Favourites & Travel Tips

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Geo: -16.9254, 145.775

I know its been done before but its a great way for us to remind ourselves what's important and what's necessary when planning for the next trip. With any luck somebody else may find something useful in here as well. So after a few weeks of careful consideration, whilst being safely back in our own comfort zone, here it is - favourites and travel tips.

Feel free to visit back later when we have added our favourite photos as well. There's a lot of photos so we want to enjoy taking our time to sort through them.

Favourites

Favourite Country - Greece - It was before we started and probably always will be when it comes to Europe. It has history that is so remarkably visible. It has beauty in its people and its landscape. It has generosity of spirit and in almost all things. It gives you all its heart, and a complimentary ouzo as well!

Favourite City/State - Monaco - From the amazing feat of building a city so compactly on a hillside to the oozing affluence and lifestyle. The money that is there in the city sized luxury yachts and the super high performance cars is mind boggling.

Favourite City - Verona - A city of beauty and history. I loved all the apartment balconies festooned with flowers. We were fascinated by the roman amphitheatres that were still in use and the old city walls scattered around the city. The dining precinct in the old town had a nice ambience. We loved the fact that we stayed in an historical villa in walking distance to possibly the most popular restaurant in Verona as well as great deli. What a memorable experience. And the proximity to Lake Garda was a bonus.

Favourite Town - Olomouc (Czech Republic) - This town had some of the beauty of Prague or Cesky Krumlov but without the crowds which was a like a breathe of fresh air for us. Being a less popular option we scored an awesome apartment for a great price. You could tell the locals were not so crowd weary either. We found the people here way more friendly and the experiences were all warm and genuine.

Favourite Islands - Milos & Corsica - Its difficult to pick a favourite out of these two. I would definitely say that the best week of our whole trip was the week we spent in Milos because of the wonderful people and beautiful food. The views from some parts of the island were stunning. I loved the little museum we visited which was hugely significant but strangely not so easy to find. But when it comes to scenery you really can't go past Corsica. The fact that you could drive pretty much anywhere on the island and be captivated by the spectacular vistas was mind blowing.

Favourite Villages - Algajola (Corsica) & Bunyola (Mallorca) - Again its hard to decide which I liked better. I loved the visible history in Algajola and the restaurants with water views, but that made it more like a seaside resort than a traditional village. The sunsets in Algajola were to die for! Bunyola had a market and an historical train and was surrounded by small farms so I found that very quaint (once we figured out where everything was). The residents of Bunyola were warm and friendly and went out of their way for you. They had no issue whatsoever with our very bad Spanish.

Favourite Restaurant - Gialos, Pollonia http://www.gialos-pollonia.gr/index.php/en/ - The day we arrived in Milos I walked down to the village to buy a meal to take back home to my sick husband. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of Pollonia and the friendly people and the realization that I had a whole week here to experience it all. I took home some retsina, dips and bread. I can't describe adequately the feeling of euphoria I felt walking home to our little seaside house with this simple meal. We dined here several times that week. There were a couple of others in the village that were our favourites also, but this one had found just the right combination of traditional and innovative.

Favourite Meal - Too numerous to pick one but I think I can go to top five. The grilled octopus in Pollonia, Milos, the mussels and cheese course in Algajola, Corsica, the tapas in Port Soller, Mallorca, the hors d'oeuvres followed by lobster ravioli soup in Nice and the pizza in Verona.

Favourite Wine - Bohemia Sekt, Czech Republic - not the very best that we experienced but for the price it was outstanding. I have great memories of the very best views enjoyed with a glass in hand.

Travel Tips

Phones, Data & Maps - The plan was to buy a sim card once we got to Europe but that didn't turn out to be such a great idea. On our first attempt in Greece the sim card we tried to buy didn't work in the phone. So we had a rethink and decided to use our own sim cards and rely mostly on free internet as it was always available at our accommodation and often available in other places like airports and restaurants. Most of the time the speed was good enough but occasionally it was very slow. The main drawback was were didn't have data when we were in transit so had no access to google maps when we got lost. We had a good app that we used in place of a GPS but sometimes it was a bit lacking. We did have a small amount of our own data but not enough to support using google maps on a regular basis. On previous trips, before the digital age, we have relied on paper maps. We tried going back to basics and attempted to use paper maps but its just not the same once you have used digital maps and perhaps the availability of detailed paper maps is becoming less and less. A possible solution would be to have one phone without any data sucking apps such as facebook or email and use that exclusively for google maps.

