9 days, 8 countries. RTW to Okinawa via Bucharest. KLM Y/J, AA F/J, JU Y, NH Y, OZ Y

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Nov 21, 2014, 7:47 pm

hauteboy

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Join Date: Mar 2001

Location: Austin, TX -- AA Life Platinum; QF Life Silver; UA Silver

Posts: 5,462

9 days, 8 countries. RTW to Okinawa via Bucharest. KLM Y/J, AA F/J, JU Y, NH Y, OZ Y

A few months ago I saw the Alitalia fare sale (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milea...ombo-deal.html). Surprisingly with all my travel I have never visited Eastern Europe other than the Baltics and Belarus. I started playing around with fares and came up with ORD-JFK-FCO-OTP/BUD-AMS-FUK-OKA (Okinawa) for about $420 over Thanksgiving week. This booked on Delta ticket stock so I would be able to earn at least a few MQD this trip. I planned a whirlwind tour of Eastern Europe, visiting Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and possibly Slovakia, all in 6 days. Positioning flights proved a bit tricky, even back in May there was limited award space available to Chicgo and home from Okinawa. Eventually I had to use a combination of award tickets, using BA to book AUS-ORD F, AA miles ICN-AUS in J and United OKA-ICN. I also purchased a ticket on Air Serbia from Bucharest to Budapest via Belgrade. Not the most ideal time to visit Eastern Europe though as temperatures are usually in the 20s-30s. I don't mind the cold weather though as long as it's not snowy/rainy.

Several months after booking the tickets I received a flight cancellation notice on several segments. The FCO-OTP segment was routed on a later flight but it arrived 7 hrs later than my original. My positioning flight to Chicago was also cancelled, the new flight would now arrive after my original ORD-JFK departure. After several calls back and forth to Priceline (they wouldn't let me change my outbound flight), they eventually transferred me to Delta who was able to route me on KLM ORD-AMS-OTP. I would still arrive 2 hrs later than my original plans, but now I had a 5-hr connection in Chicago, about as safe as you can get when traveling through ORD in the winter.

When checking in online today for my KLM flight they had an option to upgrade to New Business Class for $398. I jumped at that chance, considering it's almost as much as I paid for the entire ticket.

I had good luck earlier this year upgrading my cheapo AM SAT-MEX-CDG flight through optiontown.

My flight itinerary:

Code:

NOV22 AUS-ORD AA F award
NOV22 ORD-AMS KL J upgrade @ checkin
NOV23 AMS-OTP KL Y
NOV25 OTP-BEG JU Y
NOV26 BEG-BUD JU Y
NOV28 BUD-AMS KL Y
NOV28 AMS-FUK KL Y
NOV29 FUK-OKA NH Y
NOV30 OKA-ICN OZ Y award
NOV30 ICN-DFW AA J award (op-up to F!)
NOV30 DFW-AUS AA F award

I booked the following hotels:

Code:

NOV23 Ruse, Bulgaria         English Guesthouse, 36 BGN ($23)
NOV24 Bucharest, Romania     Intercontinental Bucharest, $40 + 20k pts
NOV25 Belgrad, Serbia        Slavija Garni Hotel, $52
NOV26 Budapest, Hungary      easyHotel Oktogon, 19EUR
NOV27 Budapest, Hungary      easyHotel Oktogon, 19EUR
NOV29 Naha, Okinawa          Best Western Naha Inn, 4800 JPY ($41)

My crazy plans for the trip are:
NOV22 AM Depart Austin
NOV23 PM Arrive Bucharest, drive to Ruse, Bulgaria, overnight
NOV24 AM Drive to Brasov, Romania. Overnight or late back to Bucharest
NOV25 AM Visit Bucharest. PM Fly to Belgrade, overnight Belgrade
NOV26 AM Visit Belgrade. PM Fly to Budapest, overnight Budapest
NOV27 AM Visit Budapest. PM quick trip to Slovakia border (Esztergom/Sturovo), overnight Budapest
NOV28 AM Fly to Okinawa
NOV29 PM Visit Okinawa
NOV30 AM Visit Okinawa. PM Fly home

Last edited by hauteboy; Dec 1, 2014 at 11:31 am

Nov 21, 2014, 8:00 pm

hauteboy

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Last edited by hauteboy; Dec 3, 2014 at 1:57 pm

Nov 21, 2014, 8:31 pm

krazykanuck

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I'm already looking forward to reading this. I have a 4 city-8 day marathon through Vienna, Budapest, Prague, and Bratislava planned beginning on Monday!

