Geneva, Switzerland ~ Our Portal to Greece

Let’s begin by saying there are no direct flights between Seattle and Athens.  

That means for ‘commuters’ like us, we need to fly to somewhere else and then connect with another plane or airline to get the rest of the way – traveling in either direction.

The Jet D'Eau, Geneva's landmark shoots water 140 meters into the air

And we can thank that routing dilemma for introducing us to Geneva, Switzerland this year.

What I didn’t know about Geneva before going there:

Geneva's most famous clock

* A walk down Geneva’s Rue du Rhone reminds you why Switzerland is known for its watches. Watches and their (breath-taking) prices fill window displays of shops lining this road.  Think famous brand name watch and you’ll most-likely find it on this street.

* Geneva’s Old Town is home to the church’s Reformation movement. This year the city it noting the 500th Year Anniversary of the Reformation and the event’s calendar is filled with celebrations.

* Geneva is home to the European headquarters of the United Nations.

* So small and compact is this large city, that the airport is only six minutes from the heart of town and the train station is so close to the lake that you can easily walk to many of the hotels that front the lake.

Geneva's Old Town - home to the Reformation Movement 500 years ago

Back to the Airline Tickets and Gateway Cities for a moment: 

A number of you have asked how we get back and forth between Greece and Seattle. The possibilities are endless.  New York, London, Paris, Istanbul, Amsterdam, Munich, Dubai and Cairo are among the cities that we could transit when traveling between our two homes, on ‘The Hill’ in Greece and in the Seattle suburbs.

Our choice of departure city usually depends on the best deal on the airline ticket. That’s where The Scout comes in. He starts his comparison shopping weeks before our targeted travel dates, using Kayak.com. First thing we learned is that you automatically save money by beginning the round-trip on that side ‘of the pond’ and not from the U.S.  Second is that the departure city can have a significant impact on the cost. And third, be a bit flexible on travel dates.

Swiss chocolate really is divine!

Using our recent trip as an example:  We flew British Airlines from Geneva in June to Seattle and will return to Greece via Geneva in September. Our seats are Premium Economy – that upgraded little section of the plane that is not as cramped as economy and not as plush as Business.  Our flight from Geneva, about an hour and a half long, connected with the long-haul flight in London to Seattle. 

(We fly Greece’s Aegean Airlines or their code-share partners to and from Athens and our gateway city – usually for less than $200US per ticket). Even with that flight cost added on, it is cheaper than flying from Athens to Seattle. Go figure!

Had we flown Aegean directly to London and caught the long-haul flight, those Premium Economy seats would have cost $500US more PER SEAT than by departing out of Geneva and simply connecting with that same British Air long-haul flight from London. It was a screamin’ deal and we got to visit a city that had been on the ‘bucket list’ for years.

On a clear day, Geneva's colors are spectacular

Geneva: What was saved was spent

What we saved on airfare we probably will spend on our stays in this picturesque city on the shores of Lake Geneva.

You spend Swiss francs quickly but they sure are pretty 

I thought we were prepared for the Geneva sticker shock having heard horror stories from friends who’ve been there. We weren’t.

During a stroll on our first afternoon there I wanted a latte and chose one of the cafe’s with beautiful outdoor patios in which to drink it.  It was lovely, tasted okay and cost $8US. Luckily I’d changed my mind about the ice cream I’d considered having with it as it was listed as $14US a serving. At McDonald’s the next morning our ‘Happy Meals’  – no hash browns – cost $18US. You get the idea. . .

This charcuterie was served gratis with our wine at an Old Town restaurant

Tip:  We did find that the further away from the lake you got, the better were the prices.  We had very reasonably priced dinners – not inexpensive – but reasonable in Geneva’s old historic part of town and out near the airport. And the historic settings couldn’t have been more magical.

The Screaming Deal

Geneva's Transport Card - a FREE ticket to ride

On the flip side, one of the best travel deals we’ve ever gotten was Geneva’s FREE transport card.  Tourists staying at any of Geneva’s hotels, youth hostels or even a camp site are issued a free transport card at time of check in. It allows you to ride the city’s trams, buses, and trains (even to the airport) and also the yellow taxi boats that regularly zip back and forth to several locations along the lake shore. We never used a taxi and traveled everywhere on public transportation.

Bottom Line

In the end, the cost of Geneva was worth it. We are looking forward to our return.. For those who’ve said you may come visit us in Greece ‘some day’ keep in mind that flexibility in routing could be a key to savings as well as an introduction to some wonderful new place!

