Austria for Business and Pleasure

I started skiing relatively late, when I was 19. I was absolutely terrible at first. But I loved it and stuck with it and have been skiing for at least one day every year ever since.

This winter I decided to return to Austria, to a resort called Gastein which I visited back in early 2010 (see my post on that trip here).

My girlfriend and I flew to Salzburg on Saturday night. We stayed the night and had the biggest Austrian feast of all sorts of meat that you have ever seen at the beautiful hotel Grünauerhof in the suburbs.

The next day we headed for the mountains of Salzburg state to Bad Gastein. There, we skied for 2 and a half days in the warm sunshine, enjoying Austrian beer, schnitzels, sausages and goulash. Bad Gastein is a town built on thermal springs, which meant that after a hard day's skiing we were able to relax in the comfort of the spa, enjoying the region's healing waters.

We were due to fly back to London on Wednesday but a need to see some clients came up, so instead of jetting back to London, we caught a train to Vienna so that I could attend business meetings and that we could enjoy more of the Austrian cuisine. We visited a number of those classic Viennese coffee houses to sample traditional meals such as Sachertorte, Apple Strudel and Viennese coffee.

Ironically, even though it was sunny and warm when we were in the mountains for skiing, it was cold, snowy and windy in Vienna.  Battling the snow to get to business meetings was certainly fun, however, and beats a day in the office in London.

Miami to Mexico

My 2012 ended in Miami and 2013 began in Mexico!

I've never spent a Christmas in London. In 2012 I escaped last minute, and flew out on Christmas Day (which actually isn't easy, as there is no public transport in London on Christmas Day, not even the Heathrow Express.)

I thought Christmas Day at Heathrow would be quiet, but boarding the London to New York flight was anything but. It turns out, unsurprisingly really, that these cities' large Jewish populations disregard Christmas altogether.

Miami Beach

I landed in Miami on Christmas night and headed straight for my hostel right in the middle of South Beach's Art Deco District. I didn't have a lonely Christmas night, as the Miami Beach International Travellers Hostel is not a quiet place! The place is something of a party base. Between the party  atmosphere and  the warm weather (t-shirt weather despite it being the middle of winter), it was hard to tell it was Christmas.

South Beach

Miami is an interesting place. The main thing that surprised me (which I first found out on my connecting flight from New York to Miami, where I was the only English speaker apart from the American Airlines crew) was that it's mainly a Spanish-speaking city. With it's large Cuban population, Spanish is the main language used by the locals and English seems to be reserved for the tourists.

But I really liked the place - a much more relaxed part of the US than I'd experienced elsewhere, with beach culture and fitness being prevalent.

Florida Keys

After a couple of nights at Miami I headed back to the airport but not to fly. No, I was there to rent a Mustang Convertible.

I drove the red beast down the Florida Keys, across the long bridges of the Overseas Highway which I'd marvelled at on TV since being a teenager.

Hours later, after battling holiday traffic all day and lots of stop to take photos of....errr, Bridges, I made it all the way down to Key West, the southern most part of continental USA.

The problem with arriving at a popular holiday destination at sunset, especially one that's quite a small city, on a day between Christmas and New Years is that there isn't a lot of accommodation. I couldn't find anything.

In the end I ended up driving the whole 300 km back to Miami stopping off at various motels and hotels on the way with no luck whatsoever.

(Tip to proprietors: If your vacancy sign is lit up but there is no vacancy, turn the damn thing off!!)

Even in Miami I had trouble finding a room, despite going from hotel to hotel and in the end ended up at a run down motel near the airport.  Despite looking far from luxurious, I was desperate to get some sleep, so I went to enquire about a room.

I should have known something was up when they queried in broken English, "you want it for the night?"

Yes, of course I want it for the night, it's a hotel room, right?

Oh.

It's THAT sort of hotel room. Maybe I should have asked for the hourly rate. It's not like I got much sleep anyway.

"You can have room number 5, over there."

"OK," I replied. "Do I get a key?"

"No. Just lock the door behind you."

Upon entering the room and duly locking the door behind me, I definitely knew what kind of place I was in. The windows were boarded up so nobody could see inside. There was a TV, already on, showing only one channel - hardcore porn. And I didn't want to let my face touch the pillowcase.

