Category: Travel

Published on by Dave

Vancouver

Always wanted to go. Had to do some research for some travel in June 2013

I’ll fill this out according to me usual template later, or not.

Published on by Dave

Berlin

I originally wrote this for me, and used it to record stuff I need to plan and visit the city.  It’s still pretty much the same. It might be useful for others. I first stayed there at the end of the summer 2005. We stayed at the art’otel mitte im Mitte and visited the centre of Berlin with a quick trip to the Story of Berlin on the Ku’f’dam, which is worth revisiting. I posted my pictures to a  Berlin set in flickr which is now displayed as a slide show below/overleaf. I returned on business in 2007 and for a citybreak in Jan 2019 and again in March 2019. Continue reading “Berlin” →

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Zurich

The financial & commercial capital of German speaking Switzerland.

Why

I needed to visit on business, in Jan 2007, and returned 13 months later. In 2010, it began to be a second home, travelling through it to Zermatt (flickr pictures) and Budapest (flickr pictures) and needing to work in Zurich West. I have not been back since, sadly.

Money


The Swiss still use the Swiss Franc (CHF).

Things to do

We spent the weekend walking around the old town and visited the Kunsthaus, the ferry quay with its views down the lake, the Lindhof park, the old botanical gardens, the University for its views over the town and the Fraumunster with its Chagal & Giacometto stained glass windows. See also this Zurich Tourist Site

Hotels

These first two are recommended by the business travel agent, and neither are in the rough guide.

  • Hotel du Theatre, near Central Sq., on Zahringstrasse.
  • Hotel Central overlooks the River Limat
  • Hotel City, Lowenstrasse, on the edge of Zurich West.
  • Hotel Greulich, near Langstrasse
  • Hotel Seidenhof, which is very central near the station, and recommended by another business travel agent.

My Map

This is Zurich city centre, the google map has the airport marked up.



View Larger Map

Getting There

In England, since we’re without the car, a very useful public transport is the Speedbus, which runs from Woking Station to London Heathrow Terminals. This is quicker than driving and parking; you’re taken straight there. The buses leave Woking every half hour on the hour or half hour. I have taken to flying Swiss from LCY.

If travelling to Zurich West, for the Crown Plaza or Mercure, one needs Tram No. 2 from Paradeplatz,the 6,7,11 & 13 go from the tramstop on Bahnhofstrasse to Paradeplatz. The 11 & 13 can be caught from the tram stop at the Hauptbahnhof front concourse, the 6 can also be found at the tramstop at the south side entrance.

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Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main, the home of the German Banking System and now the European Central Bank. It’s taken me a while, since I never visited this city while at Sun (1997-2009) but have been there several times since leaving them. Here are my notes on visiting Frankfurt; here are my pictures on Flikr.

Currency

Germany use the Euro (EUR). It wouldn’t be home to the ECB otherwise. Yahoo converts EUR:GBP here…, and the Currency Converter by OANDA.com, the Currency Site. is also available –

The nadir, at LCY AMEX : 1 EUR:1 GBP 14 April 2011

Getting there

I try to travel to and from London City, LCY [this site] [their site], but there are only four flights/day by Lufthansa. Swiss Air does some silly indirects, as does I believe Malev. BA, it seems still does three direct flights. Same on the way back!

Lufthansa does eight flights a day via London Heathrow.

The Train from the Airport to Frankfurt Central Hauptbahnhof takes about 15 minutes and runs 5 times an hour, costs a couple of Euros. Taxi’s take a bit longer, drop you at the door and cost about 30 Euros.

Town Centre



View Frankfurt in a larger map

Trains

Wikipedia has an overground train route map.

Hotels

I have stayed in the +NH Frankfurt City and the Hotel Adina, an aparthotel, which I like and is staffed by great people. It’s so good, I’d spend my own money on it. I have also stayed at the NH Frankfurt Airport when I was dumped there by Adaria/Lufthansa.

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Budapest

The capital of Hungary

Why

This page was created after my second visit which was with some friends. ( A stag night in fact). The first was a business visit in 2009, and the picture above was taken then, all my Budapest pictures on flickr are in this set.

