Tours

Our Time in Oslo

Posted on December 7, 2024 by 2btravel

Introduction: Late Summer in Scandinavia
Flight Review: American Airlines B737-800 First Class, MEM-DFW
Flight Review: Finnair A350-900 Business Class, DFW-HEL
Flight Review: Finnair E190 Business Class, HEL-CPH
Lodging Review: Fairfield by Marriott Copenhagen Nordhavn
Our Time in Copenhagen
Lodging Review: Best Western Hotel Hebron, Copenhagen
Lodging Review: Next House, Copenhagen
Lodging Review: Story Hotel Studio Malmö
Our Time in Malmö and Ystad, Sweden
Lodging Review: IKEA Hotell, Älmhult, Sweden
Our Time in Älmhult, Sweden and High-Speed Train to Stockholm
Lodging Review: Motel L Älvsjö, Stockholm
Our Time in Stockholm
Flight Review: SAS A320neo Economy Class, ARN-OSL
Lodging Review: Comfort Hotel Grand Central, Oslo
Our Time in Oslo
Lounge Review: SAS Lounge, Oslo airport
Flight Review: Lufthansa A320-200 Business Class, OSL-FRA
Flight Review: Lufthansa 787-9 Business Class, FRA-MSP
Flight Review: Delta B737-800 First Class, MSP-MEM

I really enjoyed Oslo. The weather was ever so slightly cooler than at our other stops but it was still warm enough that locals were enjoying dips in the fjord – though they were happy to have the huts to pop into once they got out of the water! I would enjoy going back some time with a car so we could get out from the city center a bit.

How we got around the city

While the city does have good public transportation, we bought a 48-hour ticket for the hop-on/hop-off bus to use as our primary transport. That’s because some of the places we wanted to see were either not very close to public transport or would have taken a combination of trams and buses to get there and the tourist bus basically hit all the things we wanted to see.

The train station from Karl Johan’s Gate.

Oslo City Street

There was a major tram and city bus stop just outside our hotel, which itself was attached to the train station. While there is a hop-on/hop-off bus stop near the opera house, which we could see from the hotel, it was one of the later stops in the loop, so it was nearly lunch time before the bus made it to that stop. Continue reading →

Categories: Europe, Norway, Tours, Trip Report | Tags: City Tour, Europe, Norway, Oslo, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Our Time in Venice, Italy

Posted on January 5, 2024 by 2btravel

Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise
Lounge Reviews: The Club CLT and Centurion Lounge Charlotte Airport
Flight Review: Lufthansa A340-600 Charlotte-Munich
Lodging Review: Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection, Athens
Our Time in Athens, Part I (Acropolis and Museum)
Our Time in Athens, Part II (Roman Agora, Hadrian’s Library, Ancient Agora)
Our Time in Athens, Part III (Kerameikos, Temple of Zeus, Panathenaic Stadium)
Our Time in Athens, Part IV (Restaurants and Observations)
Ship Review: Viking Neptune
Our Time in Ancient Olympia (Katakalon, Greece)
Our Time in Corfu, Greece
Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro
Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Our Time in Zadar, Croatia
Our Time in Venice, Italy
Flight Review: Iberia A330-300 Madrid-Chicago

As is usual on Viking cruises, they try to sell you on another cruise while you’re on the current one, offering special incentives to do so. My friends and I have a system for selecting our international vacations: whoever has a birthday ending in a 5 or 0 gets to pick the destination. That covers six out of every 10 years, so it works for us. 2025 is my choice and I’d had my eye on Viking’s Passage to Eastern Europe river cruise which runs between Budapest, Hungary and Bucharest, Romania. When we checked with the on-board travel consultant we learned that we could book this cruise for just $25 down and it didn’t have to be paid off until six months before the sailing. That was huge for me as normally the cruises have to be paid off in 2-3 months. So we went ahead and booked this cruise for $25 and that gave us 18 months to pay. When we added in our past-traveler discounts and our on-board booking discounts, that took another $600 off the price. Plus we got shipboard credit for our current cruise and additional shipboard credit for the one we’d just booked. Want to join us? Click on the link at the top of the page for more info.

Since we’d had an overnight port of call in Venice on our previous Mediterranean cruise back in 2008, our original plan was to skip the included tour and just wander around ourselves. That was something we’d really enjoyed doing the first time around. But now we had shipboard credit to spend. We could have stuck to the plan and used the credits to cover crew tips and some small purchases but where’s the fun in that? Instead we used it to book The Island and the Abbey tour, which took us to the island of Murano and then to the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore as we’d not visited either of time in our previous time in the area. Continue reading →

Categories: Cruises, Europe, Historical Site, Italy, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Viking | Tags: Cruise, Europe, Italy, Murano, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Venice, Viking | Leave a comment

Our Time in Zadar, Croatia

Posted on January 4, 2024 by 2btravel

A Curveball

Our only major curveball of the trip happened on Thursday, when we were due to stop in Split, Croatia, a place I’d heard quite a bit about but had never visited. But that plan changed with an announcement on Wednesday evening.

