Showing posts with label SkyEurope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SkyEurope. Show all posts

Sunday, April 08, 2012

Budget Budapest Airline Links

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I had been grieving over no longer having the 20+ budget airlines we had at one time. At the time I needed an Excel program to keep track of them all and where they flew. We really did a lot of traveling for basically nothing back then. Those were the days, but there are some rays of sunshine on the horizon at least while we have sunshiny days ahead. Some of these routes are for summer only, so book early and make sure you are within the zone.


The Air France-KLM group created a budget offspring called Transavia. For Budapest travelers it flies to Amsterdam four times a week on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday using the new Boeing 737-700 aircraft. Of course it has other routes, but you have to go to Amsterdam first. KLM flies 3 times daily from Bud to AMS.


Wizz Air, who successfully pushed SkyEurope out of the sky, leaves Budapest for 34 destinations and has just announced a new one to Larnaca, Cyprus. This destination is only 2 times a week. Wizz Air has begun 2 weekly flights to Dortmund, Germany Wizz Air now boasts the largest fleet at Budapest Liszt Ferenc with its new 6th Airbus A320.


SmartWings used to fly from Budapest to Prague, but quit the route. It seems this low-cost airline has decided to give it a chance yet again, but with a difference. Instead of heading to Prague, there are offering six weekly flights to Paris Charles de Gaulle and later in April, Barcelona will be added on with twice weekly flights. Additionally, for those of you who trust charted flights to be reliable, SmartWings is scheduling weekly summer time (through June) only flights to popular Greek and Bulgarian holiday destinations: Heraklion, Burgas, Zakinthos, Corfu and Rhodes. 


 Jet2com is adding Leeds Bradford in the UK to their Budapest services. They started with flights between Budapest and Manchester, but then added Edinburgh over a year ago. This will make destination number 3. Way to go Jet2com. Aegean now operates flights four times weekly to Athens. 


A seasonal airBaltic flight between Riga and Budapest has started once more. They will fly Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday & Sunday until October 26th. Depart Budapest at 14:15 to arrive in Riga at 17:30. Coming back, depart Riga at 11:55 to arrive in Budapest at 13:15. Originally operated during the summer of 2011, its popularity has brought it back for another summer encore.


Air Berlin is stepping up once again with daily service to Berlin with 11 flights weekly. 
Travel plans starting in June. Consider Volotea who will provide three weekly flights to Venice starting June 1st. The day after, Blue1 will operate 2 flights a week to Helsinki, Finland.


After April 19th, Tarom will up their number of flights to 3 times a week heading to Bucharest. TAP is increasing their Lisbon flights from 7 to 8 a week. Not to be outdone, Lufthansa has announced their increase in capacity as well as new flights to Hamburg and Berlin.


The best news of all just may be that Ryanair announced it will return to Budapest to initiate services to 31 European cities. 


Despite the demise of Malev the Hungarian national airline, Budapest Airport is going to be enjoying a successful 2012. This summer the airport will host 36 airlines, compared to just 33 last year, with almost the same number of destinations. Come fly with me.



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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Budapest Summer Flying

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Ferihegy international airport announced new flights for the summer schedule starting this Sunday. I am only hightlighting the budget airlines here, not the mainstream ones. EuroAir, Iberworld and Scandinavian Airlines are expected to launch new flights, but the key word here is 'expected'. Norwegian Air is expanding its range now including flights from Budapest to Copenhagen and Stockholm as new destinations. WizzAir's will now grace Budapest with flights to Madrid and Naples, while at the same time increasing its flights between Budapest and London's Luton. At one point, there were 34 budget airlines flying in and out of Budapest. Some of the budgets went down in history as financial calamities, while others just pulled Budapest from their schedule. The problem here is that although many want to come from points A, B, or C, the planes going back to points A, B, and C are flying half empty. This is not an efficient way to run an airline. In the olden days, SkyEurope announced a summer schedule and then canceled flights. Now, they only fly from here to Trieste, Italy. Recommended, but how often does anyone want to go to Trieste when there is a big world out there? I tried all of the 'recommended' budget airline search engines: Skyscanner, Air Ninja, Air Traffic.EU, and others for a reasonable flight from here to Lithuania. All searches pointed to flyLAL Airlines, but once I arrived on their site, I was greeted with "We regret to inform you that flyLAL – Lithuanian Airlines ceased its operations from 17th of January, 2009." Now I am working on dumping all of my United Airlines miles. All of the frequent flyer newsletters say the miles are at risk due to the airlines financial status. Being all of the airlines are in the same shape, no one may jump in and rescue the United miles like airlines have done in the past. Africa, here we come, I hope.

