KARFA

I am at last catching up with the TR and enjoying it Calchas. Good to meet you in the corridor at LBA as we came of the same LHR-LBA flight. Also congratulations on your imminent promotion to BA Gold.

Btw, is your username inspired by Greek mythology? I have Greek heritage so a few things in my life are similarly derived (not my BAEC password though before anyone tries!).

TheFlyingDoctor

Thought I might be the first to put together a trip report featuring the Edinburgh trams but it seems you've saved me a job. Probably for the best that we get the perspective of a non-local as I'd have complained for far longer. Yes, the link-up with the station is poor - especially considering the bus service can be joined just outside on Waverley bridge. Said bus is also cheaper, sometimes faster, has almost all the seats facing the right way, runs closer to my house, and is still active in the evening for passengers on the last flights in. Oh, and didn't cost more than a trio of A380's...

Oops, there I go. Always interesting to see a report on a place you know, especially in a different context: EDI late at night clearly has a different feel to it!

McNandez

Really enjoying this TR - I can't wait for the rest!

I was also really excited to see mention of the tram in Edinburgh. I'm taking it to EDI in September; there's a stop right outside our hotel, which, in theory, will simplify the process.

Calchas

Deleted

Moderator, please delete this post.

Calchas

On Ibiza

Modes: One taxi, a few buses and a little bit of legwork

After collecting some Euros from a cash machine I went out to the taxi rank, which, unlike the other places in which I had found myself the only patron that day, was very happy to see me. Since I only arranged this trip about a month before I departed, I had been unable to find a reasonably priced hotel in Ibiza town itself. Instead I would be staying in the nearby town of Sant Antoni, about 17 km away from the main town (20 km from the airport), on the opposite side of the island.

The driver made it his business to exceed the posted speed limit by a factor of at least 50% at all times, and soon enough was I at my hotel. The taxi cost just under 35 EUR which I thought was reasonable enough. I saw plenty of folks still up and about (to varying degrees) on my journey to the hotel, but—despite spending the day sitting around in gradually increasing states of inebriation—I was exhausted and looking forward to a bed in a dark room.

The hotel was modern, clean with a professional clerk. He secured me a “quiet” room facing the street. I understand it had been recently opened.





I was in bed by 5.30 am local time and I was asleep instantly.

I had only one full day on Ibizia and a few places to visit. My intention had been to be up early, visit the main town in the cooler morning weather, come back, have lunch, nap by the pool, and go out again to eat in the evening. After the delay on my inbound flight I slept uninterrupted until noon—the time that most folks in the area would be thinking about having a siesta. However, it was a very pleasant 30 celsius or so with a cool breeze blowing in the shade, so I headed out to visit Ibiza town, the main town across the island, in the glorious sunshine.

Since the bus station was just a block away from my hotel and no cab in sight I thought I would try the bus. I have to say, despite suggestions posted to the contrary elsewhere on the interweb, the bus system was convenient, fast, efficient, frequent and cheap (i.e., the opposite of the Edinburgh Tram ) so I resolved to use it for the rest of my stay on the island. The bus also gave me a chance to see some of the island’s scenery and read my book. The bus was probably about 50% used by locals and 50% by tourists, although I gather Ibiza is a popular place for mainland Spaniards to visit as well, and perhaps I confused a few of those for locals.



There has been a civilized settlement on Ibiza since the Phoenicians arrived in 650 BC, and the placed changed hands many times in Antiquity and in the Mediaeval period, so you can imagine there is quite a bit of history to explore. The Dalt Vila (high town) is the most obvious place to begin. It’s a walled Renaissance fortification around the old town, high on the hill with commanding views over the harbour and the island. It dates from the sixteenth century when the Ottoman Turks were busy trying to conquer strategic mediterranean islands, but built on more ancient fortifications. The place was later reinforced when the British adopted the Ottoman's policy.


But before I assaulted the hill I had a delightful duck paté salad in a café by the name of Hostal Restaurante Parque. They took Amex.



Into to the walled city.



It’s a bit of a walk up the hill in the early afternoon sun but definitely worth it for the view.


A view back into the town.


The cathedral, and to the right the Catalan, Spanish and Balearic flags flying over the town walls.




Some reminders of when Ibiza was associated less with dancing and more with defence.


I was quite disappointed to see that the Archaeological Museum was closed for maintenance. I headed instead to the other archaeological museum.


Without the reference of the sun in the sky it would have been easy to get lost in the twisting narrow streets of the old town.



The other archaeological museum, the Puig des Molins, is about five minutes’ walk from the Dalt Vila, on the ancient necropolis established by the Carthaginians. It was closed as well—at least until later.

Having explored the town already I decided to go and have my nap by the pool, back at the hotel in Sant Antoni, rather than kill time for the three hours or so until the museum opened again.