Our final port of call was Venice, or more accurately, Chioggia, which is still part of the greater Venice Lagoon. For many years Venice has been prone to flooding due in part to the fact that many of the buildings are constructed on “land” that is supported by pilings and those pilings have naturally settled into the seabed as the centuries progressed. To combat this a project called MOSE (or in English, Moses – because it parts the sea) was implemented which installed rows of mobile sea gates on the floor of the lagoon. This prevents flooding during high tides and any time the sea level becomes a danger to the city.

Due to an impending acqua alta high tide and compounded by recent rains in the area, the MOSE barriers were going to be raised earlier than planned. If we stopped in Split, the ship would not have time to reach the lagoon before the barriers rose.

At this point I was expecting that we’d just sail straight for Venice though if I’d thought about it I’d have realized there might be issues like if there was a dock available for us, etc. But two days instead of one in Venice wouldn’t be all bad. But Viking had something else in mind. We sailed past Split and instead docked in Zadar, Croatia, which is about an hour-and-a-half (by car) further north on the Croatian coast.

We’d signed up for the included walking tour of Split and paid for an excursion to Ancient Salona & Medieval Trogir but, of course, those were now no longer options. Instead we used the credit from the optional tour for one called Picturesque Zadar Hinterland that was only offered in the morning. Unfortunately it returned us to the ship too late for the only afternoon included walking tour so we just did a quick spin in the Old Town by ourselves.

Picturesque Zadar Hinterland

Novigrad

Our first stop was a scenic overlook of the town of Novigrad where we could clearly see the remains of the castle that once stood atop the hill.

Novigrad as viewed from the Overlook

Continue reading →

Categories: Croatia, Cruises, Europe, Historical Site, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Viking | Tags: Croatia, Novigrad, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Viking, Zadar | Leave a comment

Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia

Posted on January 3, 2024 by 2btravel

On our prior Mediterranean cruise in 2008 we’d also had a stop in Dubrovnik so this was our second visit. My friend enjoys gardens and such so we’d signed up for the included city tour in the morning and the afternoon tour called A Renaissance Garden & Views. Apparently not many people signed up for either the morning or afternoon session of this optional tour because they combined us into a single morning tour and swapped out our city tour tickets for one in the afternoon.

A Renaissance Garden and Views Tour

Slano

We drove about 45 minutes northwest from the port, on a road bordering the Adriatic, until we reached the small town of Slano. Here the terrain slopes down from the hills above to the sea.

Beginning in the 14th century this area became a significant commercial port with two shipyards, salt warehouses and markets for salt, livestock and grain. The name “Slano” means “salt”.

It’s hard to get lost in Slano

Continue reading →

Categories: Croatia, Cruises, Europe, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Viking | Tags: Croatia, Europe, Ocean Cruise, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Viking | Leave a comment

Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro

Posted on January 2, 2024 by 2btravel

On the Tuesday of our cruise we checked off a new country, Montenegro. The country’s name comes from the Venetians mangling the Serbian words “Crna Gora” for “black mountain”. The mountain in question is Mount Lovćen which was covered in dense evergreen forests. Over the centuries this area has been controlled by the Illyrians, the Slavs, the Serbs, the Venetians, the Ottomans, an independent country, occupied by Austria-Hungary during WWI, part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia then after WWII one of the republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, then the smaller Federal Republic of Yugoslavia along with Serbia and finally regaining its independence in 2006. Continue reading →

Categories: Europe, Historical Site, Montenegro, Tours, Trip Report | Tags: Europe, Historical Site, Montenegro, Tours, Trip Report | Leave a comment

2023: The Year in Travel

Posted on December 31, 2023 by 2btravel

Another year has passed and I’m just thankful I got through this one without injury. I cracked my tibial plateau while on my European trip in 2022 which meant I didn’t get to ski but for a few hours this year but I still went on the trips I had planned and had a very good time anyway.

The Year in Travel – 2023

January

My first trip of the year was a visit to Winter Park, Colorado, a place I hadn’t visited in nearly 30 years. I was so looking forward to it because I really couldn’t remember much about it and had only been skiing a year when I visited last time. Sadly I spent an hour each day rehabbing my knee instead of skiing though I did get to go tubing one day.

I enjoyed a quick non-stop flight from Memphis to Denver on United and we took a bus right to the lodge. We stayed slopeside at the Zephyr Mountain Lodge where the location of your room can make a big difference.

