If not now, when? (Thailand, Western Europe, Eastern Europe & Balkans)
Aug 18, 2015, 10:21 am
#31
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Sydney
Posts: 210
Aug 18, 2015, 2:01 pm
#33
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Sydney
Posts: 210
Officious Austrians and the $50 a night Travelodge at Heathrow: Bangkok to London
Origin: Bangkok
Destination: Vienna
Airline: Austrian Airlines
Aircraft: B777
Bangkok Airport
Our flight
The departure board
The beautiful Bangkok Airport
Some other flights, to Turkmenistan perhaps?
Some planes from the observation deck
The view from above the airport
Some flight attendants
Here we go! an Austrian flight attendant
Our plane!
At bangkok airport our plane
The leg room on the plane. As I said, it pays to travel with a tall person! The checkin agent was fantastic, she gave us the best seats. It really made the flight great, it was just as good as the Thai Airways flight!
Chicken and mash potato with warm bread and an apple cake - it was very nice!
Something salty and something sweet
A little snack on board - a turkey and cheese bread roll. They just kept giving us food!
The crew was absolutely fantastic, very professional and friendly. We will definitely fly Austrian Airlines again! The 10.5 hour flight went so quickly!
Origin: Vienna
Destination: London Heathrow
Airline: Austrian Airlines
Aircraft: A321
If you ever get stuck at any airport, Vienna is the best one to do so. This airport has seats to lie on, and places to recharge your phone or laptop so you may write your trip report!
Waiting on the plane, it was delayed one hour. A man did not get on the flight, then they had to take his bag off and then they had forgot to load the luggage lol
Leg room on the plane. We really had great flights!
The Travelodge at London Heathrow Central $50 a night on roomer.com definitely worth staying at.
The Travelodge at London Heathrow Central
:-::-::-::-:
Destination: Vienna
Airline: Austrian Airlines
Aircraft: B777
Bangkok Airport
Our flight
The departure board
The beautiful Bangkok Airport
Some other flights, to Turkmenistan perhaps?
Some planes from the observation deck
The view from above the airport
Some flight attendants
Here we go! an Austrian flight attendant
Our plane!
At bangkok airport our plane
The leg room on the plane. As I said, it pays to travel with a tall person! The checkin agent was fantastic, she gave us the best seats. It really made the flight great, it was just as good as the Thai Airways flight!
Chicken and mash potato with warm bread and an apple cake - it was very nice!
Something salty and something sweet
A little snack on board - a turkey and cheese bread roll. They just kept giving us food!
The crew was absolutely fantastic, very professional and friendly. We will definitely fly Austrian Airlines again! The 10.5 hour flight went so quickly!
Origin: Vienna
Destination: London Heathrow
Airline: Austrian Airlines
Aircraft: A321
If you ever get stuck at any airport, Vienna is the best one to do so. This airport has seats to lie on, and places to recharge your phone or laptop so you may write your trip report!
Waiting on the plane, it was delayed one hour. A man did not get on the flight, then they had to take his bag off and then they had forgot to load the luggage lol
Leg room on the plane. We really had great flights!
The Travelodge at London Heathrow Central $50 a night on roomer.com definitely worth staying at.
The Travelodge at London Heathrow Central
:-::-::-::-:
Last edited by YU_GO_GONE; Oct 4, 2015 at 1:47 am
Aug 21, 2015, 6:28 am
#37
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Sydney
Posts: 210
Dream a Little Dream of London: Beautiful, Bustling and Breathtaking
This is my first time in London, Yugo_Boy has been a few times and I've seen the photos so many times. But I could not imagine the vibe it has. That is what I think differs city from city - you have the architecture the built and natural beauty of the city and then you have the feel of the actual city. London, is like walking down back into the classic days of literature, of John Keats and Emily Bronte; entwining this with the grandeur of the buildings and mixing it with the modernity of contemporary society. It is simply beautiful.
The Travelodge we stayed at $50 a night
A polish bakery we bought our breakfast
Some baked goods
Visnja juice - sour cherry.
Our favourite balkan croissant yummm
Travelling through traveller's way
A perfect place to plane spot! British Airways flies above us.
American Airlines
The state of the tube today - man saved from drowning.
Pretamanger sandwich yummmyyy - prosciutto
The modern buildings
Very grand and beautiful
So many beautiful scenes
Every building a masterpiece
Modern architecture
More to come
:-::-:
The Travelodge we stayed at $50 a night
A polish bakery we bought our breakfast
Some baked goods
Visnja juice - sour cherry.