That’s it for this week. I’ll have more Geneva stories this fall. Again, thanks so much for the time you’ve spent with us. Hope your travels are healthy and happy ones ~

Linking this week with:

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France: Bon Jour from Village Marriott ~

We write from the northeastern French countryside where we are making our home for the week in our two-story traditional townhome, surrounded by lush green meadows and golf courses.

Nearby meadowland - France

We could almost believe we  were experiencing true rural life if it weren’t for the fact we are at ‘Village Marriott’. A few miles away – but thankfully not within sight of our ‘village’ -- is Disney’s “Ranch Davy Crockett” (595 cabins in a large wooded area) and “Parc Disneyland”, the theme park better known as Disneyland Paris.

Street signs showing the way to our Marriott Villag

Much more appealing to us is the fact we are smack-dab between two very real French villages – Bailly-Romainvilliers and Magny Le Hongre. Each hamlet is walking distance from our doorstep and offers traditional boulangeries, cafes, grocery stores, fruit and meat markets. 

Our home for the week

Our townhome for the week is on the left side of the building in the photo above. Our neighbors are from Dublin. Ours is one of dozens of two- and three-bedroom townhomes in the Marriott Vacation Club d’lle-de-France. It is, in other words, one of their timeshare or interval ownership properties.
Now before those skeptics among you quit reading because I’ve said those dastardly words: timeshare, let me tell you that timeshares aren’t what they used to be.

This stay, our first here, in fact is proving they really can be quite luxurious.

Kitchen, living and dining room. French doors open to the patio and lawn.

Our main floor consists of a dining and living room, a fully quipped kitchen, a laundry room off of it, and a half bath off the entryway foyer.The stairway from the foyer leads to two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom.




What brought us here was one of our favorite features of timeshare life: ability to trade what you own for some new place in the world.  We own at Marriott’s timeshare property at KoOlina on the west side of O’ahu, one of the islands in Hawaii.  Our units there called ‘lock off’ units meaning you can use the large size unit (think 1-bedroom condo) and lock-off the second bedroom (think oversized hotel room with wet bar, microwave and small refrigerator) and basically get a two-week stay for the price of a one-week, two-bedroom purchase.

It was one of our ‘hotel-sized room weeks we traded for this spacious townhome.

Along our route to the lobby

Our timeshare ownership in Hawaii has allowed us to trade time for stays at Marriott Vacation Clubs in Bangkok, Thailand, Spain's Costa del Sol and Phoenix, Arizona as well as here. A highpoint of each property is the amazing landscaping  - but I think this place has raised the bar on landscaping.

Our townhome is in a section of the development called Giverny, and fans of Monet know that many of his paintings were of his Giverny home and gardens. In tribute to him they have created here a replica of them on this part of the development.

Almost Monet's gardens

So I did the math on this stay and checking rates here for a week-long stay in June as we are doing, we’d be paying about 300-euros a night; 2,100, for the week which equates to about one year’s maintenance fees at our home resort.  The cost of the trade fee was less than $200 and we’ve still got a week left to use in ‘the big side’ of our Hawaiian timeshare. All in all a good travel deal.

Pool area, lobby, bistro restaurant

For those considering a stay here: The resort offers a shuttle service to Disneyland and to the RER train station, about four miles away.   It is about 10 minutes to Disneyland and from the train station Paris is 50-minutes away.  A week-long train pass – Pass Navigo Semaine – allows travel on trains, metro and buses in Paris as well as this rural area for about 27 euros a person. 

That’s it from this side ‘of the pond’ this week.  I know I promised a report on our Greek road to residency but it turns out we haven’t moved any further along it than we were last week.  Perhaps extending our time in Greece until the end of June will result in a conclusion of the journey before we return to the States. .. then again, maybe not. . .

Safe travels to you all and thanks so much for the time you spent with us at 'Village Marriott'. Hope to see you back again next week!

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First a trip to Costco, then to Hawaii

Based on temperature alone it really seemed a no brainer, that decision of ours eight days ago, to head to Hawaii sooner than our planned mid-January departure.

Directional sign Kaua'i

2017 began at our Seattle area home with daytime temperatures in the low 30F’s (-1C) and nighttime’s dropped to 20’s (-6.6C) and below. Snow had dusted our lawn and blanketed other surrounding areas.

In Hawaii day time temperatures were 79F (26C) and nighttime 67F (19C).