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Thursday, August 28, 2008

Go SkyEurope

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I was so paranoid about not making the flight in time, we opted for the earlier airport bus. We were up at 4:15 am and at the station at 5:00, only to find the next bus was not until 5:35. We were at the airport by 6:30 am, but SkyEurope did not open for check in until 7:00 am. We were checked in and through security within minutes. I sat at the gate and wrote yesterday's blog entry. Boarding time was 8:10, but by 8:20, there still was no plane. It was late arriving from Prague and eventually did by 8:40. Amazingly, we still landed in Budapest on time at 10:00 am. Go SkyEurope!

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Sunday, August 24, 2008

Off to Trieste

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The super efficient airport shuttle not only deposited us at the airport on time, but with plenty of time to spare. Our flight was due to leave at 10:30 and we were there by 8:00. Going through security was speedy and efficient, but we found ourselves immediately in the shopping area for duty free. There was no Passport Control to go through now that Hungary is part of the Schengren Agreement.

SkyEurope had us boarded and ready to go within minutes, though they had a flight come in from Trieste at 10:00. We arrived at our destination after 1 hour and 10 minutes. The airport is tiny, so there is no fear of getting lost. We bought bus tickets into town at the tourism office for 3.10 each and walked over to bus 51 to stow our suitcase.

More than once, I had a thought of “that is interesting, we should come back there to see that mosaic” or “an open café , we should check it out”, but the bus kept going and going. The other thought I had was, "Are we on the correct bus?" We have been known to get on the wrong trains and buses at times. While taking one hour to get into town, all of those places are closer to the airport than they are to Trieste. Let’s review - It took one hour-10 minutes to fly here; it took one hour to get from the airport.

Our hotel, is one whole floor of a building, there are three such hotels within one building. It was an easy 10 minute walk from the bus station. The room is extra large, but with a shared bathroom. This is not a problem as there are three of them, two equipped with showers. They were reviewed by Frommer’s in 2003, but has not been seen since with gives me pause.

After dumping our things, we walked around the city, noticing not much was open, but being Sunday, we did not think about it. The reception at the hotel suggested going closer to the waterfront to find a restaurant, or perhaps around the major square. There were a few open there, but not too crowded. Is this what Sundays are like? As often as we have been in Italy, I am not sure we have been here too many Sundays before.

Just a short walk from the hotel, we ran into the stature of James Joyce. Joyce had lived here twice during his life. First he lived here from 1904 to 1915, and then again from 1919 to 1920 when he finished The Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

The major square the Piazza Unita d’Italia is an umph experience with stunning architecture on three sides. Built in 1870, to the left is the Palazzo de Governo, Palazzo Stratti, Palazzo Modelo, the Town Hall, Palazzo Pitteri, and the Lloyd Triestion Palazzo. All of this overlooks the sea.

At the waterfront, people were milling up and down the cement walkway again certifying Europeans as strollers. As families, as couples, as groups of friends, people were walking up and down the walkway, taking in the soothing view of the Gulf of Trieste. Still, it was not crowded as one would expect for the end of summer. When we rode in on the bus, we noticed a number of people sunbathing on a concrete platform along the sea. Only one or two people were actually in the water at any given beach. There is not a beach to speak of, mostly rocks you climb down into the water. It certainly is not inducing to sunbathe if you cannot easily go for a dip to cool off, but the Italians are sunworshippers. I know from family history.

We by chance decided on a restaurant where the waitress working was from California up until nine years ago, she lives here now. She suggested we go to a bar “where there are other people like you”. We were not quite sure what that meant. What kind of people? We had just told her we lived in Hungary, where there other ex-pats living in Hungary there? Where there other Americans as bar guest? She once again reiterated that there would be people we would like at this particular bar and than added there are lots of "those" types of bars around the city. Interesting. She discovered all this from two orders of eggplant Parmesan and a few questions about where the best pastry shop in town happened to be. By the way, the eggplant was good, but the sauce needed to cook more. Even Ron, a non-Italian could tell it was not ready yet. As it turned out the pastry shop was the most highly rated by the tourism board as being historic, but it is closed for the month of August.

