piran café

Isn’t really all that good. But how important are onboard purchase to these low budget carriers’ bottom lines? According to a story in its in-flight magazine glorifying its bistro selection, GW sells, on average, 400,000 to 450,000 cups per year at €2.60 a pop, totaling €1,040,000 to 1,170,000 ($1,458,420 to 1,640,723).

Ometepe, originally uploaded by pirano.

Stumbled onto this on my way out on Sunday evening (19-Jul) at about 7 pm, striking SAS workers at De Gaulle’s Terminal 1. Day 4. Definitely livened the place up. Those who are down on the French for their language skills will be happy to know that half the signs were in English. The woman working the counter –presumably a Polish ’strike breaker’?– remained quite cool and friendly.

A quick search of English language sources found no info. Anyone know more about the strike?

Paris 071, originally uploaded by pirano.

I spent most of the day booking my European summer travel –again, lots!– and as has become custom, was again frustrated by the lack of budget carriers that operate out of Ljubljana’s Pučnik airport. (Currently, there’s one.) So, when going by train –always choice No 1– wasn’t an option, I had to look at nearby airports. And instead of depositing my notes in the recycle bin, I thought I’d put them here where others may find them of use.

What characterizes nearby will vary from person to person. For me Venice Marco Polo (roughly 3 1/2 hrs by bus from Ljubljana) is the outside limit.

So here is a list of airports that will make Destination Ljubljana a little bit closer for you, and the budget airlines that operate to/from there. I’m assuming that these all list the current 2009 spring/summer timetables, but can’t be 100% certain of that. So if they’re not, don’t waterboard me. Instead, let me know! Enjoy!

Graz, Austria
- RyanAir – [route map]
- Tuifly – [route map]

Klagenfurt, Austria
- GermanWings – [route map]
- RyanAir – [route map]
- Tuifly – [route map]

Ljubljana
- EasyJet – [route map] – At the moment, only one flight daily to/from London-Stansted.

Pula, Croatia
- GermanWings – [route map]
- RyanAir – [route map]
- ThomsonFly – [route map]

Rijeka, Croatia
- Tuifly – [route map]

Trieste, Italy
- RyanAir – [route map]

Venice (Marco Polo)
(Buses from Mestre rail station: ACTV linea n°15, about 35 min; ATVO FLY BUS, 17-20 min)
- EasyJet – [route map]
- SkyEurope – [route map]
- ThomsonFly – [route map]
- Transavia – [route map]
- Tuifly – [route map]
- Wizzair – [route map]

Venice (Treviso)
For more on this airport that even The Village People use, read this.
- GermanWings – [route map]
- RyanAir – [route map]

Zagreb, Croatia
- GermanWings – [route map]
- Tuifly – [route map]
- Wizzair – [route map]

Slovenia’s Adria Airways website is here. It’s a very good airline, and while it can hardly be considered a budget carrier, good deals can be found.

And while we’re at it, here’s the website for the Ljubljana Bus Station.

Attalos
29 Athinas
Athens, Greece

This is the view from the rooftop bar of the Hotel Attalos, just a few steps up from the sixth floor. Nice, no?

As big cities go, the 48 EUR/night price is right. It’s two stars, which are enough if you don’t spend too much time in your room. There is free wi-fi in the first floor reading room, along with a couple of computer terminals, an extremely nice touch. Breakfast not included.

But best about the Attalos is the location. Just a couple hundred meters from the Monastiraki underground stop, there’s plenty in the immediate area to keep you thoroughly amused and on your feet for the duration of your stay: the Plaka, the flea market, scores of museums, ruins and parks.

FYI, Monastiraki is roughly 30 minutes from Port at Piraeus, and 40-50 minutes to the airport, no change required for either.

I’ll definitely return. Soon.

acropolis, originally uploaded by pirano.

Mercure Hotel Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt
Teinacher Strasse 20
Bad Cannstatt

There’s nothing cheap or budget-minded about this place, so I’ll spare you (and me) much of these 30 seconds. At about 140 EUR/night, it’ll work for business travelers (or for those who aren’t paying themselves).

WTF is up with hotels these days? 25 EUR/day for Wifi? I’ve stayed in tiny dives for a quarter of the price with FREE wifi. Unforgivable.

The room was decent, there are smoking rooms available, breakfast is quite good (at 15 EUR extra), and there’s a nice park nearby. Note that Bad Cannstatt is a suburb of Stuttgart; public transport (a tram/U & S bahn combo) will get you to the main Stuttgart station in about a half hour at best, depending on the connections.

