermarket bags x 2, a portable hard drive to store the 2500 photos I took

Things we wish we had taken: A Power Bank for charging phone on the run (although I got one in Berlin), portable Umbrellas although we ended up buying one each, t-spoons, knife, fork and spoon would have been handy. a generic sink plug as not all places had a plug. My phone was using battery at a hell of a speed, by mid day it was needing charged, as I was using it mainly for photos and Google Maps.

Singapore Stopover

We flew Singapore Airlines from Milan, Italy to Singapore enroute to New Zealand. We arrived at 7am into Singapore which is not a great time of day to arrive. A very quick taxi ride to the Marina Sands Hotel (OMG what a posh joint) and they gave us a temporary access card and stored our bags until official checkin at 3pm.

After a long 12 hour flight this time in economy we were a bit tired but filled in a few hours wandering around the huge shopping centre attached to the hotel. The shopping centre is massive, it has about 300 shops, a lot of high end stores like we had in Milan, Tiffany, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Cartier, Bvlgari etc, a river with sanpan boat rides, a casino, conference centre, and below it is the Metro which came in handy a couple of times in the rest of the time we were there. The temporary access cards also gave us access to the Infinity Pool on the 57th floor, the Observation deck on the 56th floor and the SkyPark walk which we did not do until later.

At 3pm we arrived at the checkin desk along with a few dozen others and for some reason thy gave us a room upgrade from a King Room with City View to a Suite with City view. Maybe it was because my wife had just had her birthday a couple of days earlier we have no idea why the upgrade.

Anyway, the room 4288 on the 42nd floor was massive. Through the door into a hallway with a bathroom off to the left, then into a kitchen lounge, area. Off the Kitchen was another hall area which the bedroom was off to the left and bathroom with two massive vanities, shower room (a separate room) with twin showers with jets everywhere, a toilet that was also a separate room and the lid opened when you went n the door (creepy). It also flushed automatically when you left and the lid closed again, it also had buttons on the wall to wash and air dry your ass while you were there, a fancy bit of kit indeed. Off the bedroom was also a powder room with a mirror and seating area along with places for two cases. The bedroom was huge with a California king bed, dwarfed by the rest of the room size, also a large sofa, a couple of chairs, a massage chair and iPad sort of things in both bedroom and lounge to make everything work, Technology at it’s finest.

The view was fantastic overlooking a small bay across to the city. We could see the Singapore Flyer, the Apple Centre, the ArtScience museum, a lotus flower-shaped building and a huge boardwalk where people stand twice a night most nights for a fantastic water & light show themed to music.

We did get a two day ticket for a Double Decker bus tour, but we got it on GetYourGuide and the voucher needed to be redeemed for a ticket at the Suntec Mall, we could have just purchased a ticket on the bus but that would have been too easy. So after making our way there and finally locating the Big Bus and Duck ticket office (quite a feat in a huge mall) we got our tickets and did both the Red and Yellow routes which gave us a good overview of the city.

We did go take some photos of Raffles Hotel, which was more expensive than our Hotel but never went inside. I had planned on taking a look at Orchard Road but we never managed that. There was also a huge technology mall that I must take a look at next time i am there, it seemingly has all the latest gadgets which is right up my alley.

Our evening meal we booked in at Gordon Ramsey’s Bread Street Cafe and Bar and had the mandatory Beef Wellington, and Stick Toffee Pudding plus a glass of New Zealand Wine. A lovely meal indeed.

Our checkout of the hotel they gave us a late mid day checkout and our flight was not until 10.45pm so another not ideal flight time. We went to the Gardens By The Bay and did a small trip around the gardens in a cart thingy. We stopped and also went in the two huge buildings that housed some amazing gardens. One was the Flower Dome and the other the Cloud Forest, both massive and well worth the price. We alsoi finally went up to the Pool for a look and the Observation deck with it’s 360 degree views of the City and Gardens behind.

A bit of time to kill at the airport so we went into one of the lounges at Changi using our Koru card.

Singapore, we will be back, loved it.

A good video on youtube showing the Hotel and views from it plus it’s surroundings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANgyFcQDhLE

Milan, Italy

Our flight from Barcelona to Milan had a couple of hiccups. We got into Milan awaiting luggage and the carousel which supposedly had our luggage was going around continuously with about 20 bags on it. We waited for a while on ours and several others were also waiting. After a while one of the others went off to make enquirers and we found that the had taken the wrong container off the Singapore plane and the bags going around were the priority bags that should have been going on to Singapore after Milan. They had to offload most of the plane we were told and our container of bags was first on instead of last. Two hours later our bags appeared and we were good to go. The reason later we were told for the delay was “Operational Reasons” a new phrase for fuck up.
The people on the plane must have been annoyed as they sat on the plane for two hours from what we understand then had a further 12 hr flight to Singapore on top of that.