I took a scenic route from the bus station and captured some pictures of Sant Antoni on the way. To my knowledge it was a small fishing town until the British arrived, and most of its development has occurred in the last couple of decades.


I spotted three German-flagged yachts in and nearby the port of Sant Antoni but no ships flying the British Red Ensign at all. The vast majority of the boats were small pleasure craft with a Spanish flag hoist. Actually, German speakers were more common around the place than English speakers so perhaps this is a sign the tourist demographic is changing.

Back at the hotel, I realized I had forgotten to bring a swimming towel. I asked the reception desk where I could get one. The young man at the desk, who by the sound of his accent was on a profitable gap year out of the Home Counties, intended to charge me a 20 EUR deposit to rent a towel. I repeated the figure, with clear incredulity in my voice, back to the receptionist who at least had the politeness to look embarrassed—before I decided just to use one of the towels provided by the hotel in my room.

The pool area was very pleasant at that time of the afternoon and rather quiet, with quite a few sunbathers but not so many folks in the water. I was able to do a few lengths in the shallow pool before I caught up with my book and then took a nap.

Later in the evening I showered and returned to Ibiza town again on the bus. My intention was to visit the Puig des Molins, a museum and necropolis. As I mentioned earlier Ibiza had been occupied in deep antiquity and was one of the first settlements out of Carthage so I was very happy to see the museum was at last open. Unfortunately, while the museum was clearly very polished and modern, and a lot of investment had gone into it, with lots of exciting exhibits, it was described only in Spanish and Catalan. I took a couple of years of Spanish lessons while in school but of course I hardly knew enough to even get the gist of the texts. While there were some English translations available on printed cards and interactive displays, it was dislocated from the actual pieces of the museum, making it difficult to follow. I think if you could secure an English language guide (if you too suffer this linguistic deficiency) it would really be an exciting place to visit.


I had dinner on the sea front, in the modern part of the town in the shadow of the Dalt Vila. By the time I had finished, it was time to head back to the hotel. I would be taking the 9 am flight to Madrid.

Calchas

I am not sure if there was AC or not. Edinburgh was getting quite chilly (by my standards) when I arrived there. I understood the problems were resolved and the tram moved through as quickly as normal; I didn't notice any artificial slowness, but it certainly doesn't get moving until it leaves the town! The 40 minutes figure was taken from the website, it didn't feel that long but I neglected to time it unfortunately.

Thanks KARFA. I'm glad it was you and I didn't ask a random person how Jersey was. I have one or two more trips yet with work before I push over the 1500 mark.

Thanks TheFlyingDoctor. I haven't used the bus before but I'll have to try it next time for a fair comparison.

Thanks for the comments McNandez. I will try to post the next part—my trip to Madrid on Iberia Express and a look inside the Museo Naval—in the next couple of days.

Calchas

Ibiza to Madrid.

Mode: Air
Flight: IB 3809 operated by Iberia Express
Class: Business
Seat: 2A
Departure: 09:25 (scheduled), 09:42 (actual)
Arrival: 10:40 (scheduled), 10:32 (actual)
Equipment: EC-LUD, Airbus A320-214

This was my first flight operated by Iberia, and I was interested to see how it would stack up.

I began bright and early at my hotel and contemplated taking the taxi. Since I was up early enough to take the bus, and there were no facilities at the airport to which to rush, I decided I would take the bus (!) to the airport. The bus was very busy that morning actually but since I got on at the first stop I got a seat. I think it cost me 3 EUR, and took about 40 minutes to get to the airport compared to the 15-20 the manic cab driver had taken.

There is no fast track at IBZ airport, but the security arrangements were quite efficient: the queue was long and meandering, but somehow it never stopped moving forward, albeit like a slow conveyor belt, so I never physically stopped walking until I got to the front after about ten minutes. I did wonder if the world-famous DJs frequenting this island have their own arrangements or if they are stuck amongst the great unwashed.

There is no lounge access included and the pay-for-entry lounge was regrettably (or not) closed that morning.


I do not believe it is a PriorityPass lounge.

Wifi was limited to fifteen minutes and it was slow and unreliable.

After an hour or two, during which I wrote further sections of this report, our gate was announced and a substantial queue began to form. In fact the flight would be absolutely packed so I was glad I could sit down and use my priority boarding privilege once boarding actually began.



Iberia clearly announced boarding would be done by zone in the minutes before boarding began. This was also printed on my boarding card. Actually that was a lie because when boarding did begin, it was not announced at all, they simply started letting passengers onto the aircraft in the order they arrived. Meanwhile, EasyJet enforced a proper speedy boarding queue (offering no quarter to chancers) at the next gate along. If you are going to advertise a service is it so hard to implement it?

