Some Pics

Below some of the trip preparations I went through, not too dissimilar from previous trips.

5 June 2005

I finally tired of the strange game with Hotel Atlantis' email server, and used the Federal Hotel reservation website, and lo and behold, they confirmed my reservation in this well-reviewed and recommend little hotel in Cannes inside of minutes. Very cool. So, that completes the last of my reservations for now. All of the new hotels have been added to my hotel pages for the appropriate countries. I also added a page for Turkey. Reviews, naturally, when I get back. As for right now, I will take my chances in Budapest, Bucharest, and Sofia, and hope to get by without reservations. I think they might not be as heavily traveled as the usual tourist centers in the West. My trip schedule has been updated today - it now includes a detailed schedule for my Turkey visit.

28 May 2005

Got my reservation for Istanbul taken care of in a Frommer's favorite hotel, rated by the way, as especially accommodating for women travellers as well. The Hotel Empress Zoe appears to have a great reputation and is incidentally owned by an American expatriate lady and her Turkish husband. Her sister is there as well, so I've read. Once there, I will write my own review for this website. I read up on a great many hotels in the area, and had found some reasonable and well reviewed ones on the Expedia and Travelocity site, but when I looked this one up, I had a good feeling about it and decided to try it. It seems my one night in Vienna is taken care of too. I am staying in the long recommended Schweitzer Pension.

27 May 2005

Just 18 days to go. Ordered all of my rail passes today from Raileurope, a one-stop-shop for such things. Now to get the last few reservations done. Hopefully, by the time this weekend is over, I will be done. I am not going to worry about Rennes, but will try to walk-up and hope for the best. I am still waiting for confirmation from Cannes, and need to get one night in Vienna, because of the earlier flight out of Istanbul. So far this is a piece of cake compared to my 2001 6-month travel schedule.

25 May 2005

Changes! I realized that it would be far better to arrive in Grenoble the day before the Tour de France, and leave the day after they depart. I was able to arrange that with the friendly people at the Hotel Institut. I am still awaiting feedback from a hotel in Cannes for my four days at the riviera. Also, my stay in my hometown, Düsseldorf is now 5 nights.

26 Apr 2005

Success!! - I went straight to the source, i.e. the Adria Booking connection off their website, and they first put me on a waiting list, then then ended up confirming my reservation for 8 July. Meanwhile, my guess regarding Lance's career was right on the money. Lance announced his retirement, following the 2005 TDF last weekend.

11 Apr 2005

Another setback! - My friendly but obviously very naive Miami Adria Air representative sent me an email with an attachment that contained not only my address and phone number, but also my complete VISA card details, right down to the security code - all unencrypted, for anyone to intercept, as an MS Word doc for me to sign and mail or fax back. Needless to say, I immediately called my card provider, and stopped any transactions on that number and had them send me a new card. The bank rep. was shocked and fully encouraged the card replacement.

25 Mar 2005

I am happy to say that London is reserved, but sad to report that I lost out in Avignon. The lovely little hotel there is already fully booked for July. Imagine that. Now to find an alternate place or town. As soon as my "Let's Go France" guide comes in, I think I will try to find a hotel in Aix en Provence. It's not too far from Avignon, and a town that I had hoped to visit sometime anyway. Düsseldorf, Paris, London, and Grenoble are all reserved. Those were the most important places. Istanbul remains. After that, everything else is flexible.

A snag just happened. Adria Airlines seems to have a problem on their website. They list a flight on their schedule (time table), but it can't be accessed from the booking window. Since it does exist from Vienna to Instanbul (via Ljubljana, Slovenia), one should be able to fly it from Istanbul to Vienna. Travelocity, found that they were unable to make the reservation and wanted me to contact the airline. I usually use them to ferret out inexpensive overseas routes.

24 Mar 2005

So, here's the plan: I have a roundtrip ticket to Paris, but there is a plane change in London. Packing light, I will get off there and stay a few days in London. Then a flight from there to Vienna (one night stay) and on into areas I have not visited before: Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey.

In lieu of a 32-hr train ride back from Istanbul to Budapest, I decided to fly back from Istanbul to Vienna. Three hours after I get to Vienna. I will fly from there to London take the Eurostar train under the Channel to Paris (no stay) and make a fast dash to Grenoble to catch up with the Tour De France.

That about wraps it up. I am using my own website hotel links to contact the various hotels (others did, and later told me how well it all went), and where needed, find new ones in guide books and on the web. Once back, I will update the Hotel and Pics pages to reflect new countries, places, and accommodations, and rate the latter accordingly. As expected, most of the hotels simply changed their prices from Dollars to Euros. No one predicted the huge Dollar slump at the time.