Suing Over A Bad Review?!? Come On!!!

While checking out other travel related websites to get ideas for how to improve/drive more traffic to this site, I stumbled upon this news article (http://www.news.com.au/travel/story/0,28318,26197059-5014090,00.html) about the potential for travelers who post bad reviews of hotels on the web to be sued by the hotel for defamation!  Is it just me, or does this sound crazy?!?!?

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First Time Flying Aegean Airlines

After a short one hour flight from Istanbul, we arrived in Athens, Greece this evening.   At the moment, there are no budget airlines flying to Athens, so we took a flight with Aegean, a regular carrier.  Although it was a bit more expensive (€180 for two one-way tickets to Athens), I have to say it was nice not to fly with a budget airline for a change!

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First Two Days In Istanbul

In an effort to be more “concise” with my blogging, I’m going to try writing shorter articles and be more brief when I talk about what we’ve been doing.  In the past, I’ve summarized several days into one blog, but this is a little different.  Right now we’re starting to research and plan our next leg – Southeast Asia – and I realize how useful people’s blogs can be when looking up information.  As a result, I’m making sure that I put any relevant and useful information into my blog entries while trying to be more concise.  Here goes attempt # 1….

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Bratislava In One Day

While planning this leg of the trip, we weren’t sure if we should bother going to Bratislava, capital of the Slovak Republic.  Most people don’t have much to say about it, other than the fact that it’s really cheap.  If you remember the movie Euro Trip (which totally doesn’t depict Europe correctly at all but was humorous nonetheless), Bratislava is the run down, dump city where they ended up with only $1.83 while trying to hitchhike to Berlin, but managed to live like kings thanks to the conversion rate.  Since it’s only an hour by train from Vienna, we decided to come spend 2 nights and see for ourselves what it’s really like…

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Bye Bye Prague, Hello Vienna!

It’s been almost 11 weeks since we’ve stayed in a mixed dorm with strangers at a hostel (the last time was Edinburgh, which I have yet to write about), but today it’s back to hostel living with strangers again!  Fortunately, our roommates are two totally normal and easy to get along with Australian girls that we have stuff in common with, the room is comfortable and spacious, and we even have an en-suite bathroom.  It’s not the best hostel we’ve stayed at on this trip (wi-fi doesn’t work in the room), but we can’t complain too much

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Old Farm, Moreton-In-Marsh

When planning the UK segment of our trip, we used Rick Steves’ website to compile a list of places to visit based on his recommended itinerary.  Visiting a town in the Cotswolds, a range of hills in west-central England, was fairly high on his priority list, so we decided to spend two nights in Moreton-In-Marsh, the only town in the Cotswolds which has a train station. I’m happy to report that, although it’s small, Moreton-In-Marsh may turn out to be one of my favorite places in England… (more…)

4 Days In Cardiff

This past Sunday we caught a very crowded train to Cardiff, Wales, where we’ve spent the last 4 nights.  Once again, I’m summarizing several days into one blog because our time here hasn’t been that exciting.  Cardiff is Europe’s youngest capital city and is growing quickly, but when there isn’t a major rugby match happening at Millennium Stadium, there isn’t a whole lot of excitement in the city…  (more…)

Bath In A Nutshell

In an effort to catch up on my blog articles, I’m condensing the remaining three of our four days in Bath into one blog entry because, frankly, our time in Bath wasn’t all that interesting!  It’s a nice little town and, after our first day of crappy food, we managed to find a few decent places to eat, but two days here would have been enough, and four days was total overkill.  Bath might be a good spot to holiday if I lived nearby and needed a relaxing getaway, but as a backpacker, it’s just overpriced without much to see or do… (more…)

Day 1 In London

Since leaving Spain and heading to France, the language barrier hasn’t been that big of an issue because we’ve always found someone that speaks some English, but I’m still very excited about the fact that today we’re back in a country where English is the primary language!  Not only do I not have to worry anymore about who I can ask for directions and stuff like that, I love the fact that we’re surrounded by sexy British accents!   This could be a great couple of months… (more…)

Overnight Ferry To England

Tonight we are on our first ferry ride of this trip, taking the Stena Line from Hoek van Holland to Harwich, England.  Stena operates two ferries from Hoek van Holland to Harwich each day, one during the day and one overnight.  We were originally going to take the daytime one, but when we realized our mistake about miscounting the number of days we had been in Schengen Agreement countries (as mentioned before, Canadian citizens are allowed in for 90 days out of every 180 without a visa), we changed our reservation to the overnight ferry.  Once we got onboard and saw that the ferry is more like a mini cruise ship and we have a decent room equipped with bunk beds and a washroom and shower, I was glad we took the overnight ferry instead.  At about the same price as plane tickets to London (€ 45 each including the train ticket from Harwich to London), I think the ferry is a much more relaxing way to travel and you save on one night of accommodations by taking the overnight ferry! (more…)