I don’t think I’ll ever stay here again.

mercure-stuttgart-10-sept-08, originally uploaded by pirano.

Hotel du Marche
Rue Pre-du-Marche 42
Lausanne

When I’m on the road and paying my own way, the only rule I’m guided by is to find the cheapest room available with a private bath. Hostel days are behind me. In Switzerland though, nothing is cheap, and rules are meant to be broken.

I embarked on the search too late, and all I could come up with that was reasonably inexpensive in Lausanne was this place, and at 70 CHF (44 EUR), shared facilities notwithstanding, it was a terrific deal.

The location was great, easy to get to via public transport, pleasant staff, and free wifi throughout. I particularly enjoyed a Vietnamese restaurant just around the corner.

I’m definitely returning.

Hotel du Marche – Lausanne, originally uploaded by pirano.

Hotel De La Paix
19, rue du Gros Caillou – 75007 Paris

I liked this place! Located on a pleasant and quiet street in an otherwise fairly lively neighborhood –a couple minute walk from the Parc du Champs de Mars, and perhaps 10 to the Eiffel Tower– it’s about as off-the-beaten-path as you can find in Paris.

Rooms are cozy, free wifi throughout, and an extremely pleasant owner and staff. There are plenty of bars/cafes in the vicinity that won’t break the bank, along with a few wines shops that will. Nearest metro is Ecole Militaire, and you can order a shuttle to De Gaulle Airport at the front desk (17 EUR, about 40 mins).

The hotel’s website is here; for Paris I generally book through venere.com.

I think I’ll definitely return.

Hotel De la Paix – Paris, originally uploaded by pirano.

Hotel Luciani
Via Milazzo, 8
00185 Rome, Italy

Luciani is one of the dozens (or perhaps hundreds?) of little hotels that appear in every nook and cranny near Rome’s Termini (main) train station.

A tiny room, Spartan bed, old bedstand, barred windows and rickety closet gave this place the feel of prison chic. But looks can be deceiving, since you are allowed to come and go as you please and you don’t have to share a shower. Breakfast –a pile of bread washed down with coffee from a cheap machine– lends itself nicely to the incarceration theme.

In fairness, you can’t expect much more in Rome these days for 50 EUR/night to enjoy 2-star comfort.

Upside? It’s less than a five minute stroll to platform 6 at the Termini station. Wifi is available, 5 EUR/6 hrs.

I will not stay here again.

Luciani – Rome, originally uploaded by pirano.

Cityhotel Central Station
Via Giovanni Battista Sammartini 15
Milano, Italy

True to its name, this place is a five-minute stroll from Milano Centrale Station. As you can see, I had a fairly large room, with a big window overlooking a boulevard through which I learned, among other things, that Milanese streetcleaners are particularly loud at 3:30 in the morning.

On the plus side? Free wifi (that doesn’t work everywhere) and the parakeet in the lobby with a firm command of English, Italian and Mandarin Chinese. And a decent and relatively inexpensive sushi joint a few doors away.

59 EUR/night for a single, w/private bath.

I’m never one to say never, but I shall (probably) not return.

Cityhotel Central Station – Milano, originally uploaded by pirano.

Unless they’re living under a rock, Americans know that the US$ really sucks these days in Europe. About two years ago, the exchange was at about $1.20 to the euro; these days it’s consistently hovering near $1.50.

While there is nothing terribly cheap about much of Europe these days (it’s not for most Europeans either, which is why hordes are going on shopping sprees to the US), that doesn’t neccesarily mean Americans should be putting off their visits.

In his February newsletter, European travel guru Rick Steves lays out 20 tips that will go a long way to make up for the 20% drop in the USD. Some useful info.

My favorite? #12, ‘Don’t over tip.’ Having worked in the restaurant trade for years in the US, that’s an odd one for me.

Kleinmunchen
Wienerstrasse 404-408
4030 Linz

Stayed three nights (Jan-2008)

I kept calling this place Le Petit Munchen for no reason besides the odd way that my limited French seems to effortlessly roll off my tongue in German-speaking countries. Weird.

Small room, small bed, small bathroom, basic breakfast. 45 EUR/night ain’t much, but I was expecting something more. Big minus is the distance from the center of Linz, roughly 15 minutes by tram; two lines run from the corner of the hotel, so it’s convenient in that sense. Big plus was free wi-fi in each room.