I slept, shivering from the cold (I was too disgusted to get under the covers, and couldn't go to the car to get more clothes because I couldn't lock the door behind me) whilst thinking about whether my red Mustang would still be waiting for me in the morning.

Morning did, eventually, come. And I was out of there as quickly as possible. I left with my head hung low as I didn't want anyone to see me leaving the place, or the owners to ask "you sure you wanted it for the night?"

I drove to the nearest McDonald's and used their bathroom to get changed from the previous day's clothes and brush my teeth. You know you're in a dodgy hotel when you'd rather bathe in a McDonald's toilet.

Fort Lauderdale

I decided to head up North to Fort Lauderdale. The suburbs between Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale were quieter beach-side communities and really pleasant.  Fort Lauderdale itself was touristy, with nice beaches and plenty to do. This time I found a hotel nice and early, and enjoyed staying right on the beach.

Return to Miami Beach

I returned to Miami for 3 more nights culminating in New Years Eve. I stayed at the Miami Hostel on the non-beach side of South Beach. Despite being significantly further from the beach than the previous place I stayed, I would have to say it was one of the nicest, friendliest and most pleasant hostels I've ever stayed at. Guests culminated in the outdoor decked area to socialise and relax and prepare for their nights out.

Holding a baby alligator in the Everglades

I was excited to go on an air boat ride in the Everglades, something remembered seeing as a kid back in the 80s in the movie Police Academy 5 (which I thought was good at the time but click the link to see the awful trailer) to go alligator spotting.

New Years Eve was at the world famous Nikki Beach but it wasn't to be a late one as I had to get up at 5am on New Years Day to head to the airport to catch my flight to Cancun.

NYE at Nikki Beach

Cancun

I arrived at the aiport in good time and got through security quickly. Turns out early morning on new years day is a good time to fly. I managed to catch up on sleep for an hour or two in the lounge.

I arrived at Cancun airport about lunchtime, and started off my 2013 with some Mexican food and a Dos Equis beer, complete with lime, while I waited for my girlfriend to fly in from Canada, where she had spent Christmas.

Our first 3 nights in Mexico were spent on Cancun's hotel zone, in an all-inclusive hotel. The hotel zone is a peninsula some 10km long, which contains just about nothing but hotels and golden beaches. I know, it doesn't sound exotic at all, but after a week staying in backpackers hostels and dodgy motels, an all inclusive, beach-side stay, complete with hot tub on the balcony, is exactly what the doctor ordered.

My girlfriend and I spent the days and evenings lounging, drinking, swimming, drinking, eating, drinking and walking along the beach.

We did venture into town on the bus one evening, and experienced shopping in a real Mexican supermarket, where 1 litre bottles of tequila went for about £4/$6.

Isla Mujeres

For our last three nights we headed out of the hotel zone, and caught a ferry over to Isla Mujeres, an island off the coast. We checked into a hotel there which exceeded my expectations. It was the biggest hotel suite I've ever had, with a massive balcony overlooking the tip of the island, and, you guessed it, another balcony hot tub.

Isla Mujeres, while touristy, was more down to earth than the mainland resort area, and definitely very relaxed. Golf cart was the way to get around the island, which could be done in an hour or two if not stopping off at beaches for swimming and nachos.

My hot girlfriend drives me around the island in a golf cart

Unfortunately after 3 nights on the island it was time to leave the snorkelling trips and beach massages behind, and head back to London to proceed with 2013 in reality. 

Is NY still exciting the 4th time around?

Is New York City still exciting on your 4th visit?

Quite simply, yes.

The first time I went to NY it was awesome. What an atmosphere.
The second time I was in NY it was just as much fun.
The third time I went to NY was when Icelandic volcano ash cloud grounded flights in 1999 and I was stuck in the States while on business. Milling around NYC was starting to lose its exactingness.

Would my fourth visit be boring?

No. I was in town at the end of last month for a conference and although I didn't get out as much as I would have liked to, New York still provided an amazing, unique and unmistakable atmosphere when walking around those one-way city streets.

