December 28th, 2015 - Lisbon
Portugal was definitely on my list of places to visit before we leave Spain. In my ASB Spanish class, there is a women from Portugal who is always talking about how wonderful her county is, so I asked her for information and she obliged by sending me pages of recommendations. Also, as I am a big fan of natural hot springs, I found out that the best hot springs in Spain are in a small town in Galicia called Ourense, which is just north of Portugal. So we could visit Portugal and easily slip in a couple of days of hot springs. I told my parents that we were planning a trip to Portugal after Christmas and since my dad is now officially retired, he thought it would be fun to meet us there.
I booked cheap flights from Barcelona to Porto through Ryanair for about 34€ each way. I was able to find a great apartment for 8 people in Lisbon through Home Away as well as a huge house in Porto. I used Trip Advisor to find a house in Ourense. My parents decided they would spend a few days with us in Portugal and then do a tour of Andalusia.
We flew out of Barcelona on the morning of December 28th and landed in Porto shortly after noon. We picked up our rental car at the airport and started our drive to Lisbon. It was raining in Porto, and when we arrive in Lisbon it was pouring rain and windy. We found our apartment and settled in, unfortunately it was too wet to do any sight-seeing that evening.
Showing posts with label Ryanair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ryanair. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Paris Trip - Day 1
As I mentioned back in January, my parents decided that it would be nice for us to meet them in Paris in the Spring. So after months of careful preparations my parents landed in Paris on April 1st at around 10am. They had a few problems getting from the airport to the apartment that we had booked in Boulogne Billancourt. First of all, Boulogne is just outside of Paris and therefore most airport shuttles will not go there. My parents had to wait 30min for a shuttle at Charles de Gaule aiport that took them as far as the metro station Charles de Gaule Etoile. Then they had to haul all their luggage into the metro station and purchase tickets. I don't know why, but ticket machines are never intuitive. A very nice young women dressed like a metro employee with name badge and all, offered to help them purchase a ticket. She suggested they buy a 5 day pass so that they would not have to worry about buying tickets all the time. Each pass was around €35 so the women kindly bought two passes for them with her credit card and then gave my parents the tickets in exchange for €70 cash.
Tickets in hand, my parents took the metro and made their way to the apartment we had rented. Well, it was not until the next morning when they attempted to use their metro passes again that they realized that something was wrong. My mother's pass didn't work. They checked with the man working at the ticket office and he confirmed that the ticket she had was a one-time child's fare worth €0,70. It is easy to understand how they could have been tricked. They had already travelled 14 hours by plane, waited for a shuttle bus and then jet-lagged and weary they had to figure out the Paris subway system. I'm sure that most tourists would have happily accept help from a friendly local. Anyways, live and learn.
The rest of us arrived in Paris/Beauvais airport at around 9:40pm. I was actually able to book a private airport transfer to our apartment in Boulogne through http://www.bluvan.fr/. I was really glad that we did, because we got door to door service for €140 for 6 people. Our driver met us as soon as we came off the plane and we got to our apartment in around 1 hour. By some stroke of good luck, my dad just happened to be in the lobby of the building when our Bluvan pulled up. That was fortunate, because we actually didn't have any way of contacting my parents to let them know we had arrived.
The apartment was a nice, modern, very clean with one bathroom and two bedrooms. There were two sofa-beds in the living room and this is where the kids slept. We reserved through Airbnb and paid around €1000 for 6 nights. Seeing that we were 8 people staying there, I'm not sure that we could have gotten a better deal anywhere. The hosts were very accommodating of our schedule too. They waited for my parents to arrive in the morning and also allowed us to stay past 6pm the day we left.
Tickets in hand, my parents took the metro and made their way to the apartment we had rented. Well, it was not until the next morning when they attempted to use their metro passes again that they realized that something was wrong. My mother's pass didn't work. They checked with the man working at the ticket office and he confirmed that the ticket she had was a one-time child's fare worth €0,70. It is easy to understand how they could have been tricked. They had already travelled 14 hours by plane, waited for a shuttle bus and then jet-lagged and weary they had to figure out the Paris subway system. I'm sure that most tourists would have happily accept help from a friendly local. Anyways, live and learn.
The rest of us arrived in Paris/Beauvais airport at around 9:40pm. I was actually able to book a private airport transfer to our apartment in Boulogne through http://www.bluvan.fr/. I was really glad that we did, because we got door to door service for €140 for 6 people. Our driver met us as soon as we came off the plane and we got to our apartment in around 1 hour. By some stroke of good luck, my dad just happened to be in the lobby of the building when our Bluvan pulled up. That was fortunate, because we actually didn't have any way of contacting my parents to let them know we had arrived.