We gave in to our early hour start of the day, and went back for a nap. We had to get rid of that jet lag from that hour long flight. Within minutes, I was out and stayed out for three hours. After I revived from that drugged feeling I get when I oversleep, we took off to explore the city on a Sunday night.

After wandering for an hour, looking at menus, we decided on one for pizzas. I had the thrill of years when I found a pizza with sausage, sweet peppers, cheese, and tomatoes. The highlight was the sausage, though not enough, it was real Italian sausage, something I had been hunting for the last four trips to different Italian cities and have not found. The peppers were sweet peppers like I have grown accustomed to in the US, but never find in Hungary.

Ice cream, an Italian tradition, is not to be by-passed. As we were wandering back to the hotel, we by chance passed a large parlor of frozen delights. The pistachio screamed out to me and then there was this other flavor bufala, which was intriguing. I had both in a cup. Pistachios were more abundant than the ice cream itself, but I did not complain.

My mission this trip is not to leave with any regrets. It will be tough, but I will have to have ice cream, pasta, and pizza as often as possible.

We could not find any WiFi cafes or Internet cafes in the city. At the hotel, the young crew did not know of any either. What gives Italy?

Some pictures will be added by the weekend.

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Friday, August 22, 2008

SkyEurope Is No Longer a Budget Airline

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Many blogs out there are still reporting the fabulous fares on budget airlines. Taking a closer look, these blogs are really retail sites that suck you in to exploring their site further and receiving money for clicks on their links like an AdSense account. Budget airlines are not the budget savings they once were. Just as the major airlines are experiencing crisis proportions, so are the budget airlines.

Case in point: I decided I needed a summer break before starting to teach again in September. I will be in charge of a new program, which is creating a minor in Journalism. Most of my summer was spent researching reading books to use for classes and developing a curriculum. This summer was hot and drawn out. Many days, I spent working with my fall semester thesis students to get a jump on the semester, since I have seven of them. My last get-away was our short rain-filled days in Istanbul in March, so I was itching to get out of the city, even if only for a breather of a different culture. Searching the SkyEurope site after getting the e-mail newsletter stating they were having a sale, I booked us two tickets to Trieste, Italy. We leave this Sunday. The fare price for the two of us round-trip was 6,000 Huf. At today's exchange rate, it would seem that it is an incredible bargain at $39.73. Two tickets, round-trip from Budapest to Italy for $40.00? Wow! Here is where the hook comes in. You immediately start fantasizing about being away, even if you have no clue about the destination, romantic scenes flit through your mind. Honestly, I had no idea what the attraction to Trieste is still. I will blog it later. So as you go from the fantasy price screen and click "Continue", here is where the idyllic daydreams start to show the cracks and crumble into reality. There is a payment charge for using your credit card to book online. This happens to be 4,000 Huf ($26.50). The fee is much higher if you have the audacity to call their phone center or use a travel agent. Silly of me, but I chose to have a confirmation sent to my mobile phone: cost 250 Huf ($1.65). Because we travel with saline solution for my contacts, shampoo, conditioner, sunscreen, toothpaste, and so on, we chose to check one bag to store all of these "liquids" rather than hassle with trying to find the 3 oz. bottles needed. Budapest does not have a readily accessible travel store or any other to run out a purchase these little nnecessities. The fee to check one bag is 3,600 Huf ($23.85). Had we done the calculations ahead of time, we could have bought the things we needed once in Trieste probably at a lower cost. Now the hefty hidden charge, the "Fees and Taxes": 22,026 Huf ($145.86). So all in all, our BUDGET airline fare of 6,000 Huf or $39.73 transforms magically into a grand total of 38,874 Huf ($257.44) or $128.72 for each of us. For the unseasoned, this may still seem like a bargain and yes, it is cheaper and more convenient than the train. Points taken. However, just a couple of years ago, when budget airlines were budget airlines and there were 20 of them flying in and out of Budapest, we really had bargains. We flew to Zurich for 35 Euros each, total with fare and taxes, one way. We trained to Milan and flew home from Milan for 30 Euros each total with fare and taxes. "Those were the days my friend, we thought they would never end..." Actually, we thought it would only get better with the competition. If we could have forseen the future, we would have traveled more while the getting was ripe for the picking. SkyEurope tried snaring me once again yesterday. Their newsletter announced a 2 for 1 sale good until January 2009. Buy one ticket and the second one is completely free of fares and taxes. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Being a risk taker, I went forward for the potential shame moniker with thoughts of an autumn break get-away in mind. The problem is that SkyEurope only flies from Budapest to Trieste. Flying from Vienna or Bratislava had numerous choices. Each is only three hours away, but if it is an early morning flight, it would mean an overnighter in either city the night before. But, hey, 2 for 1? With that savings, why not? Here is the catch. We tried Vienna to city after city that interested us, but "No flights are avaiable for this time period". When you look at their calendar for October and November, you would think the airline had gone under. City after city only showed blank calendars. Trying from Bratislava, the same was true. Nice trick. We are offering you a sale, but we are not offering any flights. Ha, ha, jokes on you! Well, SkyEurope, you are now on my blacklist. We will take the train to Heidelberg visit one of my students there instead.