Nov 21, 2014, 11:46 pm

opushomes

Join Date: Aug 2001

Location: Portland, OR

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Posts: 2,706

Romania driving

Please keep in mind that the largest and/or most expensive vehicle has the right-of-way in descending order. This applies to traffic coming from behind or approaching. Additionally, beware of the every present speed traps. Your rental car probably a Dacia is near the bottom of the heap.

Absolutely avoid the "Courtyard" aka Courtyea in Brasov. In no way does it resemble a Marriott.

Enjoy.

Nov 22, 2014, 12:13 am

DanielW

Join Date: Jul 2013

Location: Dubai

Posts: 3,301

Okinawa is an interesting place for a RTW stop

.

I'll miss you by a week in Belgrade and Budapest. Looking forward to your take on them.

Nov 23, 2014, 9:09 pm

hauteboy

Original Poster

Join Date: Mar 2001

Location: Austin, TX -- AA Life Platinum; QF Life Silver; UA Silver

Posts: 5,462

Nov 22-23, 2014
Flight: Austin, TX (AUS) to Chicago, IL (ORD); American Airlines M80 First
Flight: Chicago, IL (ORD) to Amsterdam, Netherlands (AMS); KLM 747 Business
Flight: Amsterdam, Netherlands to Bucharest, Romania (OTP); KLM 737 Economy
Hotel: English Guesthouse; Ruse, Bulgaria; 36 BGN/sgl ($23)
The trip didn't get off to a good start. I pulled my back last night before I'd even started packing so had to lie down awhile after popping a few Ibuprofen. Then early this morning our sitter that was supposed to arrive at 7AM called in sick with food poisoning. I had arranged for Supershuttle to come by at 6:45 AM so that meant mrs. hauteboy had to cancel her first two clients.

The shuttle and its chatty driver arrived at 7AM but there was no traffic on the way to the airport so we were there by 7:25. Grabbed some breakfast tacos at Maudie's then headed to the Admiral's Club for awhile. I felt pretty disorganized this trip despite having 5 months to plan. I still hadn't my booked hotels in Bucharest or Belgrade, or arranged my car rental for Brasov yet. I also had a bit of a crazy plan to rent a car in Chicago during my 5-hr layover and drive up to the Wisconsin border. Luckily the weather helped out with deciding that one. As I was boarding the American flight it started raining and there were a few lightning strikes nearby which meant they delayed our outbound 35 minutes.

I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before so I slept most of the flight. They served breakfast enroute, a quiche lorraine and buttermilk biscuit. My seatmate may have been a bit of a germ freak as she wiped down the armrest and sent back her breakfast because the milk was on its sell by date. Chicago looked grey and dreary with low cloud cover when we finally landed just after 12PM. My KLM flight didn't depart until 4:25 so I still had plenty of time to kill. I caught the train to T5 and lucked out with the business class line as they decided to close it just as I got there. I headed directly to the Air France lounge which gave some great opportunity for plane spotting. I saw Hainan Airlines, Aer Lingus and and the Etihad plane pulled up right in front of the lounge. I decided to book the Intercontinental in Bucharest on points as it was in a good location, plus they treat Ambassadors well. I also arranged a taxi through Atlas Taxi (http://transfer.taxi-ruse-bucharest.com) for 40EUR for the drive to Ruse. They were quick to respond via email despite it being 10PM in Bulgaria and said they would have someone wait for me at the airport.

