hauteboy

About a month ago I booked the intro SK MIA-CPH fare for $98 one-way. American had a fare sale AUS-MIA for only $73 which made for a very cheap one-way flight to Europe.

Back in May, I finally completed visiting all 197 countries in the world. Since then I hadn't been on an airplane for nearly 130 days, other than when my daughter was born that was the longest 'drought' in 20 years. I was really jonesing to go somewhere.

There are still many islands/territories/colonies (Traveler's Century Club) that I have yet to visit. Since I was going to be in Copenhagen I immediately thought of the Faeroe islands. There was a one-way fare CPH-FAE-RKV for under $400. Unfortunately I dawdled too long on booking the fare and it jumped to nearly $700 on the dates I had available.

I started looking at other destinations out of the UK, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland or the Channel Islands. I could book a one-way Avios flight CPH-LHR. Going to the Channel Islands was a bit trickier as there are no flights out of Heathrow, requiring a shuffle to Southampton, Gatwick, Luton, etc.

I still kept dawdling on picking a destination. Finally two days before I left I had to pull the trigger somewhere, so decided on the Channel Islands. I saw there was a flight from Southampton to Alderney, which to be honest I'd never heard of before. The next morning I would continue to Guernsey, then to Jersey before returning to the USA.

SAS recently introduced their own upgrade bidding system (used to be able to request from optiontown.com). Their Economy Plus seating was $215 or $680 to upgrade to J. I put in an upgrade request for both seats and was upgraded t J.

Flights:

hauteboy

Oct 5, 2016
Flight: Austin, TX (AUS) to Miami, FL (MIA); American Airlines B738 economy
Flight: Miami, FL (MIA) to Copenhagen, Denmark (CPH); SAS A333 business
Flight: Copenhagen, Denmark (CPH) to London Heathrow; British Airways A321 business
Train: Woking to Southampton Airport
Flight: Southampton, United Kingdom (SOU) to Alderney (ACI); Aurigny D28 economy
Hotel: AirBnb, Adventurer's Rest; $54.00
An early start this morning, leaving the house at 4:45AM for my 6:30AM flight to Miami. There was no line at TSA Pre-check and I was soon sitting in the Admiral's Club, courtesy of the Citi Prestige card.

I slept most of the way to Miami. I lucked out by a day as hurricane Matthew was scheduled to hit Florida tomorrow. Mrs and Miss hauteboy are going to Disney next week and were worried about the weather. But it was a nice sunny day today in Miami though the clouds started moving in as the day progressed. We came in at D2 and my SAS flight departed from J18... literally the furthest gates apart in the airport. I had nearly 6 hrs though before my flight to Copenhagen so went to the Admiral's Club for awhile. Even though I was on an arriving flight I was able to get in with the Prestige card. They were renovating the lounge and one half didn't have any plugs at all for my laptop.

Eventually I make the milelong trek down to the J-terminal. I got my boarding pass. SK apparently doesn't support TSA Pre-Check but was able to go through the 'priority' security lane. I still had some time so popped into the Avianca lounge for a bit. I found a quiet area but it started filling up a few minutes later. When I went down to the gate, there weren't any seats at that end of the terminal so everyone was just standing around. It was a bit of a scrum boarding, even when they called J as everyone all rushed the gate at once. There was an Aviaca flight pushing back next to our gate and the Lufthansa A380 at the next gate. As we were taxiing I saw a blast from the past, an airline painted Eastern Airlines livery, apparently they are used for Cuba charters.


Avianca Lounge MIA





SAS J MIA-CPH




Blue skies in Miami! Hurricane Matthew on the way...

I'd flown SK a few times before on my trip to Svalbard in 2008, but only in Y. Their J product looked quite nice with a decent sized screen and lie-flat seats but felt a bit tight in the shoulders when fully reclined. Dinner was served shortly after takeoff:


Menu


As the attendant was serving my cheesecake, it tipped over on its side and she made a comment 'Oh now I won't get married!'. Apparently that's a Swedish superstition I'd never heard of before!

I started watching the new Independence Day movie but fell asleep about halfway through. Woke up in time for breakfast about an hour before landing. We looped around to the south before landing to the northeast with a good view of the Øresund Bridge. The sky was overcast but the sunrise peeked through just before landing.




I had a few hours to kill before my flight to London so decided to go through the Schengen passport control, so I've now officially visited Denmark twice. Just to be sure I walked out of the terminal and over towards the Hilton hotel before reentering the terminal. It was a bit windy and chilly but not too bad. I grabbed a Starbucks iced coffee before reclearing security which only took a few minutes. BA doesn't have their own lounge at CPH and it's a bit of a walk from the C-gates so I checked in with the SAS lounge and was able to get in. Good sized lounge but wifi kept disconnecting.

