Mr Brightside (Paris - Doha - Sydney)

Yes, dear reader, I'm back home but there are still a couple of days in Paris to review as well as the journey back to Sydney. I should have completed this post last week, but jet lag and life got in the way. Our last few days in Paris coincided with the conclusion of the school holidays. The crowds thinned dramatically. Monday began in sunshine and we decided we would spend the day shopping. 

Monday

We strolled the few minutes down to the Jardin des Plantes. The popularity of the garden area was boosted by school children who were running throughout the area in groups. Apparently being supervised by their PDHPE teacher. It's tough work being a PE teacher, standing in the morning sun, issuing instructions to your students. Run here, run there, scrolling on your mobile, having a discreet cigarette. Any wonder it requires a university degree. Such intense lesson planning.

Pretty. No I don't know it's name. Maybe Andrea.

There was also a group of older people doing Tai Chi. Here the group leader was actually participating in the activity. Unlike the PE teacher. While they didn't draw a crowd, there were a number of people who were so bemused or amused by the activity that they paused to photograph the group as they pretended to be giant kelp plants being moved by the currents.

Further along, a woman strayed from the path onto the grass to photograph a plant. Her movement was meet with a shrill whistle. The garden police were watching. No-one is allowed on the grass. The woman stepped back onto safe ground and bowed in the direction of the grass protector. Fortunately my transgressions over the past few days went undetected. It's been a long time since anyone whistled at me.

Tulips.

Across the Seine we went onto the Rue Rivoli searching for two things: a place to have coffee and Coton Doux, my favourite French shirt store. The coffee proved elusive. The shirt did not. Coton Doux have an excellent range of colourful shirts but the range hasn't altered a lot over the years and some of my previous purchases are still available. The new shirt is basically white with road bikes as the pattern.

Shirt bagged, we went in search of coffee. Not so easy, as it turned out. It was nearing lunch time and the menu offerings had switched from petit déjeuner to déjeuner. We discovered Westfields. I know, right. There was one in Hamburg and now in Paris. Frank Lowy has a lot to answer to for.

Not at Westfields.

Like the man from ironbark, we wandered here, we wandered there and finally found a café that offered coffee and toasted sandwiches. Bonus. However, there was no room at the inn. On we went and eventually found a café that offered coffee and had seats in the sunshine protected from icy the northerly wind.

As we crossed the Seine back to the left bank, the rain was beginning again. As has been the pattern, it wasn't particularly heavy, but it was enough to keep us indoors for the remainder of the day. Luckily I keep a supply of essentials on hand while travelling. You know, wine, cheese and nibbles.

Tuesday

Another day of wandering and soaking up the Paris vibe commenced. Yesterday we began at the Jardin des Plantes, today was Tuileries. It doesn't have as many garden beds but it does have a huge fountain that is surrounded by seats. The northerly was still keeping temperatures down and ensuring that one side of the fountain was almost deserted. No-one wants to get sprayed by the fountain.

Be careful of the wind direction.

We headed out of the garden and towards Opera because our destination was Galeries Lafayette on  Haussmann. One of the most beautiful shopping centres in the world. It also has a viewing terrace that overlooks parts of Paris. While we had shopped here before we had not been to the terrace.

A Crab Apple in Tuileries.

Into the store that is reminiscent of David Jones in Elizabeth Street in Sydney and also NK in Stockholm. The latter because of the central space with the cafés overlooking the ground floor. Lafayette's dome is far more spectacular.

The Pantheon in the foreground.

From one escalator to another until the final ascent is made via stairs and out onto the rooftop terrace. It was surprisingly crowded. Jayne was asked by an American family to take their photo and did an excellent job ensuring her thumb adorned the photo. Take two. We enjoyed the view and sunshine and then exited on the other side where the escalators go all the way to the roof. No stairs. 

L'Opéra.

There were a number of cafés, perched on the edge of the atrium, that were enticing and calling us to stay a while. But this is Paris, a café would not do. Winegate was the place to stop and admire the stained glass. Not with a coffee but with champagne. Perfect. Expensive but perfect. We watched the groups of people who had paid for the privilege of walking onto the glass viewing platform. I entertained the thought briefly, but we would be required to queue and that wasn't happening.