Beach on Kaua'i

A no brainer for sure.  But we were already booked to depart in mid-January for our timeshare life on Hawaii’s island of O’ahu and weren’t sure that a last-minute change of airline tickets and finding a reasonably priced accommodation on short notice was in the realm of possibility.

Sunrise island of Kaua'i

We put our spur-of-the-moment idea into action by checking the rental sites that specialize in timeshare and interval-home rentals. Our reasoning was that having a kitchen and eating at home would save both money and calories. Our go-to sites include Redweek.com and TUG.com (timeshare users group).  While both sites offered plenty of  ‘short-notice’ choices, the prices were somewhat inflated to our way of thinking, which might have been why they were still available only a week before the rental period would start.

Of course, we are talking January, the highest of high seasons – when many, like us, are desperate to leave the cold behind - so we expanded our search to include hotels. The destination didn’t matter, we were open to staying on any of Hawaii’s eight major islands.

Mural - Maui, Hawaii

Hawaii, our youngest state, sits in the Pacific Ocean southwest of the United States mainland, and is made up of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts that extend 1,500 miles from the Big Island (Hawaii) in the south to the Kure Atoll in the north. (Early day explorer James Cook happened upon them in 1778 and named them The Sandwich Islands, not because of their grouping but to honor the First Lord of the Admiralty John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich.)

State of Hawaii

Our search took us to our favorite booking sites including Kayak.com, Hotwire.com and Orbitz.com. In each case accommodations could be had, but when coupled with the potential airline change fee, a week’s rental car and a possible inter-island flight, we’d just about given up when a TripAdvisor reviewer mentioned traveling there via a Costco Travel Package. . .hmmmm, hadn’t thought to check there . . .

Maui, Hawaii

Costco, for those who aren’t familiar with the name, is a big-box, big-quantity warehouse-type store, that got its start in our town, Kirkland, Washington, several decades ago. There are now 674 Costco stores world-wide including those in Canada, Australia, Mexico, United Kingdom, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. It is a membership store that we’ve belonged to for many years.

In addition to large quantity supplies and food, we’ve found some of the best prices for rental cars are on its on-line travel site and we check there routinely before booking cars. (By booking through Costco the second driver  - me! - is always free.  That isn’t always the case when booking directly with the car company.)  Thinking back, a couple years ago we booked a Hawaiian get-away package for a hotel that had provided us a few nights of fun in Waikiki. Why hadn’t we thought of it earlier?!

Beach - Lana'i Island

Once again, Costco came through with a six-night getaway package on Kaua’i, nicknamed The Garden Island for its lush foliage that carpets its hillsides and valleys.

Kaua'i - the Garden Island

The package includes: six nights in a standard room at the Marriott Courtyard Coconut Beach, near Kapaa, an Alamo full-size rental car, buffet breakfasts for two, and a $50 gift card to Costco.  The hotel’s daily $20 fee is extra.

So was it a real savings? Yes! To the tune of $800, as a matter of fact.  We compared the prices of renting the hotel either from one of the sites mentioned above or from Marriott, the cost of renting the car (through Costco) and of paying for the breakfast separately. Our cost would have been $1,986 but instead paid the package price of $1,194.  The buffet breakfasts alone cost $23 per person and that would have amounted to $276.

Saved money changing our flights

The change fee with Alaska Air was a $125 per ticket, but the fare to Kauai was less than that we’d paid to Honolulu, so our change resulted in a $65 refund! (Sometimes changes do work to the benefit of the passenger, you just don’t hear about them as often as the horror stories related to cost increases.)

Hybiscus bloom - Hawaii

The inter-island flights will cost about $200, which we reason, we’d have easily spent going out for dinner and wine a couple of times here in the frigid Northwest.

Land of Aloha 

So here we are in Kauai where the morning temperature is 66F at 6 a.m. The Weather Channel tells us it is 35F and snowing back in Kirkland.  We standing on our deck barefoot wearing tee shirts and shorts, toasting the new day with a cup of Starbucks, awaiting sunrise.  Yes, that spur of the moment idea was a no brainer - and a good one at that! 

When we began the blog one of our purposes was to share tips about travel deals – and sources for travel deals – with our friends.  I want to assure you we don’t get any kick-backs or deals from the companies we recommend, including those mentioned in this post.  It was just such a good deal – and such an easily missed one – that we wanted to tell you about it. It also is a reminder to ourselves to think outside the usual box when we come up with one of these last-minute travel ideas.

Well be back next week and hope to see you here as well.  Until then, Ahh-Low-HA! as we say in Hawaii! 

