European Vacation 2008

We needed a good rest after a long drive [560km] from Mestre / Venice (only interupted by the excellent lunch in San Remo). Menton is an old established little seaside resort town between the french border with Italy and the small State of Monaco – on the French Cote D’Azure.

We staid for two nights at the Hotel Price de Galles in the western end of town.
A normal 3 star establishment with clean rooms (ours with small balconies overlooking the Mediteranian), a good healthy buffet style breakfast and a small Restaurant “Le Petite Prince” where Jacqui and Jim had meal on the second night.

On our rest day (the 2nd day) we had an excellent lunch over the road from the hotel at Elsa Plage - a place not unlike La Fontana in San Remo.
Once again we enjoyed a mix of excellent seafood – Prawns, Calamary and Sardines with French fries and Salad.

La Fontana [Corso Imperatrice, 39] is a Beach Restaurant in the south western end of San Remo, Italy.
We had an excellent seafood lunch at this establishment two years ago.

After a long and often very fast drive (speed sometime reaching over 16okm/h on the Italian Autostrada in the Mercedes C220 Hire car we were supplied by Hertz in Mestre/Venezia) we left the “A7″ guided by the onboard GPS and joined the D52 coastal road to try and find the establishment on the beach. After one bad start ending up in a dead end paking lot running along the beach front – we could actually see the Restaurant – we got back on the main road (Corso Imperatrice) and found a parking spot just meters from two years ago and walking down to the place which has recent new paint job and some other restauration work.

The food was still as good as we remembered it
…. we ended up with two large plates each of mixed battered / deep fried seafood  and grilled mix of all kinds of fresh seafood – washed down with beer and wine and we left once again satisfied on our way to Menton in France – just west over the Italian border.

Yes we did tell the staff about our own San Remo on the Indian Ocean beach in Western Australia

Hertz had our reservation for a vehicle from Mestre – I made sure of this the day after we arrived in Mestre – Thursday 08.May.

When I went to pick up the car on Saturday 10.May morning – as arranged at 08:30 – it turned out that the car I had requested (Ford Mondeo Station Wagon) was in fact not available and I was handed the keys for C220 Mercedes Station Wagon (the arrange price was still the same – including a Return “Drop” fee of 735 EUR. This is charged when you take a car out of one country and they have to return the car to the originl country of pick-up. Obviously I was expecting an Italian licenced vehicle (in the normal Hertz standard clean condition) and I would drop the car in Nimes (France) on 12.May in the afternoon.

To my surprise I found the car to be dirty – ie NOT cleaned at all after the last hire – outside with dead insects all over the grill, panels, mirrors and windscreen and “dirt road” dust and water marks all over the rear of the car – and inside we (Jacqui) found old chewing gum and some what appears to wire from a bra on the floor on the passenger side. And as if this was not enough of an insult – I discovered the vehicle was in fact registered in France and I was taking the car back to France for Hertz – ….. I have obviously taken photographs of all the outside of the car.

QUESTION: Why should I pay a “Drop” (one way) fee of 735 EUR for a vehicle that we are taking back to it’s country of origin for the Hertz company ? – Obviously the last person who hired the car and left it in Italy (Mestre) has also been charged a “Drop” fee for the vehicle to be returned to the place he picked it up from.
I call that “double dipping” – Note: Obviously I also paid for the hire of the vehicle for 3 days – 10, 11 & 12. May as I did not return it before 08:30 on the 12. in Nimes.

We will follow this up on our return
NOTE: You can not get any response from the desk of a Hertz branch about your hire if you do not drop it back to the same place where you picked it up – certainly never if their are two countries involved!
Hertz FR is NOT able (or willing) to give (or offer) any help about the actions of Hertz IT.

I do wonder how HERTZ head office feels about this (?)

PS – The requested Renault Scenic was not available in Nimes either and we had to settle on an Opel Zafira 1.7l Diesel – which will only just serve our requirements for the rest of the trip.
And once again the usual spotless condition is not as expected. And I had to take a photo of a bad scretch on the Driver’s Door.

Venice / Venezia : Everybody who does any travel should see it – obviously!
However it’s not a place we would come and visit a second time. It’s not our kind of enjoyment, as we really do not enjoy too many people and big crowds. And it goes without saying – Venice is one of those places that attracts large crowds and many of these in large groups.

We did all the usual tourist bits one must do – a trip in a Gondula, Waterbus from the Railway station to the Piazza S. Marco and later a round tour including the island of Murano (famous for it’s glass). We did our walks through the narrow streets – window shopping, visited the local markets at Rialto and of course (one of the main reasons Jim wanted to come here) visited “Harry’s Bar”. The last could only be achieved on the second day as we (actually Jacqui was told) were not allowed in the establishment in our shorts – Jim & Hans that was. So on the second day we had our long pants on and were allowed in to order their expensive drinks.  Cost: 42 EUR (=~AU$ 67) for one cup of coffee and 2 “bellinis” (small glasses of sparkling italian wine with a dash of fruit juice) which this place is “famous” for. We were not the only ‘suckers’ – it seems they don’t have to do much else and as to standard of dress – well as long as men have long pants on it doesn’t matter about anything else ….. they quite happy to take anybody’s money.

But this establishment steeped in history isn’t the only one robbin’ you of your Euros. A trip taking 15 minutes from S.Marco to the Railway Station along the Grand Canal (3 people) sets you back 90 EUR. The cheapest cup of coffee I bought in Venice was 4.50EUR in a small backstreet cafe in Rialto

- BUT we had a great time and it was well worth the once of visit.