AA F AUS-ORD

Air France lounge, ORD T5

Hainan 787

Soon it was time to board the KLM flight. I had only flown them once before on our trip to West Africa, and that time in the back. Thanks to the checkin upgrade I would be in the pointy-end in their New Business Class seats. I had 4E in the middle of the cabin. The seat was comfortable and had a good-sized AVOD screen. They brought by the pre-departure drink and Viktor&Rolf amenity kit. We departed on time but there was a good bit of turbulence after takeoff. It was nearly 2 hrs into the 8-hr flight by the time they had finished served dinner. I had the carrot saffron soup which was delicious followed by chicken with couscous. I watched a couple of movies, A Most Wanted Man and Let's Be Cops. I got a few hrs sleep before it was time to wake up already for breakfast. They handed out the Delft Blue houses filled with gin towards the end of the flight.

KLM J ORD-AMS

The flight arrived early into Amsterdam and it was a bit of a hike from the G-terminal down to the D-gates. I was trying to find the lounges and had to backtrack a bit to #41 the Menzies Lounge (Diners Club lounge) which was hidden down a construction corridor. They had some delicious croissants here and spent about 30 minutes before heading down to the gate D22. This gate had its own x-ray which I tend to hate... the line was huge so it took 15 minutes to get through, then once inside there is nowhere to sit or eat. We departed on time and I spent awhile talking with the couple next to me. They were doing a 11-day Viking cruise up the Danube ending in Budapest. I was still pretty exhausted and slept through most of the flight and we arrived into Otopeni airport 5 minutes early.

Menzies Lounge (#41), AMS airport

KLM Y AMS-OTP

Romania is my 166th country visited, but it was only to be a quick visit today. Immigration was very easy. I used my UK passport and they barely looked at it and waved me through. Romania and Bulgaria have been part of the EU since 2007 but not are not yet Schengen-zone and have not started using the Euro. I tried several ATMs in the lobby before giving up after my card kept getting declined. Luckily I had gotten some Euro out in Amsterdam. I found my driver and we set off for the 95km drive to Bulgaria. My driver spoke decent English and showed me he had over a half million kms on his Skoda taxi. He says he does the route nearly daily, sometimes several times a day. I had noticed the ring road around Bucharest but he said going through town is actually faster as the ring road is in bad condition and there are lots of trucks there.

We passed by the old Baneasa airport, now just used for private planes then through town. It was a cold and grey day today. Along the way we passed by some gorgeous old houses, mostly used by embassies. South of downtown was mostly grim Soviet-style apartment blocks. Finally we leave the outskirts of Bucharest and it was a straight shot down a new Euro-funded highway to the border at Giurgiu. Very flat landscape and mostly farming here. The driver paid the toll to cross the Danube bridge, which was in pretty bad shape on the Romanian side. We crossed into Bulgaria (#167) and immigration was easy here too, just show them the passport and drive through. The part of Ruse near the bridge was mostly industrial, looked like mostly sand/gravel pits and elevated steam pipes. The drive had been very quick and arrived at the English Guesthouse by 2:45PM.

Crossing into Bulgaria

The guesthouse owner speaks great English and she showed me to a room, mine was down in the basement but would be quiet. I asked about visiting the Ivanovo churches but she said they were already closed for the year (another site said they were open until Nov 30th though). I wasn't sure how much daylight was left though so just decided to walk around town a bit. I first headed to the Monument of Liberty and the pedestrian walkway. The opera house and Sveta Troitsa church were nearby. The church was built partially underground during the Ottoman period to ensure it was as unobtrusive as possible. Ruse has some great Neo-baroque architecture and is known as Little Vienna. I was getting a bit hungry by this point and stopped at a pizza place. Huge piece but it was warm and helped take off the chill.

Ruse, Bulgaria

Opera House

I hoped to visit the local museum, supposedly it was open until 6PM until I arrived there and found they were closed on Sunday! Oh well. Started heading back to the guesthouse and came across the Chiflika restaurant which I planned to come back later for dinner. The neighborhoods off the main pedestrian walk were in a bit rougher shape and I followed the road overlooking the Danube. Arrived at the guesthouse at 5PM and passed out for 2 hrs. By the time I headed out for dinner it was already dark. The Mehana Chiflika restaurant is a bit kitschy, decorated up in traditional style. I ordered the chicken gyuvech, cooked in an earthenware pot with eggs, cheese and potatoes. Also ordered a local draft beer, pretty good but they brought out a 0.5L glass, much more than I usually drink! The main dish took awhile to come out but was delicious. The people at the next table ordered a kebab, the waiter brought out this 2' long skewer, hung it from the ceiling then set it on fire!