There’s a restaurant on the premises, basic Germanic fare.

I’m never one to say never, but I shall (probably) not return.

Well, that was fast.

Just six months after beginning service from Maribor, Slovenia’s second city, to London Stansted, it looks as though Ryanair is abandoning the route. Bookings can still be made through 27-March.

It’s not a total loss. Ryanair is one of the Europe’s least loved budget airlines, is notorious for its hidden costs, fleeces customers with its own unique brand of currency conversion, and apparently lists ’surly’ as a requirement for their cabin crews. [Check out Ryanair Campaign for plenty of testimonials and this tidbit about Ryanair's surcharge for passengers traveling with excess 'emotional baggage'.]

Meanwhile, Wizz Air, the Hungary-based airline, flew it’s last Brussels-Charleroi flight out of Ljubljana on the 14th. There’s no word on whether service will be resumed. Slovenian dailies Delo and Vecer both reported last week that Wizz Air is looking into filling the void in Maribor.

My fetish for train travel led me to this incredible gallery of photos by Mike Brodie aka “The Polaroid Kidd“, described as an “accidental” documentary photographer whose subject matter consists primarily of young hobos, punks and squatters who ride the rails across the U.S.A.

Like their fabled predecessors during the height of the Great Depression, when some quarter of a million teenaged hobos roamed around the US, these modern day tribes, in their shacks and boxcars and with their elegant rugged dining habits certainly expand the definition of budget travel.

Absolutely enthralling photos. I suggest you start with Boys & Girls of Modern Days Railways, and move on from there. Take your time. There’s absolutely no rush.

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Stella
Via Castelfidardo 51
Rome

Stayed three nights, 11-14 July 2007.

There’s no shortage of relatively cheap places to lay your weary head in the Italian capital. There seem to be hundreds of hotels and pensions just within a four or five block radius of the main Termini station. That’s always most convenient for me, and that’s where I look.

The Stella (60 EUR/night) is a leisurely 10-minute walk from Termini, close enough for convenience sake and just far enough to escape the loud bustle. Clean, if somewhat small rooms, polite and helpful staff (although they’ve yet to master the difference between Slovenia and Slovakia). The shower is tiny. You can check your email for free in a room next to reception. Breakfast is >very< basic, but enough to get you moving. The closest metro stops –Repubblica and Termini– are about a 10-minute walk away. There’s a decent pub next door, and a terrific “African” (read, Ethiopian) restaurant just around the corner.

I shall (probably/maybe) return.

Stella’s Venere.com page.

La Croisée
Avenue Marc Dufour 15
Lausanne, Switzerland

Stayed one night, 10-July 2007

If there’s anything cheap in Switzerland, I have yet to find it. So La Croisée, at 110 CHF/night (66 EUR) has to be considered a good deal. A pleasant 10-minute walk from the main station (except if it’s pouring rain and unseasonably cold like it was the morning I arrived). Very friendly staff, comfortable rooms, AND FREE wi-fi throughout.

Entirely smoke-free, but you can light up on the balcony with a great view of Lac Leman, the lake Deep Purple calls Lake Geneva. It also serves as a boarding house for international students.

I shall (absolutely) return.

La Croisée’s Venere.com page.

Nairobi — I asked several people what I thought would be a relatively straighforward question: Approximately how long is the 460 km bus journey from Mombasa to Nairobi?

The answers I got varied wildly, from five to six hours, to six or seven, and even seven to eight. Today it wound up taking just under 11, thanks largely to the traffic we crawled through as we reached the edges of Nairobi, where it took about two hours to cover the final 20 kilometres or so. Friday afternoon and early evening traffic is quite dense in the Kenyan capital, even worse, according to my cab driver, at the end of the month when people get paid and scurry out of town.

But it you’ve got the time and patience, it’s certainly worth riding through this bit of flyover country. (For a point of comparison, the flight between Kenya’s two largest airports was about 45 minutes.) From Mombasa, much of the first two-and-a-half to three hours will be extremely bumpy and slow over a dirt road, thanks to a badly needed construction project (it’s a brand new highway that’s being built, actually) to fit the trucks pulling containers from the Mombasa port. Thankfully, most of those –at least a few hundred anyway– were held up at the Customs and Transit station in Mariakim, about an hour out of Mombasa, where truckers are greeted with a large billboard that reads, “Stop Bribery, Save our Roads.” But the road is quite good the rest of the way, allowing time for a relatively brief nap or two and plenty of sightseeing.