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One ‘Suite’ Stay in Cairo

We didn’t sleep in tents. Nor did we burn camel dung to stay warm at night.

Camels are a reason to visit the Middle East and North Africa

Yet, when we talk of our desires to return to Cairo, Egypt, we often get the furrowed-brow, less-than-enthused response, 'You really liked it there?'  The kind that we know was prompted by images of us sitting in a tent with sand blowing about. . .roughing it in a barren landscape a la Lawrence of Arabia.

While I hate to burst the worry-bubble of well-meaning friends, let me just say, ‘Au contraire. . .’

Hotel chandelier - Cairo, Egypt

The reality is that we’ve had a rather ‘suite’ time in Cairo on both of our visits to the city. As result of their drop in tourism in recent years, very nice hotels come at very nice prices.

Athens is but a short flight from Cairo

Those of you regulars here know that since we’ve begun ‘commuting’ between Seattle and Athens, we have found that flying from that side of the Atlantic is much less expensive than starting in Seattle. That means 'Somewhere-Seattle-Somewhere' is cheaper than 'Seattle-Somewhere-Seattle'.  And one of the best departure cities we’ve found is Cairo, because it is inexpensive, its exciting and it is only a short flight away from Athens. Even with that short flight, we’ve saved big bucks by using Cairo as a hub city.

Morning traffic Cairo en route to our hotel there

But Cairo, with a population of more than 9 million, is so large a city that you want to stay near the airport if you have an early morning flight. (Or set out for the airport at 3 a.m.)

A welcome on our room's television screen in Cairo (it was promoting Kuwait City)

That’s why we’ve spent our night-before-the-flight from Cairo at the five-star J. W. Marriott, near the airport. The cost for a night there isn’t much more than we are paying this summer at the decidedly more basic Fairfield Inn and Suites here in Washington State.

J.W. Marriott - Cairo, Egypt

A plus of the J.W. is its free shuttle to and from the airport. A hotel representative met us in baggage claim and ushered us through the immigration/visa checkpoints.  A most welcome service after 20+ hours of flights and layovers.

While the entry and hotel exterior is rather plain looking, it is what awaits inside that makes for the treat! It simply feels like entering a palace.

Lobby J.W. Marriott - December 2015

In fairness, I must mention hotel security. Many of the large hotels we’ve stayed at on the other side of the Atlantic (not just in Cairo) do have strict security measures in place.

Often before the taxi or shuttle pulls onto the hotel grounds armed guards check the vehicle with the assistance of bomb-sniffing dogs. They open trunks and look under the vehicle. 

They also have x-ray machines for hand carry bags at the lobby entry.  At the J.W. Cairo our large suitcases were run through a separate x-ray machine. 

Early on in our travels, I’ll admit I found it a bit unnerving, but now – especially now -- I see it as rather comforting and mention it only because it is part of the reality of today’s travel, no matter how luxurious the hotel might be.

The Suite Life

Our 'suite' J.W. Marriott - Cairo, Egypt - December 2015

We booked ‘a room with a king bed’ on each of our stays. In December we arrived at our room and found we'd be staying in a suite with a bathroom alone as big as a hotel room!

Marble elevators - J.W. Marriott, Cairo, Egypt

And did I mention the interior of the hotel elevators were marble from top to bottom?

Our return leg of our round-trip ticket (Cairo-Seattle-Cairo) brought us back in March. We’d had a flight delay in Paris – one of their annoying hour-long airport strikes – which made our arrival in Cairo very late. We figured we’d be lucky to get any room and didn’t expect another ‘suite’ stay. 



Once again, that genie must have rubbed the magic lamp because this time not only did we have a suite, we had a two-story suite! (I didn’t know they even had such accommodations in hotels!) It was so late and we were so jet-lagged tired that we didn’t get a chance to luxuriate for very long. Early the next morning we were up and off to Athens.

Still, our stays there make for 'suite' memories. . .

You would sit here to get your shoes shined at the J.W. - Cairo, Egypt

As I said last week, we are in the midst of travel planning season so it is time to think about booking flights back to the States, even though we haven't yet headed back to Greece.

And I’ll bet it wouldn’t surprise you, if I said Cairo is tempting us again. . .of course, there’ll be that matter of getting there from Abu Dhabi, but I’m leaving those details up to The Scout.  I’ll just tell you about them after he figures them out!

