Italy

Our Time In Florence, Part 2

Posted on March 21, 2023 by 2btravel

Return to International Travel – Introduction
Review: SWISS A340-300 ORD-ZRH and Marhaba Lounge ZRH
Lodging Review: Sina Villa Medici, Florence, Italy
Our Time In Florence, Part 1
Our Time In Florence, Part 2
Lodging Review: Park Hyatt Vendome, Paris, France
Our Time In Paris, Part 1 (Louvre, Sainte-Chappelle, Arc, Eiffel Tower)
Our Time In Paris, Part 2 (Versailles)
Our Time In Paris, Part 3 (Catacombs, Musee d’Orsay)
Viking Kari and an Afternoon in Montmartre
Our Time in La Roche-Guyon and Vernon/Giverny
Our Time on the Normandy Beaches
Our Time in Les Andelys and Le Pecq
Lodging Review: Renaissance Republique, Paris, France
Review: Air France A350 CDG-ORD

Galleria dell’Accademia

Our timed ticket for the Accademia Gallery had us leaving our hotel without breakfast though we’d had a cup of tea in the room. We didn’t know exactly where we were going but thanks to Google Maps we had a good idea of how to get there and how long it would take. Once again we’d pre-purchased timed-entry tickets and that is definitely the way to go here. I believe they sell out (almost) every day so if you want guaranteed entry, pre-purchase.

Once inside everyone else walked briskly to the back of the museum where I (rightly) assumed the David statue would be. We took a leisurely route to get there, including veering off to a separate wing to look at old musical instruments. We saw some beautiful old instruments including several made by Antonio Stradavari. One thing that fascinated me was this pair of hurdy-gurdys.

A pair of hurdy gurdys dating to 1775

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Categories: Attraction Review, Award Travel, Europe, Historical Site, Italy, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Our Time In Florence, Part 1

Posted on March 20, 2023 by 2btravel

Return to International Travel – Introduction
Review: SWISS A340-300 ORD-ZRH and Marhaba Lounge ZRH
Lodging Review: Sina Villa Medici, Florence, Italy
Our Time In Florence, Part 1
Our Time In Florence, Part 2
Lodging Review: Park Hyatt Vendome, Paris, France
Our Time In Paris, Part 1 (Louvre, Sainte-Chappelle, Arc, Eiffel Tower)
Our Time In Paris, Part 2 (Versailles)
Our Time In Paris, Part 3 (Catacombs, Musee d’Orsay)
Viking Kari and an Afternoon in Montmartre
Our Time in La Roche-Guyon and Vernon/Giverny
Our Time on the Normandy Beaches
Our Time in Les Andelys and Le Pecq
Lodging Review: Renaissance Republique, Paris, France
Review: Air France A350 CDG-ORD

There is so much to do in Florence that I know we just scratched the surface in our two full days of sightseeing. On the afternoon and evening of the day we arrived we just walked around the historic district, taking photos of various buildings and statues and having dinner in one of the many outdoor cafes.

We had pre-purchased tickets for the the Uffizi and the Accademia online several months in advance and would highly recommend doing that. These are timed tickets so we selected times as early as we could get.

There were several options for the Uffizi ticket and we chose one that also included the nearby Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens that run just behind it. Our Uffizi tickets were for 9 AM but when we arrived we were told the museum wouldn’t be opening until 10:30 AM for a “staff meeting”. Now it seems to me that if you’re going to have a staff meeting that you have it at a time that does not impact your open-to-the-public hours but we heard via people nearby talking that the staff was meeting to vote whether or not to go on strike. I don’t know whether or not they did but I was just selfishly glad it did not further impact our time in the city.

Palazzo Pitti

If you’re not familiar with Florence, here’s a quick primer on the Medici family, a name you will often see and hear. The Medicis (MED-i-chee) were an Italian banking family that began a rise to prominence under Cosimo de Medici in the first half of the 15th century. Their bank was the largest in Europe at this time and funded the family’s rise. Their family produced four popes in the 16th and early 17th centuries and two French queens during the same period. The title Duke of Florence was bestowed in 1532 and was elevated to a Grand Duke in 1569 after significant territorial expansion.