Lafayette is worth a visit for the view alone.

This was our last full day in Paris and I had still not purchased any macarons. On leaving Winegate, we saw a Pierre Hermé counter. Possibly the most expensive macarons in the world, but hey, you only live once. They were delicious. And at $5 AUD each, they needed to be.

The most beautiful store.

We had lunch in a café by the Seine and people watched for a while before crossing the river one more time and walking home. The afternoon was reserved for packing and champagne.

The journey home begins

After many transit days of dragging bags across cobblestones, I decided the final transit would be in comfort and I ordered a taxi to drive us directly to the airport. Our plane was scheduled to depart at 9:05am which meant a 6am arrival at Charles de Gaulle. Dragging our bags down streets of cobblestones at 5am would not have been appreciated by anyone.

Our driver, booked for 5:30am, was 10 minutes early and despite the early hour, the traffic to the airport was surprisingly heavy. Still, we made CDG in good time and passed through the required checkpoint to be one of two guests for breakfast in the Qatar Lounge. 

Heading for the gate rekindled memories of the ill-fated 2012 trip when a wheelchair bound Jayne was wheeled on the roller coaster walkway to the security point. The walkway was functioning today and Jayne was under her own steam. Security caught me on that trip too. Today our carry on set off the alarms. Why? Hand warmers that we had purchased in Australia and didn't use in the Arctic Circle. They passed through Australia and Austria without problem, but not Paris.

That sorted, we eventually made the plane and our Q-suites. The business class seats on the 777 have their own sliding door providing more privacy. Excellent. We sat, champagne-less, on the tarmac for a while as a passenger was assessed and deemed too unwell to fly. Apparently alcohol can not be served on planes in France if they are grounded. We departed a little behind schedule but made the time up in the air and arrived in Doha on time.

Doha airport has just been awarded the gong for being the best airport in the world. Whatever that means. I subscribe to the Paul Kelly theory on this. He might think all cities are the same, I feel the same way about airports. Yes, it is beautiful but you could be anywhere in the world, shopping for designer brand products.

Looking down from the lounge.

And it is large. The train to transport you from one arm of the airport to another is inside the terminal. There is duplication of shopping opportunities and lounges. Being the home of Qatar airlines meant the lounge was next level. There were of course several lounges, as we found out when we couldn't get into the first one we came to.

The lounge we were redirected to was about a 15 minute walk away. It was worth it. The business lounge had two sides. One was for families and those who wanted peace and quiet opted for the other side. There were more staff than customers in the quiet side. Should you wish to use the toilet, you did so knowing that the attendant waited outside the door as you went about your business. Well, it was the business lounge. As you vacated the facility, the attendant went inside to clean up after you. It's important to stay tidy.

The 'quiet' business lounge.

The last leg was on an A380, my favourite plane. The flight was uneventful, we both got a little sleep and landed on time in Sydney.

The Transit curse

As you would be aware, dear reader, most of our transit days on this trip had some measure of drama. This one was no different. Jayne's e-ticket at the customs barrier was rejected three times and she had to go through the manual line.

We stood at the baggage carousel for quite some time with no result. Checking the app on my phone to see where the air tags were was not comforting. Our bags were, according to the app, 12,369 km away. Hmm, that's Doha. There was, of course, no-one to ask. Bags kept arriving, our tags kept reporting our bags were in Doha. I said to Jayne I would go looking for someone to report our luggage missing when another traveller said his bags were yet to arrive and he was also in business class.

Finally our bags, resplendent with their orange priority tags slid down the chute. The line at customs had significantly diminished while we waited so that was a positive. Or so we thought.

We reached the front of the 'nothing to declare' line and reported that Jayne's e-ticket was kept by the officer on the other side of the customs barrier. "No worries," came the reply. "Just join that line over there." He pointed to the much longer queue for passengers with something to declare.