Zephyr Mountain Lodge Slopeside Building
photo from Planet of Hotels.com

Continue reading →

Categories: American Airlines, Autograph Collection, Award Travel, California, Colorado, Condos, Croatia, Cruises, Europe, Greece, Hotel, Iberia, Italy, Lufthansa, Mammoth, Marriott, Montenegro, North America, OneWorld, Ship Review, Star Alliance, Tours, UNESCO World Heritage Site, United, United States, Viking, Winter Park, Year in Review | Tags: Autograph Collection, Award Travel, California, Colorado, Croatia, Greece, Iberia, Italy, Lufthansa, Mammoth, Marriott, Montenegro, OneWorld, Ship Review, Star Alliance, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Viking, Viking Neptune, Winter Park, Year In Review | Leave a comment

Our Time in Corfu, Greece

Posted on December 30, 2023 by 2btravel

An Unexpected Twist

After we returned from our shore excursion in Ancient Olympia we were informed that one of our shore excursions for the following day had been canceled. Our excursion was to take us about an hour away to hike Mt. Pantokrator and then to visit Old Peritheia, Corfu’s oldest village that was once a hideaway from pirates. We had been proactively booked on the afternoon included tour, which was Panoramic Corfu & Old Town Walking Tour. While we hated to miss seeing cool sites, our feet were actually not all that upset. We heard it had rained in the area the day before we arrived and can only speculate that it made the conditions unsafe for the hike. As someone who was injured last year when an excursion took place in the rain instead of being canceled, I was fine with the way it was handled.

But that meant we now had a significant amount of shipboard credit to spend. We decided to make the best of it by getting massages in the Nordic Spa. We were able to schedule them for first thing in the morning, giving ourselves plenty of time before our afternoon tour. It was a very welcome treat after all the walking we’d done in Athens over the prior few days. The tour was scheduled to last 5.5 hours so our credit was enough to cover a one-hour massage and a little bit of the tip.

Exploring on our own

It was about a 200-yard walk from our ship to the Cruise Terminal. We didn’t notice it at the time but there are actually buses that run between the cruise terminal and the ships, so if that’s too far for you to walk, just wait for one of these free shuttles. Once you reach the cruise terminal you’ll exit through the building and then you can catch one of Viking’s shuttles into downtown. Unfortunately we didn’t pay attention that these shuttles were available so we just set out walking. There is not much in the immediate area of the cruise terminal other than a small row of shops across the street. But we just followed the trickle of people both from our ship and the giant one docked next to us and headed east along the coast road.

Port in Corfu

Continue reading →

Categories: Europe, Greece, Historical Site, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Tags: Corfu, Europe, Greece, Historical Site, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Leave a comment

Our Time in Ancient Olympia (Katakalon, Greece)

Posted on December 29, 2023 by 2btravel

Our ship departed Athens at 6 PM on Saturday evening and it took us the rest of the night and all of Sunday morning to reach our first port of call, Katakolon, Greece as we had to sail around the Greek peninsula.

The included tour at this port was called Ancient Olympia and there were optional tours that included not only Ancient Olympia but a visit to the Magna Grecia olive estate, another where you can learn Greek folk dancing and a Flavors of the Greek Countryside tour. We stuck with the included tour but because we were in the cheaper staterooms we had to settle for the last tour of the day, which didn’t leave until 2:15 PM.

Port of Katakolo(n)

That wasn’t all bad. In Katakolon, the dock is not far at all from a tourist area with several restaurants and loads of souvenir shops. So after our ship docked at 12:30 PM we had time to go into this area and get our souvenirs purchased before the tour. I find it interesting that Viking refers to the port as Katakolon when all the local signage (and even Wikipedia) refer to the port name without the final N. From what I can see online the names appear to refer to the same place, it just seems odd!

Town of Katakolon as viewed from our ship

Continue reading →

Categories: Europe, Greece, Historical Site, River Cruise, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Tags: Ancient Olympia, Europe, Greece, Historical Site, Olympics, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Leave a comment

Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise

Posted on December 18, 2023 by 2btravel

When we returned home from our October 2022 European trip that included a Viking River Cruise on the Seine, I received the standard follow-up phone call from our sales rep to ask how the trip had gone. Of course the other part of his job was to try to get us to sign up for another cruise. My travel companion and I discussed it and tried to get some other friends to come along on a 2023 cruise but it just wasn’t working out. So instead of taking another river cruise, we thought we’d try one of Viking’s ocean-going vessels for a Mediterranean cruise. By completing our payment before the end of 2022 we were eligible for $200 of shipboard credit that could be applied to anything from spa treatments to shore excursions. That sounded like a good deal to us so we booked a tour on the Viking Neptune, which was only put into service in November 2022. While we had done a western Mediterranean cruise in 2008, only two ports of call overlapped with the Neptune’s itinerary.