Our taxi took us to our hotel, the Park Hyatt right beside the city centre, we could see the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II from our Hotel entrance and the Duomo just on the other side of it. This was the most expensive hotel on the trip by far even more than Singapore’s posh joint. Probably hard to compare as we did get an upgrade in Singapore from the room I had booked, but my preference was Singapore.

They staff were great and pampered us no end. On my wife’s birthday the following day there was a cake and bottle of bubbly waiting when we got back from sightseeing. They told me they would have delivered it on her birthday but we had inadvertently left the do not disturb light on the door so they did not come in.

We had room service breakfast two mornings in the Hotel. At £39 each morning, two was more than enough as two poached eggs and a couple of slices of toast are not worth that much. Almost NZD80 each day.

A lot of the main sights were within walking distance of the hotel although we did do a day train trip to Como which was a nice but the people were just there in the droves. It took us about 45 minutes to walk from the train down to the town centre and it was not far just slow walking by the time we went down through the rail tunnel, crossed the road and down the steps to the street. Como was just a tourist meca, all the main areas just had hoards of people everywhere, we walked back up past the cathedral to some of the less populated streets and found a nice cafe for lunch, then a stroll via the markets back to the station.

The following day we started by having breakfast at one of the California Cafe’s. This turned out to be a bit of a mistake as the service was terrible and the food was less than average. We then caught a tram to Naviglio, a small suburb of Milan. It has an area of canals and canal cruises, plus a lot of market stalls along the sides of one of the canals. We were originally looking for a leather belt but once again like Como the hoards of people changed our minds on walking far along canal. We took a different street and found an old Cafe run by an old Italian couple, it was more of a bakery and the cabinets were loaded with some fantastic sweet treats. From almost right outside the cafe we caught another tran and ended up at the CityLife mall which once again was a bit like the galleria Vittorio Emanuele mall beside our hotel full of high end shops.

We began our journey to Singapore from Milan by getting a 6.15am Taxi from the Hotel to the Central Railway station and had a bit of spare time to grab a coffee at the station. We left on the train out to the airport which takes just under an hour to Terminal 1. We had plenty of time to kill before our flight.s this one.

Barcelona

Barcelona was a bit dissapointing. I have been there several times back in the late 70’s and early 80’s and now it has lost it’s charm

We did not get off to a good start with our accommodation. The taxi dropped us off in The Ramblas opposite our hotel from the train station. The reception was on the 2nd floor but we had a code to get in the door at ground level. Once checked in we were given instruction to take some steps then a different lift and a weird lock on the door. You swipe the card and turn the knob on the door twice anti clockwise and opposite to lock it each time you went out.

The door as a bit warped and we had to push fairly hard to open it, but eventually we were in. A few things not quite right such as the window shutters were out of alighnment and needed levering up to get shut any time we wanted them closed, The windows although double glazed did not close without a lot of force. No plug in the sink for washing dishes, no tea towels for drying dishes, Air con was more like a heater than a cooler and would not go down any lower.

There was a Metro station directly below our hotel which rumbled most of the night as trains passed by.

Anyway, enough about that joint.

We went down the Ramblas for a look with a heap of caution we had heard about pick pockets. No issues at all. We had a look in a market which seemed to be very busy even though they were nearing the end of their day. A lot of little stalls on the middle with mainly tourist products probably well overpriced.

The next day we went up to Placa de Catalunya to catch the Hop on/off bus as I had tickets for Sagrada Familia and one of the routes took us there. The Hop on bus took a little longer than I anticipated so by the time we got there we were about 15-20 minutes late for our time slot which was a bit stressful. It turned out it was not a problem we just ended up in the line like everyone else.

After about 15 min we got in the lift and were whished up to the top of the Passion tower, one of the two that tourists can go up then a bit of time at the top at 112 metres then the 426 spiral steps to the bottom, Not for the claustrophobic at all as there is very little space to pass anyone going down. On the way down every so often there is small windows or vantage points good enough to take photos or get a bit of a view around and at other parts of the cathedral.

From there we spent a bit of time resting in the seats at the bottom inside the cathedral then back on the Hop on bus again for some more rest and sightseeing. We did go past the port where we saw the Americans Cup buildings including the area set aside for Team New Zealand. The bus also took us up past Poble Espanyol which we visited the following day.

The next day we had a booking for Parc Guell. The Hop on/off buses would not get us there in time for our booking so we got a public bus and arrived on time. We were dropped at the top gate as I had been advised as everything from there was down. Anyone starting at the bottom had a hell of a day. Parc Guell was one of Gaudi’s projects and has a lot of his influence, there are even 3 of the 100 houses that were supposed to be built there and as we soon found out you pay extra and book ahead for those also.