April 2010

I blogged about the journey in a series of articles called

  • Back Home in London which talks about the journey home, getting to Budapest Ferihegy Airport, where there are now 4 lounges, and dealing with a schengen-nonschengen journey at Zurich. Ferihegy is a small airport and only those airlines with a lot of flights Malev & Lufthansa have automated machines and permanently manned kiosks. SWISS opened theirs two hours before take off and so you can’t get airside ’till then.
  • Memento Park, they’ve moved many of the public statues from the Communist era to this park. See also my pictures @ flickr
  • A not so long way home talks about what we did.
  • A place to lay my head, which is mainly about the journey, talks about the three airports, see LCY, where AMEX don’t do HUFs, at Zurich, SWISS now let Priority Pass members use their business lounge with an hour’s free Wifi and wired connected machines as well. At Budapest, it talks about money exchange and ground transport. I used the Airport Shuttle bus, which was easy, cheaper than a taxi and saved having to navigate the public transport routes. It looks like the planes used by LCY operators can’t get that far and so your choice of carrier determines where you change planes. I considered flying to Vienna and then using the train, but this wouldn’t have saved me a change, but would have put me in the middle of Budapest which would shorten the taxi ride.
  • I have posted some of my pictures to Flickr

Money

They use the Hungarian Forint (HUF). Yahoo converts CHF:GBP here…. They take Euros nearly everywhere, not sure about the exchange rate you get.

Things to do

  • Shooting
  • Sightseeing
  • Eating and Drinking
  • Bathing

This is appallingly incomplete, I’ll update it n ext time I plan a trip.

Hotels

The Bristol that we used had european plugs and free public wifi. Le Meridien is very central and has an interesting history, but is usually more expensive than I want to pay. I wonder what a bit of notice does.

My Map



View Larger Map
This is meant to have the icons on, I’ll fix this some time, but not now.

 

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London City Airport (LCY)

It’s been a long time since I updated this page. I tried to travel to Copenhagen last week and couldn’t find a flight. On my return I looked up all destinations and found this page, which lists them all. It seems I could have travelled to Hamburg and then by train, I looked, maybe they were full since BA only do two flights a day and weekdays at that. 24 Oct 2014 Continue reading “London City Airport (LCY)” →

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Greece

I have holidayed in Greece on many occasions, on packages and latterly with Sunsail. This page was updated and used between 2004 & 2009. It was flagged by the broken link tool in 2017 and the content was pretty dated.  I removed most of it. 17 Feb 2018

Sailing in the Ionian

I sailed in the Ionian with Sunsail. They run several routes/flotilla’s from their base in Vounaki, in NW Greece. I traveled with them in the second week of June and it was beginning to get a bit busy. I wouldn’t want to go later in the season, when its also a lot hotter. 16th June 2008

Preveza (PVK) airport is small and similar to many of the Greek airports. Don’t take pictures. It has a cafe on both sides of security, but its very expensive, and a tax free shop, if you need it. Otherwise take water, food and books on the return journey; charter flights are often delayed, and were in my case. 16th June 2008

Kalmos Harbour CC DFL 2008 BY-SA

I will buy and take a parallel ruler and chart-plotter next time. They lent us a copy of Ionian by Rod Heikell, which we used as our almanac, I may get a copy of this to plan my next holiday.

While researching my 2009 trip, I discovered that Igoumenitsa is the important entry port from Italy, so maybe another time. NB There are ferries from Venice.

Island Hopping

An article from Fodors suggesting an Aegan route using the “Flying Dolphins”. See https://hellenicseaways.gr/en/fleet/category/flying-dolphin

More

Here are some web sites with general facts about the place.

and the Ionian Islands

I thought I might go back to Santorini via LastMinute.com and they offered me a flight via Athens airport, Athens Eleftherios Venizelos, here’s what I found about how to spend my time there.

Will I go back to Santorini?

 

Published on by Dave

Touring in Switzerland

I am not sure Summer is the best time but…, actually I am not sure 2009 is the right time, have you seen the exchange rate?

Destinations

  • Zurich, see my Zurich Page for more on Zurich and Switzerland.
  • Lucerne
  • Bern
  • Basel

This would mean missing out on Lugano and Geneva

Links

Zurich to Zermatt

Hourly rail connections run to Zermatt from all major gateways, including directly from Geneva and Zürich airports. From either direction, one straight forward change of trains at Brig or Visp is normally required. At Brig (or Visp) one changes to the romantic little BVZ (Brig-Visp-Zermatt) cog-wheel train for the 80 minute journey up the valley.

source: http://www.ski-zermatt.com/arrival.html#Rail

Research

The Guardian did one of its sponsored supplements, Jan/Feb 2009 in several parts. I have kept them and put them in the filing cabinet and they gave me several ideas of things to do, and I created a couple of bookmarks at the time. Certainly and inspiration to return to the Bernese Oberland.