Our favourite balkan croissant yummm
Travelling through traveller's way
A perfect place to plane spot! British Airways flies above us.
American Airlines
The state of the tube today - man saved from drowning.
Pretamanger sandwich yummmyyy - prosciutto
The modern buildings
Very grand and beautiful
So many beautiful scenes
Every building a masterpiece
Modern architecture
More to come
:-::-:
Last edited by YU_GO_GONE; Oct 4, 2015 at 1:57 am
Aug 21, 2015, 7:11 am
#38
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Sydney
Posts: 210
Quaint London: Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy and Peruvian Fusion
The next photos capture the essence of London and the major and quaint places we saw during our stay This beautiful metropolitan city is simply divine and the entire place mesmerises, appearing like something straight out of a movie.
The second travelodge at Kings Cross Royal Scot - $120 per night
So many shops like these
Buckingham Palace with lots of tourists
Near the Princess diana memorial walk
After walking through Hyde Park, we find this!
Very posh - Knightsbridge
Caviar at Harrods
Harrods department store
Inside Harrods
The Ecuadorian Embassy where Julian Assange (the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks) himself is living presently!
Near Tower Bridge
The restaurant we ate at, AMAZING food. Amaru! Newly opened.
The menu at Amaru
Peruvian cured beef
Cold smoked chicken
Quinoa and pomegranate salad with truffle
At Amaru - Cold Green Tea noodles. Everything here was amazing gourmet !!! and only 22 euro!
Tower Bridge
Trying to reach the top of Tower Bridge lol just kidding I'm not that tall!
Hello there!
Amazing!
To be or not to be? lol
London is amazing!!!! More to come:-::-::-:
This beautiful metropolitan city is simply divine and the entire place mesmerises, appearing like something straight out of a movie.
The second travelodge at Kings Cross Royal Scot - $120 per night
So many shops like these
Buckingham Palace with lots of tourists
Near the Princess diana memorial walk
After walking through Hyde Park, we find this!
Very posh - Knightsbridge
Caviar at Harrods
Harrods department store
Inside Harrods
The Ecuadorian Embassy where Julian Assange (the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks) himself is living presently!
Near Tower Bridge
The restaurant we ate at, AMAZING food. Amaru! Newly opened.
The menu at Amaru
Peruvian cured beef
Cold smoked chicken
Quinoa and pomegranate salad with truffle
At Amaru - Cold Green Tea noodles. Everything here was amazing gourmet !!! and only 22 euro!
Tower Bridge
Trying to reach the top of Tower Bridge lol just kidding I'm not that tall!
Hello there!
Amazing!
To be or not to be? lol
London is amazing!!!! More to come
:-::-::-:
Last edited by YU_GO_GONE; Oct 4, 2015 at 2:34 am
Aug 22, 2015, 1:10 pm
#40
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Sydney
Posts: 210
Bangkok is so beautiful. Do not bother with taxis there, the transport system BTS is fantastic! And try the pad thai from my trip report it's excellent. Enjoy your trip in March you will see as many beautiful things as we did!
Aug 22, 2015, 3:25 pm
#41
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Sydney
Posts: 210
Day 4- Sky High in London
On this day we visited Notting Hill and the beautiful and mesmerising Sky Garden. There are so many things to see in London and yet so dispersed. We walked around 15km at least to reach our destinations each day we were in London. Walking in our opinion is the best way to see a city and get a feel for the atmosphere and the vibe of the destination. We rarely caught the tube. So here begins our 7km trek to reach Notting Hill (yes, we do love walking!).
With views like this, walking is the best option!
Getting close now..
Here we are! Notting Hill!!!
So quaint and beautiful!
Yugo_Boy walking to Ottolenghi !! we got beautiful desserts here!!
The salads at Ottolenghi
Some desserts perhaps?
Yes please! Raspberry white chocolate cheesecake and lemon mascarpone tart yummmmmyy!!
Who has a pink door.. a bankrobber apparently
The famous Portobello markets in Notting Hill
The picturesque houses
The souvenirs - tourist traps that make for nice photos lol
Off to dinner at the Sky Garden building. We do love celebrating with a view.
At the entrance of the Sky Garden building
The view from the top! Sky Garden is Sky high! With a view of Tower Bridge!
360 degree views
This is the actual view! I was shocked!
The Gherkin !! what a strange building design! Some people just love gherkins a little too much! lol I can see the appeal!
The Sky Pod - predinner drinks
Pink is the question and Memories. Both delishhhh!! And my Pink is the question came with fairy floss! lol Abit much
A bit of scenery! yes more haha
Some predinner snacks.