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Thursday, August 21, 2008

SkyEurope, Central Europe's first low cost low fare airline - SkySaver Program

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This was in my SkyEurope Airline newsletter today. At first, I thought it was a frequent flier program, but it is actually a test of faith. 1. You have to have faith the airline will not fold. (Unlikely for this one). 2. You have to have faith they will continue flying from your home airport. Ah, this is the clincher. They used to have over 15 destinations from Budapest, but they are now down to one: Trieste, Italy. Interesting marketing idea, but in these tumultuous times, it would be curious to see how many plunge into the program. SkySaver Program SkyEurope's new SkySaver program is an ideal solution for SkyEurope frequent flyers or small business entities to purchase SkyEurope services for their needs at a discounted price based on a prepaid account. Key benefits of SkySaver program: * Immediate bonus – from 10% to 20% depending on the amount deposited to Customer’s account. * No credit card fees (saving 4 EUR per one way flight). * No booking fees for the online bookings made through B2B account via www.skyeurope.com (saving 10 EUR per one way flight). The following SkySaver packages are available: * Sky Saver Basic (Pay €500, receive a bonus of €50) * Sky Saver Medium (Pay €1,100, receive a bonus of €165) * Sky Saver Premium (Pay €2,500, receive a bonus of €500)

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Friday, June 20, 2008

Budapest Airline News

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They won't be here for long.

New flights at Budapest Airport

Thursday 19 June 2008

Budapest Airport is to welcome several flights this summer, with new routes from a series of low-cost carriers. Wizz Air will launch eight new flights from Ferihegy over the course of the next two months. Flights to Greece will be added in June, as will services to Varna and Burgas in Bulgaria and the popular Spanish holiday destination of Mallorca. In July, Budapest will welcome Wizz Air flights to Sandefjord in Norway and Treviso in Italy. The Treviso flight will be the first service from the airline to connect Budapest with the airport near Venice. Fellow cheap flights airline SkyEurope will add two flights a week to Trieste in Italy, with Clickair introducing flights to Barcelona and Portuguese airline TAP increasing the number of flights from Budapest to Lisbon it offers. "The network of Budapest Airport has been enhanced with great, real summer destinations. In addition to increasing our connectivity, we will contribute to our passengers' holidays with favourable parking tariffs and special offers in airport shops," said chief executive Jost Lammers. Other airlines to introduce additional services to Budapest include Hungarian carrier Malev which is adding more cheap flights to Madrid and Stockholm. Wizz recently announced that it would add flights to Dortmund in Germany from Budapest in October.