After awhile in the lounge I walked down to the C-gates. So glad I have an EU passport (UK) as the Other Passport line was huge but there was barely a wait at the e-gates. The BA gate wasn't yet open so strolled down the concourse, seeing a Mahan A340 to Tehran and Qatar 788. The BA flight left about 15 minutes late due to late arrival of the inbound plane. I had splurged for business class as it was an off-peak Avios award. They served a meal enroute. As we were pulling up to the gate in T5 I called my cousin (she lives near Heathrow) to get a lift to Woking station. Only to find out the jetbridge isn't working and we can't disembark! We sat on the plane for nearly 30 minutes before they finally got a set of stairs at the back of the aircraft... which meant ending up being one of the last ones off the plane.

Mahan Air CPH-IKA



BA J CPH-LHR

Luckily there was not much of a line at e-gates though and was through quickly. Met my cousin and her husband. She'd brought a ton of food for me to eat heh but I was already pretty full from the plane and lounge. We got to Woking station about 1:15PM but I'd just missed the last train and the next direct one to Southampton Airport wasn't until 2PM. No worries as that still put me at Southampton airport with a few hours to spare before the flight to Alderney.


Woking station

The train was on time and arrived at the Southampton Airport station just before 3PM. The airport is right next to the station, they claim '99 steps from train to plane'. It might have been a few more than that The Aurigny airlines checkin desk wasn't yet open so had a bit of a wait. Got my boarding pass and through security. No Starbucks here but there was a Costa Coffee which tried to make an iced coffee.




The sunshine had come out by this point and it was a gorgeous afternoon when we boarded the Dornier 228NG, certainly one of the smaller planes I've ever flown on! We took off, flying over Southampton and the Isle of Wight for the quick ~30 minute flight down to Alderney. We circled the island before landing, giving a good view. Alderney is part of the Balliwick of Guernsey, only 3 miles long and 1.5 miles wide. The airport is one of the smallest I'd been to, just two rooms for arrival and departure.






Aurigny Airlines SOU-ACI

It was quite windy and chilly. There was a taxi waiting at the terminal but I decided to walk the 1.2km into town. I had booked an AirBnb at the Adventurer's Rest hotel. I checked in, dropped my bags, then headed off to walk around town a bit while there was still light. Despite its small size, Alderney has its own tourist railroad (though it had stopped running for the season), but I wanted to see if the train was stored somewhere. No luck finding it so I assumed it was at the other end of the line. I walked about 3.2kms through town before arriving back to the hotel. To say that Alderney was quiet would be an understatement... I asked the bartender about arranging a taxi tour for tomorrow morning, but none of the drivers were answering.



Alderney sign


Honor System Jams



St. Anne Church






Petrol Station

For dinner, I headed down the street to the Georgian House. Had cottage pie and sticky toffee for dessert.




Georgian House


Guernsey Pound note



Adventurer's Rest

hauteboy

hmm, dup

hauteboy

Oct 7, 2016
Flight: Alderney (ACI) to Guernsey (GCI); Aurigny D28 economy
Hotel: Cobo Bay Hotel; $62.00
My stopover in Alderney was quite short, my flight to Guernsey left at 10:10. So that didn't give me a lot of time to look around this morning. I got up before sunrise and did a walk to the southern cliffs. This morning was pretty dark grey skies. One of the attractions here is the Alderney stones, an art project of 10 3-ton packed earth spheres dotted around the island. Some of the spheres have already eroded away but supposedly there were still some of them near the airport. It was about a 1km walk to the southern cliff. Along the way there was a basket of windfall apples. The trail lead across the fields then followed the cliffs. I came to where the stone was supposed to be, but just saw a piled of mashed down grass, so this one must have since disintegrated as well. I continued the walk along the trail until I came to the wildlife bunker. This was an old German bunker from WWII. I hadn't known previously that Germany had occupied the Channel Islands during WWII, Alderney had been evacuated but Guernsey and Jersey suffered under the occupation. The Nazis built fortifications all over the islands as part of Hitler's Atlantic Wall. The massive sea walls, bunkers and watchtowers still dot the landscape. There were also several forts from the Victorian days. I headed back to town past the airport, just as I was crossing the end of the runway an Aurigny plane took off overhead.




Alderney walk

I had breakfast at the inn and called about getting a taxi. I really should have arranged it last night as the driver was busy and couldn't pick me up until 9AM. So I had a change to walk around town a bit more. The taxi showed up right on time and she drove me around to Bunker 62, which had one of the stones inside. We also stopped by the harbor before continuing around to the lighthouse. Although it was a small airport, it was already 9:30 checkin cutoff was 9:45. We stopped at one more of the stones, this one was perched up on one of the seawalls. We were following the Alderney freight van doing its rounds of the island.