Parc Guell was not what i expected, a bit unusual and different but not for me. From there we got the metro train towards Poble Espanyol. We might have got off at the wrong stop as it was still quite a hike to the place. We went in and asked to buy tickets, we were sent to a ticket booth off site. At the time we asked for two audio things for a bit of info on the place. OK we present our tickets and ask again for the audio things and were sent to a third place to pick those up and had to put down a deposit on them. After spending about an hour wandering around and certainly not impressed as a lot of it was closed off due to preperations for a large concert. There was several bar areas being set up and were roped off.

Nice and easy to get a bus to the Airport or so I thought. A ticket machine in the Metro selling tickets, however they were not for the particular Airport Bus we wanted so the driver decided to sell me some more tickets.

We got to the airport and had plenty of time for our Singapore Airlines flight Barcelona to Milan

Seville, Spain

The photo above is called a WHITE SANGRIA. I had never heard of white, we always used to make Sangria with red wine, but it seemingly tasted ok. I did also manage to get some San Miguel beer while in Spain. I remember buying it at about 100 dozen at a time for the bus trips, this time only 6 cans.

We loved Seville. The Hotel we stayed at was a bit different, some idiot decided that black was a great colour scheme so everything was black from when you walked through the front door.

At first arriving at the Hotel there was no parking right outside so I drove around the corner and some very enthusiastic bloke helped me park in the very same spot I had my eye on. I got out and locked the car and he came and wanted money for his help. Well now, this Kiwi does not give into that sort of nonsense so back in the car and drove off leaving him waving and shouting behind me. I went around the block and parked right outside the hotel so all was good.

We checked in and got all the bags out then took the car back to AVIS. This turned out to be a bit of a challenge also as the instructions said Parking 3. My GPS and us had no idea where Parking 3 was, We foing 1 and 2 and some no number parking but the elusive Parking 3 took a bit of finding. Once found a very bossy looking Spanish woman came out with a clipboard and checked the car over, looking closely at every single mark, but once again all good and checked out ok.

We opted to walk back to the Hotel which turned out to be quite a walk, but quite an adventure. Just shy of 3km and 45 minutes walk which a few wrong turns probably was a bit more than that, thank goodness for google maps and my Airalo data eSim.

Now back to the Hotel and it’s blackness. If you dropped something on the floor that was not white it was damned hard to find again. There was a step going through the bathroom one step up then 2 steps along then one step down to the toilet, all black and hard to spot the step. It really needed some Kiwi roading people there to set it up with road coned or something to show the step.

From our hotel we did manage to walk a to lot of places. Plaza de Espana was a highlight, a huge area well laid out showing a lot of history of Spain. Santa Cruz area, we walked along the river past Torre del Oro and the bullring, the cops were celebrating their new Helicopter so that along with a few old Helicopters and a lot of police were present there.

Just when we thought we had seen almost everything we needed to I saw a thingy for Setas de Sevilla, the largest wooden structure in the world like a huge mushroom or honey comb. There was a lift up to the top of it and a walkway around the top of about half of it with great views of the city.

The Tapas meals a couple of times but it was the same restaurant both times which had great food.

We did go to Markets and Supermarkets while we were away as we had a few self catering places we stayed at. The legs of cured meat in Spain, Portugal and Italy were great and so cheap compared to home. They slice it by weight while you wait right off the leg or you can buy an entire leg and many places.

The Alcazar was on my todo list but I left it too late to get tickets so maybe a next time.

We left Seville on a bullet train to go to Barcelona, about 5 hours instead of about 2 or more days driving. Had we known in advance we would have taken food and drink with us on the train as the carriage with the cafeteria in it was slow and only one person making everything including making sandwiches.

Lisbon and the Algarve

The hotel at Lisbon, Martinhal Lisbon Chiado was more of a family hotel and we had parking for the rental car arranged which turned out to be in a secure building just a couple of blocks away, or in Lisbon terms downhill, turn left, then uphill, then turn right then downhill again. First door into the parking was actually 2 parking levels higher than the 2nd door I came out about 100 metres down the same street which should give you an idea of the angle of the street.

We went out for a walk, although the weather was a bit wet, we ended up buying small umbrellas which were handy to have. I did go for a long walk in the rain at one stage for a couple of hours, it was torrential with rivers running down the steep streets. My passport, money, etc and me got soaked but I did get to see a few places with less people around.

I had arranged for a Tuk-Tuk tour with Silvia and she turned up and we went off on about a 2 hour tour of Lisbon. She was extremely informative and knowledgeable about her city which made it a lot of fun.