Chiflika Restaurant

Nov 24, 2014, 4:04 am

DanielW

Join Date: Jul 2013

Location: Dubai

Posts: 3,301

Congrats on #167!

The gyuvech and beer looks like a perfect combo for the cool winter evening

Nov 24, 2014, 9:19 am

Bretteee

Join Date: Dec 2001

Posts: 3,181

How do you find these deals?

Is Ethioia worth it.
What shots do you need?

Did you get sick? Water etc?

Thanks.

Nov 24, 2014, 11:11 am

hauteboy

Original Poster

Join Date: Mar 2001

Location: Austin, TX -- AA Life Platinum; QF Life Silver; UA Silver

Posts: 5,462

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bretteee

How do you find these deals?

Is Ethioia worth it.
What shots do you need?

Did you get sick? Water etc?

Thanks.

I usually see these in the Mileage Run forums.

Ethiopia is definitely worth a visit. Diffetent culturally from the rest of Africa and cheap

didnt get anything specifically for ethiopia but already had my yellow fever shot.

drink bottled water there. Dont remember being sick

Nov 24, 2014, 9:27 pm

#10

hauteboy

Original Poster

Join Date: Mar 2001

Location: Austin, TX -- AA Life Platinum; QF Life Silver; UA Silver

Posts: 5,462

Nov 24, 2014
Hotel: Intercontinental Hotel; Bucharest, Romania; Points+Cash ($40)
Ugh, I woke up at 3AM this morning after passing out last night at 9PM. I'd forgotten to bring melatonin along this trip which usually helps me adjust from jetlag faster. I called Schwab and got my ATM card unlocked then updated my photos and blog then tried to get back to sleep but no luck. The room kept alternating from cold to sweaty hot. Finally it was breakfast time at 7:30. The spread was very good, hardboiled eggs, fruit, coffee cake, etc. I asked the owner about getting a taxi out to Basarbovo and then onto Bucharest. I hoped to go to Brasov today and wanted to get to Bucharest as soon as possible. She called a taxi while I went off to the nearby ATM. When I came back she said the taxi couldn't go to Romania but her son could drive me for 60EUR.

He showed up a few minutes later and we set off about 8:30 and arrived a the monastery about 9AM, only to find the doors locked! They said they opened at 8AM, so this must be Bulgarian time. It was still a cold, grey day and there was a bit of very light drizzle starting. The river nearby was flooded. Eventually after shouting a few times a surly monk came and opened the door. The monastery was caved into the cliffs above, similar to ones in Cappadoccia but much more modest. After climbing a set of stairs there were only a couple of rooms which the monk came and opened. Then there was a 4 lev entry fee but he didn't have change for a 20 so had to run back down to the car to get change. I also bought a postcard to send to miss hauteboy.

Basarbovo Monastery

We hit on the road and were back in Romania by 10:00. A bit more traffic today than yesterday. My driver spoke decent English. He was in school to become a ships captain and said he goes hunting during the weekends. As we drove into Bucharest it started raining (and snowing!) and we arrived at the hotel by 11AM. I am a Platinum Ambassador and received an upgrade to a higher floor and a coupon for a free drink at the bar. There is an Avis office at the hotel but Brasov is higher in the mountains and I figured the weather would be worse there.. so decided to not bother renting a car. I checked the train schedules but the earliest departure at 13:00 wouldn't arrive until 3:15, since it gets about 5PM that wouldn't leave me enough time to explore. So I was a bit bummed but with such a short time here and too ambitious plans, Transylvania would have to wait. I was pretty worn out too by this point and just ended up having a nap until the fire alarm went off at 1PM! At least I was on the 9th floor instead of 22nd! Still managed to get lost going out the fire exit, and came across a fireman holding a hose. Eventually after wandering through some kitchens I made my way to the lobby where they told me to wait. Someone said it was just a drill, but what a pain for the guests!