That’s it for this week.  Hope your summer has been filled with adventures and fun travels.  Tell us about them in the comments below.  And hope to see you next week – bring some friends along! As always, thanks for joining us~we appreciate your time and hope we are inspiring you to stretch the comfort zone a bit, just as we’ve been doing.

I suppose I should add a disclaimer to this one: We pay the same prices at the hotels as you would, we are not 'comp’ed' for these stays nor are we paid for writing reviews of them. We are members of Marriott's rewards/loyalty program and therefore qualify for room upgrades if available -- a pretty 'suite' perk!

Linking this week with:
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Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday – 
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London ~ We Are Where we Are!

“We are where we are. Why DO you need the map?”

London's Theatre District

That is The Scout’s response when we set off on a DIY (do it yourself) exploration and invariably somewhere along our route, I start searching for the map that has disappeared in my purse. (No, we don’t do apps or downloaded pre-recorded tours.)

When you think about it, it is an excellent question and one to which I really have no answer.  Maybe I just like to get my bearings. Maybe I don’t want to miss something that might be nearby.

But in reality, we are where we are. . .what does it matter?

A garden on Park Lane - London

As I told you in earlier posts, circumstances prompted an earlier than planned return to Seattle from Greece, so we gave ourselves a few days layover in London with little thought to what we would do when we got there. We were blessed by the travel gods with blue sky and sunshine which encouraged our decision to explore the city on foot with no particular destination in mind.  So this week, take a look at some of the places we ended up with this devil-may-care approach. . .

The Old and New

Old and ornate giving way to sleek and modern

No matter what direction we walked there was evidence of the old, ornate architecture giving way to new buildings. Or they’d given way to new train connections which will certainly ease traffic woes in the city, but on the other hand, it seemed in some places have lost a bit of charm. Sleek, modern high rise buildings made it look like any other city.

Gardens and Squares

Manchester Square - Marylebone - London

There were squares scattered about the city – some were open and inviting and others, like the one above, Manchester Square, had no public access. All were different but picturesque.  This 18th-century Georgian garden square, not far from Oxford Street in the Marylebone area is in front of a mansion that is now the home of the Wallace Collection, a major collection of fine and decorative arts. It is open to the public free of charge.

Home of the Wallace Collection - Marylebone - London

St. James’s Park, near Buckingham Palace, is always a people-magnet and in spring its blooms were irresistible.  It is also open to the public free of charge.

St. James Park in springtime blooms - London

Buckingham Palace

You can’t visit London and not be drawn to Buckingham Palace. . .even if you are wandering as aimlessly as we were.  And sometimes you find you’ve arrived at just the right time, because the Queen just might be passing by. . . (She’s in the car on the right but I wasn’t expecting to see the Queen come by so didn’t have time to zoom in.)

The Queen really is in this photo - London

Even knowing the Queen isn't inside, one really must take a moment to admire the palace. How many times have we watched our television screens to watch the Royal Family step onto that balcony?

Buckingham Palace - London

Travel Tip:  Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Walk

Diana Memorial Walk plaque - London

If you want to do a DIY tour but aren’t ready to set out as aimlessly as we did, you might give the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Walk a try. It is a 7-mile loop marked with 90 sidewalk plaques like the one in the photo above. It leads to four parks, past three palaces and two mansions.  A downloadable PDF map can be found at: https://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/hyde-park/things-to-see-and-do/self-guided-walks/the-diana-princess-of-wales-memorial-walk

Guards Museum

Palace Guards at Work - London

Another bit of free entertainment we happened upon was at the Guards Museum, located near Buckingham Palace and just across Birdcage Walk from St. James’s Park. Troops were out practicing formations – and we had a front row spot at the fence because most tourists were back at the Palace waiting for the changing of the guard there.

Big Ben - London

I’ll sign off this week with a photo of Big Ben. I don't want you thinking we missed all the tourist ‘sites’ that London has to offer - our wanderings took us to many of them.   We walked 33.5 miles in the four days we had in this jolly ol’ town. There is so much to see and do that we could have doubled that distance, had we had the time and energy.  London isn’t an inexpensive city but there are ways to ‘do it’ inexpensively, as we’ve shown you in recent posts.

How about you?  Any money-saving travel tips for those heading to London?

We thank you for the time you’ve spent with us and so appreciate your comments. Hopefully you’ll be back again next week and bring a friend or two with you. . .we’ve got some travel plans to tell you about that might make some of you want to join us and may simply bring on a wave of discomfort for others of you. Until next week, safe and healthy travels to you and yours ~  

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