Along the way you pass dry rivers and creeks, ghost towns, ruins of modest hotels, a few prisons, lots of goats, fewer cows, and plenty of baobab trees, to me, the king of all trees. Locals wave as the bus passes, oblivious the dust and deisel sputtered their way, and eager hawkers descend upon the bus at every stop, selling everything from nuts and water to marinated baobab seeds to bananas and potato chips.

This particular bus stopped twice: a brief stop at Voi, a dusty town still in the coast district, and again near near Mtito Andei, where most of the passengers enjoyed a modest but good lunch of rice and extremely well done beef (with a drink, 185 KES/2 EUR/2.75 USD).

There are apparently a few other companies operating this route several times daily; I picked Coastline for no apparent reason other than they seemed to be the only one with an office in Central Mombasa’s gritty main bus hub. 1000 KES (11 EUR/14.50 USD) one-way for regular bus, 1200 (13 EUR/17.50 USD) for the air-conditioned version. It was hot on board but not uncomfortably so, so don’t fear if you can’t get a seat on the AC’d line.

More pics on my flickr pages.

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Behind the graffiti wall is Celica, the now globally renowned icon among Ljubljana hostels, thanks to its designation last year as the ‘World’s Hippest Hostel’ by Lonely Planet.

Rates start at €17/night in a 12-bed dorm-style room, to €24/night in one of the two-bed ‘cells’. Celica is a former army barracks, and the ‘cells’ are/were real. (Some dizzying panoramas of the cells here.) Just a short walk from the main train and bus stations, the location is extremely convenient, but reservations WELL in advance are recommended. There are even daily guided tours. I’ve never stayed there so can’t speak for its comforts, but the adjacent restaurant is quite good for a quick lunch. Reviews anyone?

As of Thursday 7 June, that is, with the long-anticipated service between Maribor (MBX), Slovenia’s second city, and London-Stansted (STN). Three flights weekly – Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. I’m not a huge fan of RyanAir (although their flights can be memorable), but must concede that both cost and convenience may supercede principle –on occasion.

Cost: I just keyed in a few quick trips and this is what the RyanAir search engine spit out– A quick trip leaving Saturday 9 June, returning Tuesday the 12th came in at €72.28 round trip, taxes included. At the moment, Tuesday outbound and Tuesday return are the cheapest at €57.38 (w/ taxes), giving you an extra €14.90 to indulge yourself with should you spend an entire week in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

Convenience: To keep prices so ridiculously low, RyanAir oftentimes schedules flights at even more ridiculous hours. But with the Maribor flight, they’re quite reasonable. Departure from MBX is at 14:35, and departure from Stansted at 11:11, which generally means that your journey to the airport from northern London won’t have to begin in the pre-dawn hours.

Bear in mind that RyanAir charges for ALL checked bags (15 kg limit) –£5/€6 at time of online booking or £10/€12 at airport check-in–  while excess baggage fees begin at £5.50/€8 per kilo. With the latter, they’re annoyingly strict.

And somewhat related, an important note to Slovenian travelers who are still wondering –or still upset– about Easyjet’s cancellation last year of their Ljubljana – Berlin Shoenefeld flight: The cancellation had little to do with demand, since the flights operated at 90% + capacity. It was cancelled, according to an EasyJet employee I met last week on another flight, because passengers were not spending enough money on board. Those wildly overpriced cups of instant coffee and stale Mars bars are extremely important to the no-frills carriers’ bottom line. I’m sure RyanAir is no different.

And definitely related: RyanAir Campaign is a decent site that chronicles passenger’s problems for the airline that last October was voted the world’s most disliked carrier in a survey of TripAdvisor readers. 

When I moved to Slovenia, I promised friends that if they would ever stop foot on the continent, I’d come and meet them –wherever. Colette called my bluff, and gave me about ten days notice. So if they’ll have me — a big if– she and her friend Marianne will be my Valentine dinner dates tomorrow evening somewhere in Paris.

I didn’t fully decide to make the trip until yesterday afternoon, thus severely limiting the possibility of finding any “low budget” options, such as they exist here, and was left with these:

• The 1296 km drive from Ljubljana can take anywhere from 12-16 hours; I haven’t had a car for nearly four years so that’s clearly out.
• Adria’s last minute offering was a 300 euro flight, but no return was available until late Sunday, and I’m trying to cut back on short haul flights this year anyway, so that’s out too.
• So too is a combo train-to-Venice, bus-to-Treviso, RyanAir Treviso-to-Beauvais flight, Beauvais bus-to-Paris option. I’ve done several versions of that, and it’s fairly nightmarish only to be treated like a worm by RyanAir, and won’t ever do it again. (By the way, when all is taken into consideration, RyanAir is hardly the deal it pretends to be, but more on that another time.)