After dithering for a minute I decided to walk to the front of the queue, intending to join it there, where the order had disintegrated into an unshapely mass of people. I wondered briefly if this was particularly un-British when a man bearing a blue passport (only quality I can recall) physically shoved me and the family in front of me out of the way without so much as a by-your-leave. I don’t mean negotiating the gaps in the queue either, I was nearly knocked to the ground! I vocalized my objection but he ignored me, dismissing me with something about priority boarding. Obviously it later transpired he would be sitting in 10E in the economy cabin.

At last someone was interested in checking my passport, and I was on board. (Although this was a domestic flight, in Europe identification is required to board intra-Schengen flights including domestic ones.)


Leg room was not a problem.

One of the final passengers to board was making a loud complaint about the poor boarding procedures. He had a few children in tow, together with all the paraphernalia that children these days require, so I sympathised with him. In my view, he should have been given the chance to be aboard and sorted before the cabin filled up.

The flight was absolutely full in business and, by the looks of it, economy too. Pillows were distributed to the business passengers which I thought was a nice touch for a 50 minute flight.

The rest of the cabin was asleep before take-off, which given it was not even 10 am I found rather curious. Most slept until landing, and a few slept until they were awoken by their partners at the gate!

I found the flight attendant was business-like and not particularly warm and friendly. There was nothing wrong with the service but it lacked the enthusiasm one gets from a good crew, if you understand. She just wanted to do her job (which she did fine) but wasn’t interested in doing anything else.



As soon as we were in the air orange juices and waters were brought around.

Then it was time for breakfast. No menus, it was just brought out, it was simply take it or leave it. It wasn’t very filling but perfect for me at that time of day. The croissant was a bit dry, and certainly there could have been five times as much fruit. All-in-all I was happy enough with it.



There were some great views over Spain, but unfortunately they did not turn out so well on my camera. Before long we had arrived at MAD. After a long taxi we were parked and unloading was prompt and efficient. I was straight out and in a couple of minutes found my way to the airport's train station.


MAD Terminal 4 was one of the better terminals I've visited.

Except for the boarding procedure and the slightly less-than-enthusiastic cabin crew, this was a good flight. I would certainly fly Iberia Express again.

Skipcool3

I know you are not stranded in Madrid........

Calchas

Still interested? Just for you then.

In Madrid.

Accounting for a comfortable check-in time for my flight back to London, I had about four hours to spend in Madrid. My plan was to visit the Museo Naval de Madrid, and then amble around in the streets for an hour or two. The Museo Naval is a much-celebrated museum on the history of the Spanish Armarda, and the evolution of the navy from the 1400s to the present day, and the self-proclaimed oldest museum in the world. I was not to be disappointed, but first I had to get there!

Terminal 4, the terminal used by Iberia and their close friend BA, is connected to the city by commuter train (Cercanías Madrid), underground Metro, and by bus. For me the easiest route seemed to be to take the train.


The station was inside the terminal and a couple of minutes from baggage claim. There were machines to dispense tickets, which took me a minute to figure out but no longer. The machines accepted AmEx.


The train was almost empty---even when we got into the city. The carriages were recently made but starting to show some wear. There was also some litter around which was discouraging.


Some larger corporations put up shop on the edge of the city, near the airport.

I exited the train at Recoletos, a minute's walk from the museum. The train was very easy to use on the way out and I would recommend it.


It was a very pleasant walk down the wide boulevade in the morning sun.

I was struck that there were very few folks around. Was it too hot or perhaps everyone is at home on Sundays?


A local artist.


The Museo is actually inside a goverment building, meaning a compulsory ID check and an airport style baggage screening on entry.

Some pictures from inside the Museo follow.





Did you spot the rather glaring mistake made by the French creator of this porcelain service?



Although I have posted photographs of paintings, the museum is more varied, with, for instance, many very impressive scale models of sailing ships, complete with intricate rigging, which craftsmen used as plans to build full size vessels; a discussion of the important figures in the naval history, as well of the rise and fall of Spanish naval power with emphasis on 1500-1850 or so; mock ups of rooms aboard eighteenth century vessels; and a couple of small rooms devoted to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

After an hour or two, I had my fill of local knowledge and went for a walk around the nearby streets.







What a beautiful city. I have to say I shall be returning to take in more of Madrid's architecture as soon as I may!

Next: Flying back to London on Iberia.

Jamier45

Brilliant review so far, looking forward to seeing the rest.

KARFA

oooh, you're very impatient...

LupineChemist

Madrid do?

Calchas

Well volunteered.

LupineChemist

I've actually never been to one, but I would definitely attend if there were a local gathering.

Calchas

Neither have I. As I understand it, a do only requires a local organizer to reserve a bar and somewhere to eat and the FlyerTalkers figure the rest out.