View from the top of the Rock towards the Empire State Building and Downtown

It was my first visit in Winter and I experienced both how bloody cold it can get, and how unseasonably warm it can be.  I enjoyed jogging in Central Park like a local, visiting the Top of the Rock and of course a lot of shopping!

A quiet weekend in the Cotswolds

Last Friday I took a day off work and ventured into The Cotswolds for a winter long weekend with my girlfriend.

The Cotswolds are a part of England not too far from London (just beyond Oxford) which have rolling hills and cute villages. Apart from the literally freezing cold, it made for a nice relaxing weekend away from the big smoke.

The weekend involved driving around the villages and going on country walks, and then warming up by the a fireplace in a pub.

The place we stayed is worth mentioning. The Feathered Nest Country Inn is a gastropub and B&B in a little village with views over the hills.  Great service, amazing food, large open fire and 5 star hotel quality!

2012: A year of travel in review

I have not been posting to my travel blog much this year so seeing as it is now December, I thought I'd write a summary for 2012.

• My year started well with waking up on New Years Day in Paris. I had got there just for new years eve (with only about 2 hours to spare) after getting spending the night on a bus stuck on a closed, icy mountain road in the French Alps and having to be rescued by the rescue services (see separate blog post). I would visit Paris two more times in 2012, both in November, with a business trip and a trip to Disneyland Paris in the same week. 

• My business travel year also started well. I travelled to Pennsylvania for business meetings, and combined the trip with a weekend in Atlantic City. I managed to lose both my passports on this trip and only realised on my way to the airport to fly back to London. Luckily I managed to get them back!

• The Spring was packed full of travel! A boys' trip to Las Vegas for a mate's 30th, a long weekend in Tenerife, a business trip and weekend in Ireland, a surprisingly rainy weekend in Gibraltar, and Easter in Australia, where I went just for a week. I surprised my parents as I didn't tell them I was coming home. On my way back from Melbourne I stopped over in Doha to look around. 

• During the summer, my parents were over from Australia. With them, I travelled to Prague and Venice, and also did various sightseeing around the south of England. 

• However, my main trip this summer was to the Benicassim Festival, on the coast of Spain between Barcelona and Valencia  We stayed at a spa resort instead of roughing it camping, spending the nights at the festival and the afternoons recovering on the beach.

• Autumn was spent chasing the last of the summer sun. I saw my parents off to Dubai on their way back to Australia, and had a weekend in Ibiza with my girlfriend.

• Other business trip destinations this year included Brussels, Madrid, Munich, Oslo, Prague, Vienna and Zurich.

• My travel year will finish off with flying to Miami on Christmas Day to get some winter Florida sun!

Overall less flights this year than 2011 but about the same distance flown:

Munich. Business or Pleasure?

I have not written in a seriously long time. Sorry for neglecting you! It's not that I haven't been travelling. I have. I have so much that I've barely had time to write. Plus I think I'm one of these people who starts a lot of things but finishes nothing. Which, of course, is a terrible trait.

So, where in the world is DK? Tonight I am in Munich. I flew in last night for some meetings today. The meetings finished in the late afternoon and I enjoyed the sunshine walking around town. I had dinner in the outdoor beer garden at the Chinese Tower in the English Gardens.  Bratwurst and sauerkrout with potatoes, mustard and a big beer, to the sound of a Bavarian brass band in Lederhosen playing on the tower. I felt very Bavarian.

It has been interesting summer weather here in Bavaria this week. Quite tropical, really. Warm and humid during the day, and wet in the evenings.

I stayed at a hotel last night (thank you, Mr Employer) but decided to book a hostel for tonight. I stopped off at the Hauptnahnhoff (central station) before checking in to change from my suit to shorts and a T-shirt. This had two main purposes:

1. It was pretty bloody warm and walking around in a wool suit in the sun is never that much fun.
2. I wouldn't be caught dead walking into a hostel wearing a business suit!

To be fair, I did compromise.  I had booked a private single room in the hostel, rather than a dorm for the night. Or so I thought.