So rail, my favorite, it is: a leisurely 16 hour and 22 minute trip to Paris Est via Munich, with a sleeper so I can doze in relative comfort for at least a few hours tonight. For the return, I chose the route from Gare de Lyon via Lausanne and Zurich; I’ve never been through Switzerland during the winter months and am hoping to catch at least a brief glimpse of a Swiss Alpine glacier before they all disappear. (I’m apparently not alone, BTW. Plenty of people are deciding to rush about in an effort to see things before they become extinct or melt away.)

Happy Valentine’s Day y’all!

Pic – Paris 9-July-06 (sorry, forgot where)

Hotel Geblergasse
Geblergasse 21
Vienna

Stayed two nights, 30-31-Jan 2007

At just 34 EUR/night, I can’t say enough about this place. The rooms were fairly basic but clean, the staff helful if a bit surly. But it was only 34 EUR/night, for a major international city. Convenience reigns –it’s a two-minute stroll to/from the Alser Strasse metro stop; depending on timing of metro connections, you can get from the lobby to the Westbahnhof station metro stop in less than 15 minutes. AND there’s free (!!) internet connections in each room (but bring your own network cable) as well a few free computers in the lobby.

I shall (absolutely) return.

Geblergasse’s Venere.com page.

Hungary’s MTI reported that Canadian Jean Beliveau, who’s taking a solo walk around the world, passed kilometer # 40,000 on Saturday in the village of Rakoczifalva, where his reception committee included the mayor and the village drummer. His stroll, in conjunction with UNESCO’s 2000-2010 International Decade for Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World, will ultimately cover 76,000 kilometers. He left his home in Montreal on 18 August 2000.

Hungary was country #41; his current itinerary calls for 69 in all.

His homepage, WWWalk, is here. LOTS of photos.

Rec’d a note from easyJet today, telling me that I owed them money –5 GBP (7.42 EUR) to be precise– for a booking I made and paid for on 24 October.

It was to cover the newly-increased Air Passenger Duty (APD) announced in December by British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. The increase doubled the excise tax (aka departure tax) from £5 per trip to £10 for economy short-haul flights, from £20 to £40 for economy class long-haul flights, and from £40 to £80 for classes above economy. [It should be noted that this increase merely reversed a cut he made in 2001.] The increase is to take effect from 1 February 2007, but is also being applied retroactively to all flights purchased prior to 1 Feb.

Predictably, those in the airline industry weren’t too happy with the increase, while Green campaign groups have long called for the APD increase –along with the removal of enormous tax breaks that amount to £9 billion (13.3 bn EUR/17.3 bn USD) annually in the UK alone– and a decrease in flying.

A growing number of us know, as Guardian columnist George Monbiot points out, that flying isn’t particularly good but we do it anyway:

If we want to stop the planet from cooking, we will simply have to stop travelling at the kind of speeds that planes permit.

This is now broadly understood by almost everyone I meet. But it has had no impact whatever on their behaviour. When I challenge my friends about their planned weekend in Rome or their holiday in Florida, they respond with a strange, distant smile and avert their eyes. They just want to enjoy themselves. Who am I to spoil their fun? The moral dissonance is deafening.

According to OAG, a travel and transport information service, “the world’s scheduled airlines – including Low Cost Carriers – offered a record 3.3 billion seats (3,297,362,597) on 28.2 million flights (28,240,490) during 2006. That represents an average daily offer of over 9 million seats on 77,371 individual daily flights.”

Projections of how many flights will fly how many passengers next year, or the next, or by 2020 vary wildly –and I’m too lazy at the moment to track down an accurate figure– but suffice it to say that with airports expanding like shopping malls did in the American heartland in the 1970s, those numbers will go up dramatically. And surcharges such as my 7.42 EUR add-on fee and others like it won’t do a thing to keep me from flying. A tenfold increase in the APD probably wouldn’t keep me from flying. Not so long as I –and everyone else– am led to believe, and continue to believe, that I deserve to be able to fly from Ljubljana to London-Stansted, round-trip, for 72 77 EUR, tax included.