Once again we reach the front of the line. "What do you have to declare?" Nothing the e-ticket was kept blah, blah. Same comment, "No worries, just join that line over there." We were heading for the x-ray and had the same conversation for the third time. Excellent. 

Bags x-rayed, we finally made it through to the taxi rank. No queue. Into the taxi and home.

As I finalise this post, we have been home for a week. Jet lag is still "killing me and taking control." A line from Mr Brightside by The Killers. It won't stop me travelling, but it hurts for a couple of weeks.

Until next time.

London Calling (Sydney, Australia and the search for the northern lights)

Have you missed me dear reader? Certainly I have missed travelling and it was quite unusual for me to shelter at home during the humid months. I detest Sydney in February, you can break into a sweat just getting out of bed. Now the the time has arrived for us to chase a cooler clime. It's off to the northern hemisphere, this time in search of those elusive northern lights, followed by a meandering wander through Scandinavia, Germany, Czechia, Austria and finally France. Yes, yes I know we've been to France on multiple occasions, but Paris. Swoon. We love it.

Sorry, there are no photos of interest in this post, but I promise to make amends as our journey unfolds.

The more intricate details of where we are going will be revealed as the blog posts are published. Suffice to say this journey begins in earnest in ... wait for it ... London. Ah, the city I most love to hate. I have tried to like it, really I have, but it's just ... without. Without what you ask? Lots of things really. It's just a passive aggressive version of Melbourne with worse weather (the forecast is for rain every day we are there). We begin in London because there was no choice. More on that later.

Qantas

Let's talk flights. My relationship with Qantas has soured and the resentment lingers. It's like a teenage love affair and being dropped by the person you love. Well, so I've been told. I've been stood up but never dropped. As I was putting together this trip, the airfares Qantas wanted for 2 return Business Class seats was well north of $20K. Even my bad back couldn't stomach (see what I did there?) Business Class at those prices.

Not to be deterred, I phoned; as a platinum frequent flyer, I thought I'd request the release of the required seats. After all, they were being discounted for sale on their website. The response, "Sorry sir, we are not releasing any seats on the requested flights." "But, they are on sale," say I. Same response. Cheers Qantas. So what is the point of being a Qantas FF with the lauded platinum status? Three parts of bugger all, I would suggest.

Once again I resorted to Fly Business For Less as I did some years back. Their service is first class. The result is outbound flights with Vietnam Air into my 'beloved' London and inbound with Qatar from Paris - largely to avoid the ridiculous charges applied at Heathrow. And because of London. The price? Around half what Qantas was asking for seats at the pointy end of the aircraft. We have flown internationally with both airlines before without issue, so this was really a no brainer.

Grudgingly. I admit that I will miss the Qantas first class lounge in Sydney. It is unlikely that we will see it again because my platinum status will dissolve at my next anniversary, largely because I've flown with every other airline but them. It is like being a teenager again and I'm just seeing what is out there. On the plus side, our last two international trips will have netted savings around $14k because we chose not to fly with Qantas. That buys a lot of fancy meals and champagne and we still have lounge access with the other airlines.

Packing

Ah, the perennial issue, compounded by the fact that we are cruising with Viking, chasing the northern lights and then travelling by train across Scandinavia and Europe. Space is a premium. We don't want to be lugging huge bags around the train stations. One remedy was to purchase a vacuum pump and a couple of bags to try and reduce bulk. Our -20°c parkas are, unsurprisingly, extremely bulky. This has proven to be quite effective.

It doesn't look like much, but then it's not all there yet. A mixture of packing cells and vacuum bags to make the best use of space. Despite my best effort, another suitcase was required, although it is carry-on size. For two months of travel from the frozen Arctic to Paris in Spring, we have managed to contain all our clothes in one large suitcase, 2 carry-on cases and our backpacks. Pretty happy with that.

My vacuum packed snow jacket. Gloves for size comparison.

All ready to go.

Chasing the lights

The northern lights or Aurora Borealis have been on my list for quite some time. The quandary was how to see them? We spoke with some Swedes we met in Budapest a few years back and they recommended a place in Sweden, naturally. The concept of hanging around the frozen wastelands of anywhere for an indeterminate length of time did not set my heart a flutter. And the cold is most definitely not on Jayne's list of things to get excited about.