The apartment was a nice, modern, very clean with one bathroom and two bedrooms. There were two sofa-beds in the living room and this is where the kids slept. We reserved through Airbnb and paid around €1000 for 6 nights. Seeing that we were 8 people staying there, I'm not sure that we could have gotten a better deal anywhere. The hosts were very accommodating of our schedule too. They waited for my parents to arrive in the morning and also allowed us to stay past 6pm the day we left.
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| Inside our Paris apartment |
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Meet Me in Paris
Wow, it's been awhile since I last posted, but after writing about our trip to Andalusia, everything that we have done since we've been back does not seem worthy of blogging about. Now I am just looking forward to our next trip, which will be Paris in April!
When we were in Vancouver over the summer, Bob was talking to my dad about meeting up in Paris in the Spring. I honestly didn't think that it was going to happen, but my dad was serious about it and right after Christmas he booked flights for himself and mom to Paris on April 1st.
I lived in Paris with my family from 1984 to 1987. My dad at the time was working in the ministry of finance for the Canadian government and he got a 3 year posting to work for the OECD which was headquartered in Paris. I have never been back to Paris since, and neither have my parents. Since I have a terrible memory (long and short term) I am really looking forward to rediscovering the city that I have almost no recollection of and showing my children where I spent my pre-teen years.
So I had to quickly find some flights for us to go to Paris on April 1st. Inter-Europe flights are pretty cheap compared with flights within Canada. I found a flight through Ryanair, a discount Irish airline, for €32.99 one way. Compare that with a flight from Toronto to Vancouver which would cost at least €200 during the same time. All 6 of us are going to Paris and back to Barcelona for only €395. It was a few days after booking that Bob casually asked me which airport we were flying into. I had no idea, I hadn't even checked before I booked. It was then that I found out one of the reasons why our flight was so cheap. Ryanair doesn't fly into Paris-Charles de Gaulle, we are flying into the airport Paris-Beauvais, which is actually over an hour outside of Paris by bus. So not included in our flight is the €16 per person shuttle bus that will take us from Beauvais to Paris. Anyways, hopefully it won't end up being too much of an inconvenience.
Then it was time to find reasonable accommodations for 8 people in Paris. This was definitely not an easy task. I checked with www.homeaway.com which is my favourite websites for finding vacation rentals in Spain. There were some nice listings in Paris, but none were available. I checked www.booking.com, www.onefinestay.com, www.housetrip.com, www.flipkey.com, and www.airbnb.com. I quickly realized that there are way too many vacation rental websites, but when your search parameter is an apartment for 8 people in downtown Paris, the number of places available quickly diminishes.
Finally found a small two bedroom apartment in Boulogne Billancourt through Airbnb which is close to where we used to live (Neuilly sur Seine). So now at least the most important components of our trip are set and we have 2 more months to figure out the rest.
When we were in Vancouver over the summer, Bob was talking to my dad about meeting up in Paris in the Spring. I honestly didn't think that it was going to happen, but my dad was serious about it and right after Christmas he booked flights for himself and mom to Paris on April 1st.
I lived in Paris with my family from 1984 to 1987. My dad at the time was working in the ministry of finance for the Canadian government and he got a 3 year posting to work for the OECD which was headquartered in Paris. I have never been back to Paris since, and neither have my parents. Since I have a terrible memory (long and short term) I am really looking forward to rediscovering the city that I have almost no recollection of and showing my children where I spent my pre-teen years.
So I had to quickly find some flights for us to go to Paris on April 1st. Inter-Europe flights are pretty cheap compared with flights within Canada. I found a flight through Ryanair, a discount Irish airline, for €32.99 one way. Compare that with a flight from Toronto to Vancouver which would cost at least €200 during the same time. All 6 of us are going to Paris and back to Barcelona for only €395. It was a few days after booking that Bob casually asked me which airport we were flying into. I had no idea, I hadn't even checked before I booked. It was then that I found out one of the reasons why our flight was so cheap. Ryanair doesn't fly into Paris-Charles de Gaulle, we are flying into the airport Paris-Beauvais, which is actually over an hour outside of Paris by bus. So not included in our flight is the €16 per person shuttle bus that will take us from Beauvais to Paris. Anyways, hopefully it won't end up being too much of an inconvenience.
Then it was time to find reasonable accommodations for 8 people in Paris. This was definitely not an easy task. I checked with www.homeaway.com which is my favourite websites for finding vacation rentals in Spain. There were some nice listings in Paris, but none were available. I checked www.booking.com, www.onefinestay.com, www.housetrip.com, www.flipkey.com, and www.airbnb.com. I quickly realized that there are way too many vacation rental websites, but when your search parameter is an apartment for 8 people in downtown Paris, the number of places available quickly diminishes.
Finally found a small two bedroom apartment in Boulogne Billancourt through Airbnb which is close to where we used to live (Neuilly sur Seine). So now at least the most important components of our trip are set and we have 2 more months to figure out the rest.
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