Air Travel Hell - part 1, Istanbul to London

As I sit at the back of a tin can, arms pinned close to my body, knees actually a luxurious 4 inches from the non-reclined seat in front of me, I wonder once again why we accept this inhumane treatment from the airlines.  Are we cattle?  Would we accept this from any other of the “service” industries?  Why are the airlines the only industry in the word that doesn’t care about customer satisfaction?  So inconsequential is it to them that they add insult to injury by making us pay for this torture!  And pay and pay.  I’m waiting for them to charge for the toilets.

We had first class, business class and coach.  Now they have added “economy plus” for a mere $700 - $1400 more.  This buys you a little more leg room and the chance to be upgraded to business class.  I'm most sure but I think there are various class distinctions within Econ Plus.

This happened to us on our flight across the pond.  The only seats available when we booked the flight were “economy plus.”  Cost= $1400 for the two of us.  However, we were upgraded to club when we checked in.  This meant we got a bed!  A bed that lay flat!  With a pillow and a blanket!  I slept the entire way across from Denver to London.

No upgrade here on the return flight.  I tried to check in on-line but my booking reference number wouldn't work.  Probably because it was from 5 weeks before.  So anyway, we arrive at the airport in Istanbul and have to take what's available.  We did manage to snag 2 seats together, which is not longer a guarantee on British Air.

If you want to sit together, it may cost extra.  It says so right on their website.  Sure enough, there was a man trying to get another passenger to switch with him so he could sit with his wife and kids.  But the seat he was assigned was not as good as the stranger's seat next to his wife, so the stranger wouldn't give up his seat.  

In the world of Air Travel, it really is dog eat dog.

Treasures of the Aegean - Day 4 (June 6) - Delphi to Kalambaka

5 hours on the bus!  Nice scenery, but 5 hours on the bus!  However, the arrival in Kalambaka made it all worthwhile!  Here is the view from our hotel balcony.

I'm feeling better.  Let the fun begin!

Treasures of the Aegean - Day 3 - (June 5) Delphi

The group sans me went back to Delphi to tour the ruins and consult the Oracle.  We were just there on the previous trip, so I elected to stay in the hotel and nurse my ailments.
Bob went to the site, but he was hard up for entertainment with me staying in bed all day.

View from our room

The Greek Sphinx

The Charioteer

View from Delphi

The Amphitheater

Temple of Apollo

Treasures of the Aegean - Day 2 -(June 4, 2014) On the Road to Delphi

Ever since we arrived in Athens 2 days ago I have been plagued with a runny nose.  Is it a cold or allergies?  I brought some drugs with me for allergies but had to go to the Apothecary for cold meds.  Then I got swimmers' ear from swimming in our Jacuzzi in our Bled hotel suite, and had to have our Tour Director go with me and translate.  I got antibiotic drops and a weird cone like thing you stick in your ear and set fire to.  It is supposed to draw up all the gunk in your ear.  It didn't work for me.

Thus, when we were going to Delphi I felt like crap.  We visited the Museum in the late afternoon after all the tourist busses had left and it was wonderful to be alone in the museum.  We checked into our hotel down the road in Arachova,

Our room had a beautiful view of the mountains.  The bus trip was also very scenic, so those are the posts for today.   I swore I was going to keep this blog up to date, but it is an impossible task.  We are so busy, by the time we finish dinner I'm too tired to even do email!  I manage to post a few pictures to FB but that's it.

Near Delphi

Lower Delphi

View from Delphi

Next, the view from our hotel in Arachova

Treasures of the Aegean - Day 1 - Athens (June 3, 2014)

Bob and I are now on another small ship cruise tour, this time in the Aegean.  That's a bit of a misnomer because the first 5 days are a land tour in Greece, so we're doing bus and hotels.  Then we get on the ship and visit the Greek Isles, winding up disembarking in Ephesus, Turkey and flying to Istanbul for a couple of days before we (finally) go home.

We flew in from Slovenia on the 2nd, while the rest of our tour group was coming in from the States. We had previously scheduled a Segway tour of Athens by Night, but we got the time wrong.  I thought it was at 8:30, so we walked to the Plaka, about 5 minutes away.  Our hotel, the Hotel Hera, was in an excellent location!  We found a nice restaurant near the Segway office, highly overpriced by delicious none the less.  About 10 minutes after we ordered (sea bass for me, veal for Bob, plus 2 very large beers), Bob walked over to the Segway office (1 block away) and found out the tour was at 8 and they were ready to go NOW.  What to do?  We agreed to pay for our meal, then come back and eat it after the Segway tour.  Not good.  Then Bob asked if we could reschedule for the next night, and we could so we did.

We were a group of two on the Segway tour.  We saw parts of Athens we hadn't seen before and in general had a rollicking good time.

Athens - Day One

Athens from the air

The Parthenon at night, viewed from our hotel

We arrived in the evening and only had time for dinner.  Tomorrow the vacation starts, as we get a tour of Athens, free time to explore further, and then we're off to the coast to embark our small ship, the Artemis.

Beautiful - Surprisingly Beautiful

EasternEurope to the Black Sea - Vidin, Bulgaria

I never dreamed I'd see Bulgaria, or that I would even want to.  As a child of the 60s, all I knew was it was part of the USSR, they were Communists and it was all controlled by the Russians.  We hated the Russians.  Turns out, so did the Bulgarians.  

Now they are free, but struggling with a poor economy and no real industry.  They are trying to develop tourism, since they are right on the Danube, and close to the Black Sea, but the area is not well known.   Our riverboat made two stops in Bulgaria, at Vidin and at Ruse.   In Vidin we visited a mosque, right across from an Eastern Orthodox church  The imam didn't speak English, but he did speak Italian.  Our Program Director, who is Romanian and speaks no Bulgarian, found an Italian guide who spoke English. Voila!   

Vidin

The translator and the Imam

The Imam was dressed in normal street clothes, which I found a bit surprising.  He looked so normal, and he sounded perfectly reasonable.  I think he must be representative of the "good" Muslims who don't want jihad.  He spoke of the declining numbers of people of faith, in general.  In Vidin, the Jews were gone, the Muslims were going and the Catholics were barely hanging on.

What's left of the Jewish Synagogue

After our visit at the Mosque, we walked down to the Baba Vida Fortress.  This fortress was begun in the 10th century (900-999 AD, ahem) and took 400 years to complete.  It was an important fortress on the Danube protecting northwestern Bulgaria from the Turks. Unfortunately, in the late 14th century the Turks won and for the next 500 years Bulgaria would be an occupied region within the Ottoman Empire.  They ruled Bulgaria for 500 years, leaving it a strange mixture of East and West.

Baba Vida Fortress on the Danube

The Ottoman influence kept Bulgaria from developing as a Christian European State.  On  the  other hand, a religious awakening of  Christians in the late 19th century broke the hold  of the Turks over the area and in 1908 Bulgaria  asserted its independence.

Here is the link if you didn't get it as the title:
https://plus.google.com/photos/+LindaHarward/albums/5981889022647814177