The bar menu.
The menu at Sky Garden - The Darwin restaurant
The view from the Darwin restaurant. There is an actual garden in the sky at Sky garden. It's incredible.
The pulled pork hamburger
Ravioli
Some more interesting cocktails!
A rocket salad - All the food was delicious! but don't ask us how we ate all this! We got abit carried away lol
Such an open design
And then it started to rain!
This is the open space which is free to visit the restaurant you have to reserve. The views are just stunning! This ends our little adventure to London and it was a great ending to a beautiful city! Even the walk back to the tube was beautiful in the rain. Most people say in London rains non stop but we did not experience that, the weather was superb and we loved every moment of London. This is the only instance where is rained and it merely sprinkled! I expected it to be terrible weather but we were so impressed!
Sadly we have to leave London, but here comes Paris!! :-:
More posts to come :-::-::-:
With views like this, walking is the best option!
Getting close now..
Here we are! Notting Hill!!!
So quaint and beautiful!
Yugo_Boy walking to Ottolenghi !! we got beautiful desserts here!!
The salads at Ottolenghi
Some desserts perhaps?
Yes please! Raspberry white chocolate cheesecake and lemon mascarpone tart yummmmmyy!!
Who has a pink door.. a bankrobber apparently
The famous Portobello markets in Notting Hill
The picturesque houses
The souvenirs - tourist traps that make for nice photos lol
Off to dinner at the Sky Garden building. We do love celebrating with a view.
At the entrance of the Sky Garden building
The view from the top! Sky Garden is Sky high! With a view of Tower Bridge!
360 degree views
This is the actual view! I was shocked!
The Gherkin !! what a strange building design! Some people just love gherkins a little too much! lol I can see the appeal!
The Sky Pod - predinner drinks
Pink is the question and Memories. Both delishhhh!! And my Pink is the question came with fairy floss! lol Abit much
A bit of scenery! yes more haha
Some predinner snacks.
The bar menu.
The menu at Sky Garden - The Darwin restaurant
The view from the Darwin restaurant. There is an actual garden in the sky at Sky garden. It's incredible.
The pulled pork hamburger
Ravioli
Some more interesting cocktails!
A rocket salad - All the food was delicious! but don't ask us how we ate all this! We got abit carried away lol
Such an open design
And then it started to rain!
This is the open space which is free to visit the restaurant you have to reserve. The views are just stunning! This ends our little adventure to London and it was a great ending to a beautiful city! Even the walk back to the tube was beautiful in the rain. Most people say in London rains non stop but we did not experience that, the weather was superb and we loved every moment of London. This is the only instance where is rained and it merely sprinkled! I expected it to be terrible weather but we were so impressed!
Sadly we have to leave London, but here comes Paris!! :-:
More posts to come
:-::-::-:
Last edited by YU_GO_GONE; Aug 25, 2015 at 8:29 am
Aug 23, 2015, 3:41 pm
#42
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Sydney
Posts: 210
Bonjour Paris, Paris, Paris! Walks around the city.
We arrived to Paris from London via the Eurostar train, it was excellent and took only 2 hours. The journey went so quickly. After the train we took the metro to La Motte - Piquet Grenelle Metro. The hotel we stayed at was the Citadines Tour Eiffel Paris ($120 per night usually much more) which was located in the 15th arr. and within walking distance to the Eiffel Tower, we did this walk every day. The metro was only 1.80 euro per person, unlike the 9.80 pounds in London, but for sightseeing we preferred to walk everywhere. I know, by this point we should really have joined the Olympic walking team lol, because each day consisted of at least 20km of walking. I could not possible include every detail of our trip (there were so many sights we saw and pictures we took) but here is a little summary. We did see the essentials and many more.
Eurostar, the security here was so tight. We had to take of shoes, it felt like airport security and we felt very safe here.
Yugo_Boy leads the way
The onboard snacks bar, we also bought metro tickets here to save time. Excuse the blurriness of some of the photos, they were taken with my iphone.
A view from the Eurostar
Obligatory leg room pic
Outside of our apartment complex
The beautiful Citadines room.
So modern!
The little kitchen!
Bathroom
We walked to the Eiffel Tower right away.
A perfect day !
There were so many tourists lining up for hours to climb the tower, however we instead bought food at the local shops, sat under the Eiffel Tower and watched it light up. In true Parisian style, cheese, bread and wine
The next day we went to see the Champs-Élysées, the most famous street in the world.