The Full English





Alderney Stones

Made it to the airport just in time for checkin. The flight to Guernsey was a quick 15 minutes. There wasn't a Hertz rental desk, when I asked at the other rental counters they pointed me to a woman out in the carpark. My first stop was going to be the underground German hospital. The map mentioned it wasn't always open but I was in luck today. Apparently there were two groups of schoolkids coming in at 10:00 and 12:00. Good timing too as it was about 11AM and the first group had already gone. The guy at the desk gave me a bit of a story of the history of the tunnels and occupation. The tunnels were quite extensive underground, but were damp and cold. Over 800 wounded Nazis were brought here after the D-Day invasions. The tunnels were super creepy with dim lighting, wet floors and I was the only one there. I talked a bit with the guy at the exit, he said ... is up with Donald Trump? Heh. The next group of schoolkids was just arriving as I was leaving.




German Underground Hospital, Guernsey

My next stop was the Little Chapel, a nearby chapel built entirely of smashed china pieces. Unfortunately it was covered with scaffolding at the moment. I was getting hungry by this point so headed towards St. Peter Port, the main town in Guernsey. Found a place to park right next to the Coco Brasserie, where I had a lobster salad club sandwich. Not bad.



Little Chapel, Guernsey

My parking spot was only good for 30 minutes so drove out to another carpark and walked back into town. I headed toward the Guernsey Tapestry, a community project showing 1000 years of history, each one of the 10 panels was created by the 10 districts. No pictures allowed however.

It had been awhile since I'd driven on the left and I managed to scrape my left wheels on the kerb several times trying to navigate the narrow streets... my GPS kept taking me on smaller alleyways. I headed north out of town towards Dehus dolmen, a Neolithic burial mound. Only one parking spot and another tourist showed up right before I did! I'd never actually been inside a dolmen before so that was pretty interesting thing to see. From there I continued around the north side of the island, crossing L'Ancresse Common. I noticed some watchtowers and went to investigate. There is a line of circular Martello towers along the north shore, built during the American Revolutionary War to protect against attacks from France. I walked up to one of the towers. Along the path were lots of blackberries, which I might have helped myself to a few.


Liberation Monument, St. Peter Port, Guernsey


Dehus Dolmen, Guernsey



L'Ancresse Common, Guernsey

I was pretty knackered by this point so decided to head to the Cobo Bay hotel. Again my GPS led me the wrong way a few times, but eventually found the place OK. The room was clean and quiet but a single bed and fairly small. I napped for a bit before heading out to walk down the beach a bit. There was yet another German bunker here. For dinner I went to the The Rockmount, it looked empty from outside but was quite busy inside and I was lucky to find a table in a corner. They had a 'Tennerfest' promotion going on, 2 or 3 course prix-fixe meals for £10 or £12.50. I ordered starter of pumpkin soup and fish&chips.


Cobo Bay Hotel


Cobo Bay

simonmac

Fab trip report and some great photos. I spent 15 years on Guernsey and my Dad lives on Alderney. He was a pilot for many years with Aurigny - trust me you flew on one of their bigger aeroplanes - you should try an Islander! We still go out for visits and although Alderney is quiet it has fab beaches and is an idyll to take young kids too, ours love the freedom and space they get and we relax far more than in busy holiday resorts. (And the 9 hole golf course is pretty good too!).

hauteboy

Thanks! I saw some of the Tri-islanders at Guernsey airport, one was taxiing for takeoff as we arrived. I thought they'd been retired though? http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-guernsey-33306732

offerendum

Very interesting! It's a shame I didn't know about the occupancy

CHSDOC

Good to see you back out there!

I've never fully understood the relationship of the Channel Is. to Great Britain. I guess it's like understanding the Holy Trinity, except more complicated

hauteboy

Yeah they're a bit of an anomaly... most of the place names are French and they're not part of the United Kingdom or EU (so no need to Brexit...), being controlled directly by the Crown.

nequine

Good trip report and great photos!

hauteboy

Oct 8, 2016
Flight: Guernsey (GCI) to Jersey (JER); Blue Islands ATR72 economy
Hotel: Norfolk Lodge; $62.00
My flight this morning left at 7:30 which meant another early wakeup. There wasn't anyone at the front desk so I just dropped my key. Then I spent 5 minutes trying to get my car out of the narrow parking space. The car had the proximity sensors and kept going off every time I tried to move. Finally managed to extricate myself from the narrow space. Once I got on the road it was pitch black with slight drizzle, no streetlights at all, and my headlights seemed to be really dim (it was too early, I'm used to my car having auto-on headlights... didn't realize there was a headlight switch!) and had to drive most of the way with my high beams on. Well I made it to the airport OK at least. There was a huge line for the FlyBe checkin but the agents told people to use the kiosks first and there was a mad scramble. Luckily I was right next to a kiosk and made it back in line ahead of everyone else.