Getting Around/Local Knowledge - Perhaps also due to not having decent maps we seemed to spend a lot of time looking for things like supermarkets, banks, restaurants, attractions (and sometimes airports!) On previous trips we used guide books but as we wanted to travel light we decided to rely on digital guides and digital maps. So would suggest if you don't have access to google maps make sure you have some good guide books. Asking a local is great if you can speak the language and the solution is not too complicated. I would suggest researching some of the things I have listed above prior to travelling and write a short list valid for each stop. I would also suggest researching things that you need to know before you arrive or as soon as you get there such as can I drink the water and if not where is the nearest supermarket to buy some water? And make sure your digital device can find the place you are looking for. For example some GPS devices can't find airports because the they don't actually have an address!!

If you are travelling by road things like can I drink the water are not so relevant but if you are flying then you can't take water, for example, on the plane with you. The other option is to buy water (after getting money from an atm) before you leave the airport but its not something you will always think about as arriving at a new place is usually filled with other thoughts like where is my luggage and how do I get a taxi and how far from the city centre am I?

A further note about drinking water - bear in mind that a lot of places in Europe the locals don't drink the water because there is a stigma attached to drinking tap water. In most cases its actually fine to drink the water, but they will tell you they don't drink the tap water and won't serve tap water at restaurants due to the stigma. So it pays to find out for yourself.

A further note in regard to money - a good option is to purchase a small amount of local currency for all destinations before you leave. Finding an atm at an airport can sometimes be difficult, and that's if you remember to do it at all.

Accommodation - It is becoming increasingly easier to connect with directly with accommodation providers via the internet and as such a lot of our bookings were for private apartments let out by owners themselves or small letting agents. These types of apartments are not always so easy to find and you can't presume that somebody will be there waiting for you to arrive as is the case with hotels. So its important to establish what sort of apartment it is and how it can be identified. We found that some apartments were only identifiable by a small plaque or by an address pertaining to a small section of an apartment block.

I would therefore recommend making contact directly with the person who will be letting you in to the apartment and get detailed directions. Ask how you will identify the apartment. Set a time to meet and make sure they are easily contactable should you get lost or delayed. It also pays to find out what the apartment does and doesn't have in the way of facilities which may be relevant to what you do or don't carry on the plane with you. There may be that burning question of is it worth taking what's left of my washing powder or will I leave it for the next guest and buy some more when I get there.

It also pays to find out what shops and restaurants are close by because once you get there and find somewhere to park you may not want to take the car out again just to buy a carton of milk or a bottle of wine for example. It may also be relevant to decide in advance if you will be eating out or self catering based on what the kitchen facilities are like and what is close by. This may all sound very detailed and tedious at the planning stage but having this sort of information definitely pays off once you start travelling particularly if you are on the move a lot. Even if you don't do it at the planning stage I would definitely suggest making contact 24 to 48 hours before each move to the next location.

Car Hire - We usually like to hire medium to large size cars to give ourselves a bit of room and power but were reminded again on this trip that in Europe smallest is definitely best. Its mind boggling how narrow some of the old town streets are in Europe. And you are driving besides solid walls sometimes so there is absolutely no room for error. Add to this the lack of parking options and the culture of parking pretty much any where there is a space (or half a space) and on any angle. Its hard to describe until you experience it how tricky the driving can be here. So get a small car, but try to go for power as much as possible so you can power your way out of a tricky situation when you need to. And there will a few of those! The car that we found the most appropriate was the 3 cylinder petrol turbo Ford Fiesta we hired in Corsica.

Flights - On several occasions this trip our flights were delayed which caused us to miss or almost miss our connecting flights. Nobody likes the stress of thinking you are going to miss a flight and over the years we have gotten into the habit of getting to airports extraordinarily early to avoid this stress. But we failed to think ahead regarding the handful of connecting flights we had as the times were set for us. Most of the flights had a two or two and a half hour transit time so you would think that would be enough time, so did we but we were wrong! You don't realise how many reasons there can be for delayed flights. It is often weather related but on this trip we were also delayed once for over an hour due to heavy flight traffic on a Friday afternoon - peak hour in the air over Europe! Another time we were delayed again by over an hour due to the fact that there were no ground staff available to tow our plane the 20 metres backwards to start the taxi out to the runway.

So I would suggest when travelling in Europe allow at least three hours between flights. Killing time at an airport is by far preferable to spending a night in an airport hotel or running for kilometres carrying your hand luggage, or spending a night without your bags even when you know where they are. Even if you do make a connecting flight by the skin of your teeth your luggage may not. To move a bag from one plane to another for a connecting flight there needs to be a minimum of half an hour from landing to take off.

A further note on luggage - in this day and age with all the discount airlines out there, if you book your flights through a travel agent make sure all your fares include checked luggage.

In summary, my last piece of advise is this. Go with it, like the Italians do. Not everything is going to go according to plan so expect things to go wrong and accept it and then make a plan to find a solution. In the end you will remember all the good experiences not the handful of bad ones, well not many of them anyway!

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