Arc de triomphe
Some desserts
Off to the Louvre, in the 1st arrondissement
The grounds of the Louvre
For dinner we went to Suffren, located near our apartment. Some pre-dinner snacks. We didn’t think it would be great given the tripadvisor reviews, but it was excellent!
French onion soup –delish!
Goats cheese and salad
Mushroom pasta
Beef carpaccio – our favourite!
The next day we walked around the Latin Quarter and Notre Dame as well as anywhere else.
Invalides
Where the hunchback of Notre Dame lives
This is actually free to enter but because of this the line was very very long and people waited for hours to get in.
The famous love locks all over Paris
The park near the Louvre
Ritzy hotels all over the place
Ambiance
The opera, so dramatic lol kidding, it’s stunning!
So grand
It was perfect weather for us! Very sunny and hot!
This is how we got around, this map that kept tearing and we asked for 3 times at reception (one for every day we were in Paris). Yugo_Boy navigating us - old school
Yugo_Boy map in hand. This boy is too good!
At the bottom of Montmartre Hill
On top of the Sacré-Coeur basilica on the Montmartre hill in the 18th arrondissement.
So beautiful
The view at the top
So many tourists here
The Pont Alexandre III bridge in Art Nouveau style. A gift from the Russian Tsar at the time to the French royals. It looks like it belongs in Moscow, which makes sense after learning this information.
We loved Paris! We took the metro to the bus station which was very easy.
Our bus to Brussels
The bus station in Paris
The journey to Brussels took 5 hours but was very comfortable!
On our way!!
We are currently in Brussels I will post the next photos soon :-::-::-:
Eurostar, the security here was so tight. We had to take of shoes, it felt like airport security and we felt very safe here.
Yugo_Boy leads the way
The onboard snacks bar, we also bought metro tickets here to save time. Excuse the blurriness of some of the photos, they were taken with my iphone.
A view from the Eurostar
Obligatory leg room pic
Outside of our apartment complex
The beautiful Citadines room.
So modern!
The little kitchen!
Bathroom
We walked to the Eiffel Tower right away.
A perfect day !
There were so many tourists lining up for hours to climb the tower, however we instead bought food at the local shops, sat under the Eiffel Tower and watched it light up. In true Parisian style, cheese, bread and wine
The next day we went to see the Champs-Élysées, the most famous street in the world.
Arc de triomphe
Some desserts
Off to the Louvre, in the 1st arrondissement
The grounds of the Louvre
For dinner we went to Suffren, located near our apartment. Some pre-dinner snacks. We didn’t think it would be great given the tripadvisor reviews, but it was excellent!
French onion soup –delish!
Goats cheese and salad
Mushroom pasta
Beef carpaccio – our favourite!
The next day we walked around the Latin Quarter and Notre Dame as well as anywhere else.
Invalides
Where the hunchback of Notre Dame lives
This is actually free to enter but because of this the line was very very long and people waited for hours to get in.
The famous love locks all over Paris
The park near the Louvre
Ritzy hotels all over the place
Ambiance
The opera, so dramatic lol kidding, it’s stunning!
So grand
It was perfect weather for us! Very sunny and hot!
This is how we got around, this map that kept tearing and we asked for 3 times at reception (one for every day we were in Paris). Yugo_Boy navigating us - old school
Yugo_Boy map in hand. This boy is too good!
At the bottom of Montmartre Hill
On top of the Sacré-Coeur basilica on the Montmartre hill in the 18th arrondissement.
So beautiful
The view at the top
So many tourists here
The Pont Alexandre III bridge in Art Nouveau style. A gift from the Russian Tsar at the time to the French royals. It looks like it belongs in Moscow, which makes sense after learning this information.
We loved Paris! We took the metro to the bus station which was very easy.
Our bus to Brussels
The bus station in Paris
The journey to Brussels took 5 hours but was very comfortable!
On our way!!
We are currently in Brussels I will post the next photos soon
:-::-::-:
Last edited by YU_GO_GONE; Aug 23, 2015 at 3:46 pm
Did you book online and on which site?
Aug 24, 2015, 2:36 am
#44
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: JNB
Programs: Flying Blue, Miles and Smiles, Hhonors, ICHotels
Posts: 1,307
We didn’t think it would be great given the tripadvisor reviews, but it was excellent!
Loving your TR! ^
Aug 24, 2015, 7:28 am
#45
Suspended
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 2,685
Good report so far, impressive scope for the trip given the time but looks like you're doing alright. Note though: The bridge you're calling London Bridge is actually Tower Bridge. London Bridge is the completely unspectacular bridge next to it leading up to the Shard (seen in some of your other photos)