Security was quick and I headed to the cafe for a pain au chocolat and yogurt breakfast. There were 4 flights all departing within 20 minutes of each other. Apparently they were all headed back to the mainland though as the Jersey flight ended up only having 10 people on it. This was a FlyBe flight operated by Blue Islands ATR42. The flight to Jersey was a quick 20 minutes. Picked up my car rental and headed down towards the southwest tip of the island. The La Corbiere lighthouse is located here, reached by a low-tide only causeway. Unfortunately the tide was coming in and the waves were splashing across. I decided to run out on the causeway to see if I could avoid the waves but managed to get my shoes soaking wet when a succession of waves came in. And got even more wet as I ran back to the start again...


breakfast


FlyBe GCI-JER


Jersey Airport

There were more German bunkers here and an observation tower. They are all built of reinforced concrete and attempts to demolish some of them have been unsuccessful. From the lighthouse I drove up the west coast towards the Military Museum. I didn't expect it to be open yet though. The west coast actually felt a bit like southern California (Big Sur/Half Moon Bay) to me, and in fact there were some surfer bars and several people already out surfing this morning. Arrived at the museum but it was closed and no hours listed (likely opens 10am).



La Corbiere Lighthouse


Jersey West Coast

From there I drove up to the Devil's Hole on the northern coast. There was a 10-minute walk downhill to the blowhole. On a clear day you can supposedly see France and Guernsey. It was still grey out but could just make out Guernsey. The sun finally decided to come out just as I was heading back uphill. I drove south towards the Jersey War Tunnels. This was another underground hospital like in Guernsey but this one is very popular. There were several tour buses pulling up just as I arrived. 12GBP entry fee was also a lot more expensive than Guernsey. I'm glad I got the chance to visit both tunnels though, as the one in Jersey setup more as a museum with good exhibits and not damp/creepy like the Guernsey one. More information about the occupied period and the evacuation.. 6000 animals had to be put down and people that changed their minds about leaving came back to find their houses had been looted. There was also some animosity after the war as some locals were known as collaborators. The Channel islands weren't liberated until VE Day in 1945, despite Normandy invasion being only a few miles away.



Devil's Hole





Jersey War Tunnels

By the time I came back out though the sun had gone again and clouds/rain had arrived. I drove to St. Matthew's Glass Church next, but today (Saturday) they were closed. I was a bit tired so headed to St. Helier to find my hotel. The layout was a bit odd as to get to my room I had to go up and down stairs a few times. I meant to only take a 20 minute nap but ended up passing out for nearly 2 hrs. I wanted to visit Elizabeth Castle that afternoon. My phone was nearly dead though and didn't have GPS. I managed to find my way into town and to the ferry terminal but they told me the ferry to Elizabeth Castle was somewhere else. I got a paper map from the terminal at least. Arrived at the kiosk about 2PM. The 'ferry' turned out to be an ampibious vehicle done up like a pirate ship. It's also possible to walk to the castle at low tide along a causeway but it wasn't yet exposed. The 'ferry' runs every 20-30 minutes.


Glass Church




At the castle, one of the workers dressed in traditional soldier outfit was leaving. I'd missed the noon parade and cannon firing unfortunately. I was also pretty hungry by this point and grabbed a panini sandwich at the cafe before exploring some of the castle grounds. The Germans had been here too and built bunkers/watchtower in the castle grounds. Was interesting to see the mix of 16th and 20th century. When I left, the causeway was passable but I still had a decent walk back to the hotel so took the ferry again. Skyped with mrs and miss hauteboy a bit. The sun of course had come out and nice blue sky but I was too tired to do anything else. I went out for dinner later, the hotel restaurant was packed with tour group but after walking to two other places and finding they were full up as well, I just went back to the hotel again. Was able to get a table this time. They had a 3-course prix fixe menu as well. Prawn salad, salmon with steamed veggies and panna cotta for dessert.





Elizabeth Castle


Norfolk Lodge Hotel

nequine

Great photos of Jersey! My parents went there a couple of years ago and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Bretteee

My aunt used to go to the island of Sark on holiday. There are no cars there I believe.

hauteboy

Yep, and Herm island as well has no cars (smaller than Sark). I'd missed the ferry for Sark but I could have made a trip for ~2 hrs on Herm.

DanielW

Looks like a very interesting trip!

So how did you handle the Trump comment?