It's that time of the year again, my dear reader. Time to pack our bags and head overseas. So, this post is mostly text with a few local Redfern photos added for colour. The destination of choice this year? Well, it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that. First to Italy via an overnight stop in Manila and then onto Egypt to check out the tetrahedrons and cruise the Nile.
In order to fly Business Class and not spend a fortune, there are some tricks. By comparison, current flights from Sydney to Rome return, with the national carrier, cost around $19k each. However, by flying with a tier 2 airline that is a part of One World, you can still score Qantas points and in some case status credits. We are flying with Qantas to Manila and staying overnight, using accrued points at hotel in walking distance of the airport terminal. From there, we fly with Oman Air to Rome via Muscat. These flights are listed as First Class, but according to a seat tracker I use, they are actually Business Class. Cheers to the US where Business Class is not understood.
The complicating factor is the return flight because of the side trip to Egypt. Again with Oman Air, we fly from Cairo to Muscat and then Kuala Lumpur, connecting with a Malaysian Airlines flight to Sydney. The cost, you enquire? Just over $6.5k. The cost of both our fares is less than our 'beloved national carrier' charges for one. Booking flights from a hub in South East Asia significantly reduces flight costs and allows you to fly in comfort at the pointy end of the plane. Don't say you weren't told. And while I organise much of our travel, I leave the flights to my wonderful agent, Luvena at Enperso Leisure Travel (luvena@enperso.com).
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| A random Redfern sunset across the train station. |
As is our custom, most of the trip is self-organised and built around some group tours. We have about 7 weeks in Italy, including a food and wine tour of Tuscany with the marvellous Matt Dillow of the Deck Café and Gartelmann Wines in the Hunter. He operates Matt's Food and Produce Tours. We had such an excellent time with Matt on the Catalonia tour last year, we are backing up for a week in Tuscany (and next year, we will be joining him in Malta).
Aside from that, we are visiting Rome (obviously), Florence (just because), and places we have not previously been: the Lakes District, Milan, Bologna, Bari, Lecce, Matera and finally the Amalfi coast, basing ourselves in Sorrento. It is a slower journey than usual except for airport transit stops like Rome, with a minimum of 4 nights anywhere and a maximum of 9 in Sorrento.
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| Another Redfern sunset. Eat your heart out Santorini. |
The visit to Egypt and the pyramids is not something I thought possible for us until TravelMarvel decided to offer a Nile River cruise with time in Cairo. We thought the pricing was reasonable so we added it as a side trip on the way home from Italy.
I write this a week before we fly out and already we are experiencing some challenges. We have pre-booked a number of tours and visits to places that require tickets well in advance, while still leaving time to immerse ourselves in the locales where we have chosen to stay.
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| An early morning from the hill top, Moore Park. |
Airline ticketing has proven to be the biggest hurdle. Re-scheduling meant changing our original journey home from flying through Jakarta to KL instead. Then Malaysian decided to swap us onto another flight home, forcing us to stay in KL for the night. Finally that flight disappeared altogether and our trip was going to finish in Kuala Lumpur. Thankfully Luvena was onto it and all has been rectified. The benefit of using a travel agent for complex flights is obvious. I am now checking the Qantas website daily.
As we prepare to depart our homeland (4 big sleeps to go) I often reflect on how, in Australia, we consider ourselves to be international players, or wish to be. Then I watch the news and despair. Today, aside from real estate prices, the big story was the official opposition in Australia wants to make burning the national flag a crime. Seriously! In a time when there is a cost of living crisis, rampant homelessness and devastation related to climate change is out of control, those who aspire to lead the country wish to start yet another culture war. FML.
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| Check out the vibrancy. |
And then there is the new addition to Moore Park. The Lord Mayor of Sydney and the populist State Government decided it would be an excellent idea to rip off 6 holes from the public golf course and make it public parkland. Apparently it's a new "vibrant addition" to the precinct. I'm pretty sure there would have been more golfers using it than the average punter. I had it all to myself this morning. More serenity than vibrancy.
Anyway, we're leaving the back country politics and mindless culture wars behind very soon. My next post will probably be from Italy.
Today's title is linked to my sunset photos. Hyperlinking the song is experimental. I had issues last trip with "community standards" which I assume was to do with copyright. Therefore, if the Sunsets by Powderfinger isn't hyperlinked you know that is what the problem was.
Alla prossima.
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