Crossing back into Romania

Intercontinental Bucharest

I was still tired so went back to the room and fell asleep again until 5PM. It was already getting dark so basically I wasted a day today... I still had until 1PM or so tomorrow to explore Bucharest so I hoped to make an early start of it. One place I wanted to visit was the Hard Rock Cafe. I've been to probably 50 or 60 of them around the world and have a huge collection of shirts. I walked down to the nearby metro at Universitate and got a 2-way card for 4 lev. A train showed up just a few minutes later and looked brand new. Three stops later I got off at Aviatorilor but it was still over a mile walk. My GPS showed a shortcut through the park which has monuments to all sorts of famous people. Beethoven, William Shakespeare, and Michael Jackson. My GPS was wrong though as there was a shorter path, but there was a closed gate there. So I walked back to the main street and up to the Cafe. It was quite chilly and I was glad I'd brought my gloves along. Bought the shirt at the Cafe and ended up having dinner. My go-to there is the pulled pork sandwich. It was good but tiny in comparison to other cafes I've visited.

Bucharest Metro

Michael Jackson monument

Nov 25, 2014, 3:44 pm

#11

hauteboy

Original Poster

Join Date: Mar 2001

Location: Austin, TX -- AA Life Platinum; QF Life Silver; UA Silver

Posts: 5,462

Nov 25, 2014
Flight: Bucharest, Romania (OTP) to Belgrade, Serbia (BEG); Air Serbia ATR Economy
Hotel: Hotel Slavija Garni; Belgrade, Serbia; $50
I was up early again this morning, but at least I was able to 'sleep in' until 5AM. I finally got going about 7:45 and headed out for a walk through the old town. Very chilly and grey this morning and I definitely needed my hat and gloves. The Intercontinental has a good location only a few blocks away from the start of the old town and only a mile or so to the Presidential Palace. The old town is a mix of churches, crumbling old buildings, and grandiouse banks and museums, though many of the churches and buildings were covered in scaffolding for renovations. The first church I came across was a Russian orthodox church, with a very dimly lit interior and a few parishioners saying their prayers. The outside would have looked impressive except it was covered with scaffolding.

The next stop was Stavropoleos Church, a tiny cathedral that was full of chanting nuns, then at the end of the street I turned right and went to the Zlatari church. Zlatari had some impressive stained glass windows. I was starting to get a chill and a bit hungry so stopped for a croissant and hot chocolate before going to the museum. However it was closed today (closed Mon/Tues) so I continued on down to St. Dumitru church which was also covered in scaffolding.

Stavropoleos Church

Zlatari Church

St. Dumitru church

The Old Court Palace was further down the same street. The church next to it had streams of people going in and out, apparently there was a service that started at 9AM. I went inside but the altar area was too crowded to approach. From there I made a long walk down past Piata Unirri to the Palace of Parliament. This is the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon. I got there at 9:30 but they didn't start the tours until 10:00. I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend another 30 minutes waiting in the cold so I kept walking to the nearest metro to catch a ride back to Piata Unirii where I explored a few more churches including the fabulously colorful St. George church. I bought a strudel to eat and a postcard for miss hauteboy but then wasted a lot of time trying to find a post office to buy stamps. No one seemed to know where one was, but eventually found one (even google maps was wrong).

Palace of Parliament

Actual blue sky! First time this trip

St. George new Church

Strudel

It now was after 11 and I was getting a bit hungry. I walked back to the hotel, stopping at Caru' cu Bere, an old school restaurant on Stavropoleos st. They have been around over 100 years and the interior is amazing decorated in Art Nouveau style, all carved dark wood. Luckily I was there before the lunch crowd and I got the last seat in the nonsmoking section. I ordered their speciality, pigs knuckle with saurkraut, polenta and horseradish. It was expensive but I still had lots of lei to burn. What I didn't realize was they were going to bring out a whole pig... the serving was massive and falling off the bone tender with crispy skin. The waiter deboned the dish at the table. I tried attacking that meat mountain, washing it down with Ursus beer, but eventually I started getting the meat sweats and had to surrender. Seriously you could feed 4 people with that dish.