The Palazzo Pitti Exterior is rather plain but is it ornate inside

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Categories: Attraction Review, Award Travel, Europe, Italy, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lodging Review: Sina Villa Medici, Florence, Italy

Posted on March 19, 2023 by 2btravel

Return to International Travel – Introduction
Review: SWISS A340-300 ORD-ZRH and Marhaba Lounge ZRH
Lodging Review: Sina Villa Medici, Florence, Italy
Our Time In Florence, Part 1
Our Time In Florence, Part 2
Lodging Review: Park Hyatt Vendome, Paris, France
Our Time In Paris, Part 1 (Louvre, Sainte-Chappelle, Arc, Eiffel Tower)
Our Time In Paris, Part 2 (Versailles)
Our Time In Paris, Part 3 (Catacombs, Musee d’Orsay)
Viking Kari and an Afternoon in Montmartre
Our Time in La Roche-Guyon and Vernon/Giverny
Our Time on the Normandy Beaches
Our Time in Les Andelys and Le Pecq
Lodging Review: Renaissance Republique, Paris, France
Review: Air France A350 CDG-ORD

For our stay in Florence we decided to use some of our Marriott points. While there was a Westin and a St. Regis closer to the historic center of the city, we chose to save a few points by staying at the Sina Villa Medici, which is part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection. We stayed three nights at 70K points per night.

Sina Villa Medici, Autograph Collection

Location

The hotel is about a 25-30 minute ride from the airport, depending on traffic, and about a 15-minute walk to the Ponte Vecchio/Uffizi area and only a two or three minute longer walk to the Duomo area.

While there’s street parking around the area, the hotel has a special area for picking up and dropping off passengers so it’s nice that there’s no competition with passing vehicles. The exterior of the hotel gives a hint that this building was at one time a palazzo with an old-world style charm. Continue reading →

Categories: Autograph Collection, Award Travel, Europe, Italy, Lodging Review, Marriott, Trip Report | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Return to International Travel – Introduction

Posted on March 17, 2023 by 2btravel

Return to International Travel – Introduction
Review: SWISS A340-300 ORD-ZRH and Marhaba Lounge ZRH
Lodging Review: Sina Villa Medici, Florence, Italy
Our Time In Florence, Part 1
Our Time In Florence, Part 2
Lodging Review: Park Hyatt Vendome, Paris, France
Our Time In Paris, Part 1 (Louvre, Sainte-Chappelle, Arc, Eiffel Tower)
Our Time In Paris, Part 2 (Versailles)
Our Time In Paris, Part 3 (Catacombs, Musee d’Orsay)
Viking Kari and an Afternoon in Montmartre
Our Time in La Roche-Guyon and Vernon/Giverny
Our Time on the Normandy Beaches
Our Time in Les Andelys and Le Pecq
Lodging Review: Renaissance Republique, Paris, France
Review: Air France A350 CDG-ORD

After two years without an international trip I was thrilled to finally be able to travel internationally again. I researched Viking River Cruises that we had not yet taken and was excited to see that an extension on the Seine Cruise was a visit to Highclere Castle (aka Downton Abbey). As a relatively new fan of the show and films that would be something I’d love to see. However we like to cruise in October and not only did that particular extension package end in September, that extension was sold out for all but about two dates during the summer. So we decided to do something different.

In 2008 we had taken a Western Mediterranean cruise where in a single day we visited Pisa in the morning and Florence in the afternoon. We had a whirlwind tour of Florence, just enough for the famous museums and monuments to be pointed out to us but not enough time to get to explore any of them. So we decided to do a few days in Florence before flying to Paris to take a cruise on the Seine out to the beaches of Normandy and back. While the river cruise would start on Wednesday, we flew to Paris the Saturday before and had several days to explore things at our leisure as the mood struck us.

Red: Memphis-Chicago-Zurich-Florence (United and SWISS) Green: Florence-Paris (Air France) Blue: Paris-Chicago (Air France)
Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper – copyright © Karl L. Swartz

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Categories: Air France, Autograph Collection, Award Travel, Cruises, Europe, France, Hyatt, Italy, Marriott, Renaissance, River Cruise, SkyTeam, Star Alliance, SWISS, Tours, Trip Report, Viking | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Attraction Review: Museo Egizio

Posted on March 15, 2019 by 2btravel

Introduction
Lodging Review: Novotel Torino Corso Giulio Cesare
Attraction Review: Museo Egizio
Lodging Review: Hilton Bonn
Lounge Review: Lufthansa Lounge, Cologne-Bonn Airport
United 777-200ER Old Style vs. Polaris Business Class

Turin’s Egyptian Musem, Museo Egizio, contains over 30,000 Egyptian artifacts, and is said to have the largest collection of Egyptian items anywhere outside of Egypt. It receives well over 500K visitors per year and is definitely worth visiting if you have a few hours to spare.