PS – You are not allowed to feed the pigeons – but there is a special photographer who will take your money for a picture with you feeding the pigeons on S.Marco Square.

We booked online into the Hotel Plaza in Mestre (Main land city associated with the Islands of Venice).

The hotel is located directly opposite the Railway Station which is supplying service to Venice every 15 minutes. And the other reason we chose this hotel is it’s close proximity to the Hertz Car Rental branch in Mestre (two doors away as it turned out).

The website [ www.hotelplazavenice.com ] for the hotel did not really reflect the excellent rooms and service available at this establishment. It is a lot cheaper than anything we could find in Venice. It has easy access – located on a main street and opposite the Railway Station – and has plenty of Parking. The staff is VERY helpful and the food is very good. Rich selection avaiable from the buffet breakfast. The Dinner Menu offers a good choice of dishes with extra specials and wines suggested by the waiter – all of whom very very well experienced and seemed to enjoy their profession.

This Hotel has improved this travellers opinion of Italian hospitality – which from privious experience was possibly ranking as the lowest in European countries.

We can highly recommend the Hotel Plaza in Mestre – in the 3 – 4 star category.

We did wish somebody somewhere had told us about internal EU flights – like the one we booked online with BA from London Gatwick to Venice Marco Polo – only allowing one suitcase per person into the hold and only one into the cabin (plus a Laptop and a hand bag).

We had to repack our suitcases at the airport.
We were VERY lucky to get an extremely helpfull service manageress – A lovely Irish lady – who helped us with selecting our cabin cases and than we repacked all our “sharp” and liquid items so that none were carried on board. The cabin items are allowed to be a lot bigger than we would ever get at the International in Perth [which is not allowing much into cabins at all ;-( ]

After that the flight to Venice was easy and over in a flash – just enough time for a coffee and two sandwiches supplied as in-flight meals

We had some wait (long line of passengers) before getting a taxi to our Hotel for the next 3 nights in Mestre. 30 EUR was not cheap – but than we found out nothing is cheap in Venice …… (except the water busses when there isn’t a strike and you only can get to some stations).

03.May – local Pub
WE arrive only a couple of hours earlier and made our way down the road to the “local” – which we are happy to report has not changed in the last two years (? have the TV screens got bigger ?).

We had the usual drinks – Jim his white wine by the glass, Jacqui her Bourbon & Coke, Hans his glass (or 2) of lager.
J & J had a big salad plate with “prawns” and smoked salmon
H had to try the local Bangers & Mash – done here in a large Yorkshire Pudding with an onion gravy – good honest tucker.

04.May – local small restaurant – used to serve a lovely bean soup – it’s now a trendy Tappas Restaurant.

Seeing the Pub does not serve food after 5pm on a Sunday we ended up here.
The small plates at about 6 pounds each are not too small and between the 3 of us we had 6 plates to share around – including some spanish sausages, Whitebait, Fresh Baked bread, King Prawns & some squid rings.

It was OK considering Tappas are a native of Spain and service was by a Polish lassie …..

 www.clarence-hotel.co.uk

This establishment in Windsor (West of London) has been our preferred place to stay for the last 3 trips to London / UK. It’s close to the airport (LHR) in a quiet location – except for being in the flightpath of the early morning (6am onwards) airport traffic.

The hotel offers comfortable onsuite accommodation and an excellent (friendly) breakfast service.
NOTE: Late night or very early morning arrivals are not well catered for as there is no “night porter” service and the front door is locked [every client has a key once signed in ]

Windsor is (as most will know) the home of the Royal Family (Windsor Castle) and it’s also next to Eton which is a well known College town.

Both towns – Eton & Windsor offer a good choice of little eating houses and speciality shops – some in old fashioned village atmosphere.

Our stay at this hotel: Saturday 03. -  Wednesday 07.May 2008
Rates: 82 pounds per person incl breakfast

We have survived the long flying stage from Perth to Hong Kong and after a brief period in transit on to London Heathrow airport.

The 8 hours stage from Perth to Hong Kong (departure 15min past midnight from PER – arrival 08:00 in HKG) must go down as one of the most uncomfortable flights we have been on for many years. The aircraft should have been taken out of service a long time ago. The Business Class area seating reminded me of “cattle class” on a Qantas flight I was on in 1994. OK – Anybody who knows me will agree that it is not easy finding seating for me that is comfortable – I am 2m tall and built like a “BSH”. That is one reason we do spend the considerable extra money on Business Class. I also make sure I have a seat in the front row so that I have that little extra leg room.
NONE of this was of any use in this aircraft.
But we were told by another frequent flying traveller that this airline (Cathay Pacific) is not the only one (he mentioned our own National carrier doing the same thing) who will put clients travelling this route (Perth to Hong Kong) into this out of date accommodation during a night flight where one expects to have some possible sleep time …… definately not possible on this flight !!

On a positive note: The cabin staff was most helpfull and attentive and even apologetic ….

The next stage to London was much more up to date with the modern business style seats etc. We got some good sleep at last and landed on time (4pm) at LHR. – The taxi driver gladly took my Google Map print out to get us for a fee of 65 pounds to our hotel in Windsor – where the familiar friendly staff made us feel at home. A couple of drinks and some food at the local corner pub before hiiting the pillows for a good nights sleep.

…… end of day 1 – 03.May 2008