Caru' cu bere

My flight left at 4:10 PM and I wanted to catch the 1:00 or 1:20 bus to the airport. I headed back to the hotel and checked out then walked down to the bus stop. There were a few others waiting with their luggage and the bus arrived. Well I thought you could buy a ticket on the bus but the driver was sealed off and they only had ticket validation machines onboard. I sat down quietly and didn't say anything and hoped there weren't any ticket inspectors onboard.. well there were none and I ended up getting a free ride to the airport (not recommended!) The ride took about 40 minutes and I arrived about 1:45 and had to wait 20 minutes or so for the Air Serbia checkin to open.

There is only a TAROM lounge at the airport and they didn't accept my Diners Club card, so I ended up finding a Gloria Jean's Coffee to spend the last of my RON and get some caffeine. Originally when I booked my ticket it showed operated as ATR and I had seat 3C. Apparently they upgraded to a A319 so I had great first row seat. They actually had a separate business class cabin with seats vs the usual Eurobusiness style seating. Our flight left about 20 minutes late and took an hour for the flight to Belgrade. They served a cheese+cucumber sandwich onboard.

Oops...

Air Serbia Y OTP-BEG

Arrival into Belgrade (#168) was easy and I took the A1 bus (300 dinar) into town. The bus was packed though and I had to stand the whole 50 minute ride. I had picked the Slavija Garni Hotel as it was right at the bus stop. At $50/night this would be my most expensive hotel this trip, and that's probably $25 too much! The cheaper Slavija hotel across the street had rooms as low as $17. Out of all the rooms they gave me one overlooking Slavija square (and noisy). I was so tired though I passed out for two hours.

I finally headed out about 8:30, first walking to the St. Sava church to see it lit up at night. For dinner I walked to Lorenzo and Kakalamba, a totally kitsch restaurant about a mile away. A polar bear in sunglasses meets you at the door, nearby is a giraffe in a Santa hat, and there are Botero paintings on the walls. I ordered the pumpkin+pancetta risotto which was delicious.

St Sava church

Lorenzo & Kakalamba

Nov 26, 2014, 3:23 am

#12

DanielW

Join Date: Jul 2013

Location: Dubai

Posts: 3,301

I guess the risotto was to balance the protein overdose for lunch

?

How cold is it in that part of the world at the moment, I guess bearable with a warm hat and jacket (I think I've forgotten what winter is like)?

Looking forward to the Budapest pics

Nov 26, 2014, 4:34 am

#13

hauteboy

Original Poster

Join Date: Mar 2001

Location: Austin, TX -- AA Life Platinum; QF Life Silver; UA Silver

Posts: 5,462

quite chilly. below freezing at night and 1-5C during the day. I have a hat gloves fleece and warm socks. today in belgrade is first sunny day but was below freezing when I set out at 8am

Nov 26, 2014, 6:33 am

#14

mkjr

Join Date: Oct 2007

Location: Left

Programs: FT

Posts: 7,285

looking forward to the rest. i have not been back to budapest since 97. i suspect it has changed much. i really do look back on my travels in eastern europe in 96/97 and always wonder what has changed. ....suspect a lot.

Nov 26, 2014, 11:36 am

#15

FallenPlat

Join Date: Jun 2014

Location: DFW

Programs: AA Lifetime Gold, Admirals Club, Global Entry

Posts: 1,141

This is a wonderful report, as usual -- luckily, a bit tamer than Africa. I'm still trying to wrap my head around going from Austin to Eastern Europe via Okinawa! You make it sound, somehow, perfectly normal.

It all takes me a back a bit to my student days when I did Eastern Europe on a mix of paid train tickets and an InterRail pass. The Iron Curtain, which wouldn't fall for another decade, kept American tourists away. Prices were crazy then, too, especially if you used the black market. A half liter beer in Prague was ten cents; a private day-long tour of the Moldavian painted monasteries, 600 American cigarettes. But the price that especially sticks in my mind is $5 or so for an, um, good time . . . or so I heard, anyway.

Last edited by FallenPlat; Nov 26, 2014 at 12:26 pm

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