The first item in the collection was an altar table in an imitation of Egyptian style that arrived in 1630. This piece inspired King Charles Emmanuel III commissioned Vitaliano Donati to travel to Egypt and acquire more ancient items in 1753. Donati returned with 300 pieces that became the basis of the collection.

In the 1800s the French Consul General had built a collection during his stay in Egypt and it was acquired by Italian King Charles Felix in 1824. Other collections have been added to the museum over time until it reached its present size.

Here are a few things I found interesting.

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Lodging Review: Novotel Torino Corso Giulio Cesare

Posted on March 13, 2019 by 2btravel

Introduction
Lodging Review: Novotel Torino Corso Giulio Cesare
Attraction Review: Museo Egizio
Lodging Review: Hilton Bonn
Lounge Review: Lufthansa Lounge, Cologne-Bonn Airport
United 777-200ER Old Style vs. Polaris Business Class

I was disappointed that for the first few nights of this trip we would not be staying in a hotel where I had any status. Though I had never signed up for an account with Accor Hotels (the parent company of Novotel) I did have an account with Fairmont Hotels and they’d recently been acquired by Accor. I ended up having to call Accor to find out my account number but I did manage to get it attached to my reservation.

The car service (I used both Rideways and Sun Transfers on this trip and both were fine) dropped us off at the front door of the Novotel Torino. It’s in a rather industrial area and I don’t mean there are necessarily factories around but it was not an area I’d feel very safe walking around alone at night. Perhaps that’s just my perception but buildings around seemed to be a bit run down. There were no restaurants nearby, just the one in the hotel. It was, however, very convenient to the office where our meeting was held.

Just below the trees is a covered entrance which faces a side street.
(Image courtesy accorhotels.com)

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Categories: Accor Hotels, Europe, Hotel, Italy, Lodging Review, Novotel | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Trip Report: Turin, Italy and Bonn, Germany

Posted on March 11, 2019 by 2btravel

Introduction
Lodging Review: Novotel Torino Corso Giulio Cesare
Attraction Review: Museo Egizio
Lodging Review: Hilton Bonn
Lounge Review: Lufthansa Lounge, Cologne-Bonn Airport
United 777-200ER Old Style vs. Polaris Business Class

Late last year I took a business trip that included stops in both Italy and Germany. The trip details were finalized while I was on my fall vacation to Amsterdam, Iceland and Munich so I only made my reservations about 10 days before I left. That actually worked to my advantage. Oftentimes our company gets better pricing on Delta. I know Delta has a great product and a lot of my co-workers love traveling on them and even have status with them. But for me their routing doesn’t often work. (For example, I really don’t like having to fly from Memphis to Atlanta and then west to go skiing. Yes, I could route via Minneapolis or Detroit and I know they handle the snow well, but it just doesn’t make sense to me when I could go via DFW or Houston or even straight to Denver.) And those of us who like to use airline miles for travel know that Delta doesn’t even have an award chart and can often charge ridiculous amounts for premium cabin flights.

But by booking so late, my co-workers had already used the allotment of cheaper business class fares so by booking on United I saved the company money and earned miles I’ll be able to use more easily. My solitary business trip in 2017 had earned me Silver status with United for 2018 so I earned 7x the base fare for my flights, enough to re-qualify me for Silver status for 2019. One downside of booking through our company’s travel department is that whenever possible our longhaul flights have to be on US-based carriers. So while I’d have loved to have flown on Lufthansa on the longhaul legs, I flew United to Munich and Lufthansa for the intra-Europe legs. While both flights between Chicago and Munich were in B777-200ERs, the one on the flight to Munich was the kind with 10-across seating in Business Class while the one on the return leg had been retrofitted with the new Polaris cabin in a 1-2-1 Business Class setup. That was my first time to fly Polaris and it’s just soooo much nicer than United’s older version it’s not even funny.

Outbound route in red: Memphis-Chicago-Munich-Turin, Domestic Europe Route in blue: Turin-Munich-Cologne/Bonn, Return route: Cologne/Bonn-Munich-Chicago-Memphis

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Categories: Accor Hotels, Europe, Germany, Hilton, Hotel, Italy, Novotel | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

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