A couple of the highlights was the Pasteis de Belem and the Monument of the Discoveries which I had a photo of my bus, Woftam beside from 1983. The famous custard tarts from Pasteis de Belem when warm were fantastic and we did find the similar tarts all over Portugal but due to patents or Copyright or something they are all called Pastel de Nata. We did get a kitchen tour of the bakery and they make about 25 thousand a day all hand made.

The number 28 tram in Lisbon connects Martim Moniz with Campo Ourique, and passes through the popular tourist districts of Alfama, Baixa, Estrela and Graca. We saw the line of people for it and decided against doing that.

We later did the Hills Tramcar Tour which took us to a lot of good places although it was not a hop on/off tram so we never got back to any of the places we liked. Some of the closer places we managed to walk to but even getting up to 20,000 steps a day and a lot of hills made for a long hard day with plenty of rest stops and coffee stops made it ok. Europe like their SMALL strong coffees, we tended to go to Starbucks and get a decent sized coffee.

After about 45 min standing in line we went up the Santa Justa Lift which gave a good view of the city. It was an old lift built in the very early 1900’s after just over 20 years of planning. At the top we could walk down a few steps and back to the hotel down some narrow streets instead of optiong to go back down the lift to where we began.

On departing Lisbon we drove over the 25 de Abril Bridge, a suspension bridge designed and looks similar to the one in San Francisco. We headed down towards Sagres, the area surrounding it had changed a lot to my previous times there in the early 80’s.

The Sagres lighthouse was closed to walk around due to repairs or renovation inside but about a kilometer of cars parked to go see it seemed to make no difference. Near the lighthouse was a heap of food trucks and people selling various things and a lot of people walking around the edge of the cliffs for different views and photos.

From Sagres we headed to our accommodation near Albufeira. It turned out to be a bit expensive for what we ended up with but it had a great outlook out to sea and the bay.

The following day we left Portugal and headed for Seville, Spain. With an hour time change we were not sure about the ferry. I had opted to take the ferry across to Spain as we used to do with Top Deck instead of staying on the motorway and crossing the bridge which had been completed in 1991. It is the Guadiana International Bridge and crosses the Guadiana River connecting southern Spain (town of Ayamonte) and Portugal (town of Castro Marim). It is the southernmost land crossing on the Portugal–Spain border.

We waited quite a while on the ferry which was not the same one we used to use. The guy in the ticket office arrived just as the ferry from Spain did and a quick sale of tickets and only accepting cash and we were on the ferry and off to Spain again.

Portugal Gem

Hotel Quinta das Lágrimas, Coimbra, Portugal

We were looking for just one overnight stop between Porto and Lisbon. I had a look on Booking Com as you do and instead of putting in a town I just put in CENTRO as a region. Of the few things I check are Air Con, Wifi and Parking. One was this little hotel that looked as it was in the middle of nowhere. I could not find an exact street address so located it as best I could on Google Earth, got the GPS co-ordinates and bingo put that in the Garmin GPS. Off we go. After a bit of time killing at Aveiro we arrived in Coimbra and got to where my GPS suggested and it was a narrow little cobble street and no sign of our hotel, oops.

After parking, well more like squeezing between a couple of cars and did a bit of walking, to no avail. A bit more time on my google maps and we decided to drive further along this narrow road and stopped at a place with huge garbage bins away from traffic and look a bit more seriously at google. Well right in front of us was a sign about 4 metres long and a metre high and a huge arrow for the Hotel 50M and a huge arrow. FOUND IT!!

A fantastic place and a reasonable price of about 230 Euro a night. Awesome service indeed. A lot of history for a 1326 startup joint. Something about a Spaniard and a Portuguese scandal many moons back, and this huge plot of land now with it’s castle and now a Luxury Hotel.

Driving – Spain & Portugal

Lots of viaducts and tunnels and tolls. AVIS gave me a small pre-paid fob thingy (Toll Transponder) that stuck on the windscreen (as extra cost of course) that beeps each time at a toll and the fob is charged.

A few wrong turns or exiting off motorways at the wrong time, merging traffic, Ollie freaking out almost wearing out her passengers braking foot. But so far nobody dead and no accidents.

Bilbao to Pamplona, Salamanca, Douro Valley. We did go to Pinhao but the place was packed so we moved on, a nice mountain road took us through some small villages complete with a very narrow cobble stone road through them. Then on to Porto. A bit of an issue parking once again as the streets and parking buildings were packed.

Then following day Porto to Figueiro da Foz which was a bit of a dissapointment, but then popped back up to Aveiro which was a lovely place, and ended up at a luxury private hotel – Hotel Quinta Das Lagrimas which was a building from the 1300’s and massive gardens. Posh but cheap enough.

Tomorrow down to Lisbon.