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Thursday, April 24, 2008

Budget Airlines Again

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Since the last post with the comment on SkyEurope falling out of the sky, I have been keeping a sharp eye on the budget airline news. So many travel writers and travel bloggers, mostly US based are still shouting the praises of "cross the big pond with the cheapest flight possible and then traipse through Europe with budget airlines". What this tells me is that they are not really doing their research thoroughly enough. It reminds me of a recent travel article for Budapest that was in the travel section of a top Arizona newspaper just two months ago. The author was raving about the experiences of the Budapest thermals and spoke so highly of the Racs Thermal. The Racs closed down in 2002. Travel writers should try their absolute best to get it right. If you have not been to a destination in years, skip the topic and write what you do know about from recent trips. Here are some snippets of news from different sites about the troubles of European budget airlines. "Hungarians, Bitter says, are not flying as much as Slovakians or Czechs and most of SkyEurope's Budapest flights were filled exclusively with foreigners going on holiday. He adds that fares from Budapest and Prague to Western European cities are similar, but Prague flights are an hour shorter, making them by far a more profitable venture. He says the Slovakian economy is also stronger, growing at 14% annually compared with only 1% in Hungary. "It's night and day." For the full article see www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/04/23/223221/jason-bitter-slowing-down-expansion-at-skyeurope.html It also is a telling tale why Slovakia is going on the Euro in January 2009 and Hungary will be lucky to get there in 2012. Ryanair one of the oldest and most stable of the no frills is having problems as well. This was part of a longer article at www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/04/23/223145/high-fuel-prices-lead-to-airline-casualties.html "Ryanair warned earlier this year that its profits for the fiscal year ending March 2009 could fall by as much as 50% due to high oil prices and fears of recession. The carrier has embarked on a cost-cutting programme that will see staff salaries frozen and aircraft grounded this winter to help it cope with its rising fuel bill. "We will sit 20 of our aircraft on the ground this winter because it's cheaper than flying them," says Ryanair deputy chief executive Michael Cawley. 'That's wrong and it's a huge issue for us. We've made a virtue in the past of having year-round servicesbut I want to point out the difficulty we'll have this year.'" EasyJet jumps into the ring with the headline EasyJet exec predicts cull of budget airlines. The stark warning of a cull of low-cost airlines came as the British budget airline's shares fell more than 4 percent after another spike higher in oil prices towards $120 a barrel.

"There are currently about 50 low-cost carriers on the European market -- that's absurd," Francois Bacchetta, managing director of EasyJet France, told a news conference.

In a few years' time there will be no more than about three or four of us left in Europe," he said. Posted at www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSL2332471920080423.

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Monday, April 21, 2008

Comment on April 18th Post

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This comment came in regard to my post about budget airlines: "It's not just fuel prices. There are two more important reasons: high airport charges and Hungarians' reluctance to travel, the latter obviously due to the dire economic circumstances. I wouldn't have booked Skyeurope either. Chances are that the airline will soon go bankrupt, maybe even leaving passengers stranded. If you want cheap flights, try Ryanair. Besides being the cheapest, they're reliable." I quite agree that the budget airlines have been shunning Budapest due to the high airport costs and that Hungarians do not have the discretionary income to travel. We have used Ryanair in the past and were quite satisfied, but they just do not have many destinations from Budapest. Trying to bridge two of their flights together to get somewhere new and different, it has turned out to be less expensive to fly direct on a major airline. I had tried the former tactic last year when we were going to Scotland and had 43 different options of using two budget airline routes to get there. This was before anyone added Glasgow to their list from here.

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Friday, April 18, 2008

Bye, Bye the Budget Airlines in the Sky

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With Ron going back to the States for three weeks this summer, I was looking for some get-away for the two of us when he returned. I will be working on another Frommer's book due in by July 15th and will need a summer escape. Not too long ago, the budget airlines discovered Budapest and we were on everyone's flight path going to the usual (Paris or London) or the more obscure (Malmo, Sweden). We did take great advantage of these services and just about throw a party when a new one landed in Budapest or added new routes. At one time, I needed both hands and extra fingers to count our airborne blessings with fourteen budget buddies to share adventures with. Then fuel prices went and ruined it all. One by one they dropped out of the Budapest sky, some not even as much as giving a good-bye kiss before running off. Wizz Air targeted SkyEurope and advertised their plans to strip them of the Magyar majesty and they accomplished their goal for over a year. SkyEurope will give us another go come this June 8th with the paltry offering of flying from here to Trieste, a place we had not been. Thinking this through, a flight to Trieste would give us a couple of days there and then a short train ride to Ljubljana, where we really wanted to go. We could take the train directly to Ljubljana, but eight hours on a train is a waste of four hours of vacation time. Loaded with dates and alternative dates, I logged on to the SkyEurope website once I retrieved my old log in information. Score! I found a fare of 790 forints going and 2,900 returning. For $23.06 each, we could have that budget vacation this summer. For that price I did not even check with Ron. Onward budget soldiers, get that fare. Click next to continue. Next screen, add 2,550 forints to check in one piece of baggage. Well we travel light, our carry-ons are below regulation, but we have been refused bringing on board. To be safe, pay the fee. Click next to continue. Next screen, choose your seats. Wow, we can make a choice so emergency row, here we come with four long legs to stretch out. Click next to continue. Next screen, confirm your names, addresses, phone numbers. Everything okay? Click next to continue. Next screen, pay the piper. Total cost 65,989 forints ($437). Wait, there must be a mistake. What happened to the $23.06 round trip fare for each of us? After adding the luggage fees, I went back to find there was a charge to choose our seating each way, and the rest or the lion's share was taxes. Eight hours on a train can be so relaxing. You can get up and work around, they now have plugs for laptops, and think of all of the reading I can catch up on.