Even though the cruise began in Athens, it did not include any time in the city itself unless you paid for the $599 pre-trip extension. I had spent time in Athens in 2007 on a Greek islands cruise but my friend had never been there and we knew we could do it more cheaply thanks to hotel points. So we left the US on a Tuesday, arriving in Athens on Wednesday and had two full days in the city before boarding the cruise ship on Saturday.

Booking the flights

As usual, we booked our own airfare using our airline miles. While we typically leave from Chicago, where my traveling companion lives, in November 2022 we found connecting airfare on United through Newark directly to Athens for just 33K miles in economy. While my friend had a number of ORD-EWR flights to choose from, the only MEM-EWR flight available at this price left Memphis at 6 AM and then had an 8+ hour layover in Newark. You can imagine I was not excited about that! It also broke the promise I’d made to myself not to cross oceans in economy. My friend was ok with it as she’s retired and trying to conserve her miles. We went ahead and booked the flights because they were so cheap and I could not find any business class flights on our travel day for what I considered a reasonable price.

Fast forward to July 2023 and I found flights on Lufthansa out of Charlotte for 70K Aeroplan miles. I transferred 70K American Express Membership Rewards points to Aeroplan and paid taxes and fees of $74.66 USD/$98.30 CAD.

Now my problem was getting to Charlotte. There is no non-stop United flight (a Star Alliance partner of Air Canada and Lufthansa) between Memphis and Charlotte so trying to get to Charlotte on the same ticket would have meant changing planes – assuming I could even find domestic award space. But there is an American Airlines non-stop and while I often cannot find saver award space between Memphis and DFW or Chicago, I had multiple saver-level options to Charlotte. But rather than using 25K American AAdvantage miles I opted to use just 15K British Airways Avios + $5.60 to get me to Charlotte in domestic first class. I also made sure that there was another MEM-CLT flight after mine, just in case of delays, and I’d still have time to get my bag checked in for my Lufthansa flight.

So our outbound flights were as follows:

10/17 1151 ORD – 1510 EWR on UA 2471 in economy
10/17 1750 EWR – 1010+1 ATH on UA 124 in economy for 30K United miles + $5.60 (a bargain!)
These flights are shown in red on the map.

10/17 0925 MEM – 1209 CLT on AA 1790 in domestic first class using 15K Avios + $5.60
10/17 1830 CLT – 0915+1 MUC on LH 429 in business class
10/18 1110 MUC – 1435 ATH on LH 1752 in intra-Europe business class for 70K Aeroplan miles + $74.66
These flights are shown in green on the map.

As you can see, my friend was due to get to Athens 4+ hours ahead of me. Before changing my booking I double-checked with her that she didn’t mind hanging out at the airport and she said she didn’t so I went ahead and changed my flights.

Our flights included travel on United Airlines, American Airlines, Lufthansa and Iberia Airlines

Continue reading →

Categories: Autograph Collection, Award Travel, Croatia, Cruises, Europe, Greece, Hotel, Iberia, Italy, Lufthansa, Marriott, Montenegro, OneWorld, Star Alliance, Tours, Trip Report, Viking | Tags: Ancient Olympia, Athens, Autograph Collection, Award Travel, Corfu, Croatia, Dubrovnik, Greece, Italy, Katakalo, Kotor, Marriott, Montenegro, Murano, Ocean Cruise, Olympia, Trip Report, Venice, Viking, Zadar | Leave a comment

Our Time in Les Andelys and Le Pecq

Posted on March 28, 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

Les Andelys

Our next port of call was the town of Les Andelys. This quaint town was founded in the 6th century and its church has parts that date to the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. I recall touring it but apparently did not take photographs. I would have enjoyed touring the town more but with my knee situation I slowly walked with the group to the chateau.

Château Gaillard was the primary attraction for this stop. It was a medieval castle and its ruins now overlook the town.

Chateau from the town

Continue reading →

Categories: Attraction Review, Cruises, Europe, France, Historical Site, Tours, Trip Report, Viking | Tags: Attraction Review, France, Historical Site, Napoleon, River Cruise, Tours, Trip Report, Viking | Leave a comment

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Tours

Our Time in Oslo

How we got around the city

Our Time in Venice, Italy

Our Time in Zadar, Croatia

A Curveball

Picturesque Zadar Hinterland

Novigrad

Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia

A Renaissance Garden and Views Tour

Slano

Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro

2023: The Year in Travel

January

Our Time in Corfu, Greece

An Unexpected Twist

Exploring on our own

Our Time in Ancient Olympia (Katakalon, Greece)

Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise

Booking the flights

Our Time in Les Andelys and Le Pecq

Les Andelys

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