Then my travel agent (yes, dear reader, I do use one sporadically) suggested a Viking cruise up the coast of Norway. I had already checked out Hurtigruten but the level of comfort and cabin space did not live up to Jayne's exacting standards. So Viking it is. Tragically, the cruise leaves from London. Hence the title, that 1980 classic from the Clash. You can relive your memories here. The only plus side to this is that we get spend to spend some time with Zoë before we sail away on our quest.

Traps for young players

Ok, Ok, I'm not young, nor am I an inexperienced traveller, but that didn't stop me making a rookie error. Accommodation, as you will discover in subsequent posts, is a mixture of hotel and AirBnB. In London I opted for a hotel that was in proximity to Fenchurch Street Station because that is where we board the train for Tilbury which is where the ship departs.

Ever mindful that London is ridiculously expensive, I decided to use some accrued Accor points to defray the cost of our stay. There is a Novotel within walking distance of Fenchurch Street Station. Excellent. I had multiple tabs open in my attempt to find the best accommodation. I jumped from maps to the hotel sites to the Accor site to make the booking. No Booking.Com problems for this traveller.

Hotel booked. The spreadsheet that covers the trip, our accommodation, mode of travel, places of interest has been slowly populated over the months preceding our departure. As February 24 drew closer, I explored how to get from the despised Heathrow to our hotel. And that is when I discovered it.

The Novotel near Fenchurch Street Station is Novotel London Tower Bridge and the hotel I booked is the Novotel London Bridge. What's in a word? About 2km in distance, 20 minutes on a bus or 30 minutes on foot and a river crossing. The names are so similar. Ah well. We still have a bed.

Sydney to London

The usual quandary of how to get to the airport was solved when Uber sent me a 50% off your next ride voucher. Pick up booked for 11:30am, for a 3:15pm flight. From our door to the SkyTeam Lounge in a under an hour.

We arrived at our hotel in London after over 30 hours in transit. Vietnam Airlines weren't faultless, but they were very good. The staff were lovely and attentive, the food was excellent, the flights were on time and (as a tier 2 airline as I've seen them described) Business still comes with a lie flat bed. The down side? Well, first world problems. The Lounge in Sydney is pretty average, the one in Hà Nôi is better. There is a limited selection of wine available in the lounge or on the aircraft. And the staff don't offer re-fills as attentively as say Singapore or Qantas. A small price to pay for a flat bed that allows me to walk pain-free after a long flight.

Heathrow. Really what is there to say? If you know, you know. It's like covid. Best avoided. The disembarkation process and baggage collection went quickly and smoothly. Surprisingly. No doubt the e-passports have streamlined the process. The baggage collection area was a seething, heaving mass of humanity. And their over-sized bags and squealing, crying children. All that was required to create hell was the sound of leaf blower in the background. 

The signage to get to the train was inadequate, at one point we were directed into a blank wall. The staff, posted at regular intervals to be of assistance, weren't really. Unless you cornered them. Despite it all we made the train.

And then London. The city I love to hate. Where to start today? In an attempt to make us feel at home, there was track work on the Underground and the line we had decided to use to get to the hotel was closed. It wasn't a huge inconvenience except to use the Elizabeth line cost almost 3 times as much. Almost £14 compared to just over £5. The benefit? None really. It's 10 minutes faster than the Piccadilly line. However, it does beat the estimated $400 + for a cab! Does anyone actually catch A cab to London from Heathrow?

The good bit? It's not raining so the 10 minute walk to the hotel from the tube was easily negotiated. We had arranged for an early check-in at the hotel because we landed at 7:30am. However, the hotel has a midday check-out time and was fully booked. Why would you offer an early check-in, for a fee, if you can't deliver?

The result: we are sitting in the hotel bar drinking very bad coffee, well it is London, charging our phones, sorting the e-sim and finishing this blog before we finally get to shower, change and go hang with Zoë.

And so we are back. I will blog frequently but I'm not guaranteeing a daily dose.

Until next time.