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Sunday, October 21, 2007

Language Issues and a Good-Bye

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I am having language issues with Google and the blog. Each time I start a search in Google or any other search engine, it defaults to Hungarian. The same with this blog. This started happening about a month ago and I don't know why. I checked my language preferences in Google every time I open it and change it to English. Firefox is in English in the tools section and has not changed. Internet Explorer is in English and that has not changed either. This is maddening, having to change each time I use it. I have cleaned the caches more than once and then did the changes yet again. There don't seem to be any new solutions that I can find when searching, so if anyone has any ideas, PLEASE... As we get closer to the end of October, we are coming to the end of SkyEurope airline's visibility in Hungary. As of November 1st, they will no longer fly into or out of Budapest. It is disheartening when an airline stops flying from your local airport, reducing the number of destination options. They flew to 23 cities from here and though some of those routes may be picked up by the force that drove them out, Wizz Airlines, not all of them will be covered. We had used SkyEurope often to go to Paris and Amsterdam. The fares were usually a bit lower than the competition. They will be missed. On the bright side, in October and then in November, Ryanair has started service from Budapest to Dublin and then Glasgow. Two places we cannot afford to visit often due to the state of the dollar. Of course when we went to Edinburgh in August, there were no budget airlines flying from here to there and to combine flights would have cost more than we spent on KLM. Maybe next summer.

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Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Amsterdam

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We woke at 3:00 am, called the taxi at 4:00 and was at the airport by 4:30 am for our 6:30 flight to Amsterdam. Chris and Mark who were traveling with us had just pulled up in another taxi. Check-in, which is supposedly 2 hours before a flight, had not opened yet. After we did check in, go through security, and passport control, we sat for a coffee to wait for the flight. We flew SkyEurope and arrived twenty minutes earlier than scheduled. After getting the luggage, we bought our train tickets to the Central Station and we were off. The trains leave every 15 minutes. At Central Station after a 25 minute train ride, we walked over to the transport office to buy our 96 hour transport tickets. Now we were good to go and off we went to the Golden Bear Hotel. Our room was ready, but Chris and Mark's was not. They put their things in our room and we took off to see the city. With this being my 11th trip here, the most recent being one year ago, I was the guide. Our first stop was automat that served French fries with peanut sauce. In the same area, there is a life sized 24 piece statue of the "Night Watch" done by two Russian artists. From here, we just wandered down the streets and did some window shopping. On our way back, we stopped for a beer and a Dutch gin. It was getting chilly, but the sun was pleasant enough to sit outside while enjoying our drinks to people watch. After getting hydrated, satiated, and motivated, we continued our walk down to the pedestrian mall and did some more window shopping, but at Waterstone books, I went in to shock up on English language books that I knew I would not find in Hungary. There were some new books by my favorite authors: Alexander McCall Smith, Margaret George, and Josten Gaardner. I bought them all, getting three for the price of two. Though they were expensive in Euros, I still paid less than if buying them new in the States. It was well after 2:00 pm by now when Mark and Chris's room would be ready, so the vote was to go back and rest. We met again at 5:30 in the lobby and took another walk before heading to the all you can eat Chinese restaurant for dinner. By 10:00, we were all dead tired, so decided on an early night for a full day tomorrow. Our room was disappointingly small. Having been to this hotel last year, I had a large room with a wonderfully comfortable bed; it was disconcerting to get a smaller room now that there were the two of us, when I had more luxury when I was here alone. The bed was so small for the two of us; I barely slept the entire night.

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