It turns out I had booked a single room, but not for tonight. Rather, I'd booked it for a night next week. When in fact I will be in Spain. And there were no more single rooms left.  So rather than getting a single room for 43 Euros I got a twin room to myself for 70 euros. I could have got a decent hotel for that. Of course, that would be a much less interesting atmosphere.

Speaking of atmosphere, I'm sitting in the hostel bar right now. I just bumped into a bunch of people who conduct tours in Munich, including one guy I went skiing with near Salzburg a few years ago. Small world!

Christmas and New Years in France with the Fanaticas

If you know me at all, you ill know that I like to use all of my days off work for travel. When I found the Fanatics Skifest and Paris Combo tour, I knew it was perfect for me because it left after work on Friday 23 December and returned on Monday night, 2 January - absolutely maximising the Christmas and New Years break: ten days away for the price of 3 days' annual leave!

It certainly made for a Christmas to remember.

On the way there our bus driver got lost, and although we were driving from London to France, we somehow made it into Italy.  Thanks the extra few hours that added on, it made the bus ride there a whopping 23 hours.

We got there late on Christmas eve, too late for the French Christmas Eve festivities, but not too late to party. When you are in the snow with a group of 150 Aussies and Kiwis in their 20's and early 30's, you know it's going to be wild. Christmas Eve was spent in a rather drunken haze, and for the rest of the week the apres-ski didn't disappoint, as all of the nights seemed to me equally big.

The skiing was good too. There was a big dump of snow before we arrived, and for the rest of the week (bar the final day when it snowed again) we were skiing in glorious sunshine under bright blue skies.

Risoul, photo courtesy of Lucy

The snow did get a bit patchy and icy towards the end but it was manageable. Risoul is a small resort in the south of the French Alps, and our accommodation was true ski-in-ski-out.

I shared a room with an English friend of mine and a brother and sister from Townsville. The Queenslanders helped me get back some of my Aussie accent that had faded in London over the last few years.

Snowing on the last day

After six nights of carnage and one more day of skiing on some finally fresh snow, it was time to head on to Paris. The bus ride from Risoul to Paris was to be eleven hours. Our tour leader joked it might be more like 17. It turned out she had underestimated it.

A few hours into the drive the drivers decided to take the snow chains off the bus. They had some sort of problem with a piece of one of the chains getting lodged in the wheel, so it took them an hour or two, while we waited patiently watching DVDs' on the bus.

Then came the second hiccup. We came to an intersection where a rear-wheel-drive car without chains was stuck on the ice. No problem, a whole bunch of us got off the bus and pushed the car out of the way. By this time it was past midnight and I was getting ready to settle into the bus seat for the overnight bus ride.

But then came the biggest problem of all. In order to get us to Paris quicker, the bus driver decided to take a small detour. A short cut, if you will. It was windy B-road through the mountains, which I think would be treacherous at the best of times, but on this occasion, given the snowfall on our last day of skiing, was covered in ice.

GPS screen capture of where we were, courtesy of Eleanor

We got stuck on one turn, and as the driver tried to get us out of it, we started sliding down the road. The girls on the left side of the bus started screaming in a panic, as they looked out of their window and saw a sheer drop down the cliff next to them.

Most of us decided to get off the bus at that point, and wait for the drivers to get the bus around the turn. As we waited out in the dark, freezing, cold, they put some grit down and managed to get the bus moving again, with us once again on board.   But before you knew it the bus was sliding around on the ice, culminating with the back wheel in a ditch and the front wheels lifted firmly off the road surface.

The bus drivers called for their road-side assistance but a few hours later we were still waiting on the bus and assistance was nowhere to be found.

Eventually we were rescued by the French National Gendarmerie, who shuttled us down the mountain a few people at a time in their cars, and put us up for a few hours until morning in a hall of a local village. The next morning, once they managed to get the bus off the mountain and the bus driver had paid his fine for taking us down a closed road, we continued on to Paris.

Our 11 hours drive to Paris turned into a 24 hour drive and we made it at 10pm on New Years Eve. A quick shower in the hotel and we headed out to the Eiffel Tower, armed with imitation Champagne bought from (probably) illegal street vendors.  Made it for the midnight celebrations - just!

One more night of partying on the evening of new years day, and we headed back to London.