Ryanair

On the move on a day of three halves

Some time ago my friend Rosa, now located in Girona, and I agreed it would be nice to meet up and that the next weekend when we were both available was 19/20 September. Shortly after fixing this, the Guardian Escapes promo offered me seven nights with flights and a hire car for £900 in Lloret de Mar which is less than an hour from Girona.

Just before my departure it transpired that the only day I could meet Daisy and Jerry visiting London from Boston was Tuesday 15. We had a lovely catch up over lunch at the Union Club which Jerry was amazed to find not filled with ancient men with monocles and moustaches – what a disservice films have done to us! We then strolled through Covent Garden to the Sir John Soane Museum to see an exhibition by a Dutch artist I didn’t know. I still don’t as it was closed. However the Hunterian Museum on the opposite side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields was open and proved fascinating and among the many amazing specimens the Hunter brothers collected, it had a modern day area with a film about knee replacement surgery, highly recommended by a former train driver who had had both hips and knees replaced – one down three to go for me! We then went the the Bridge Theatre to see The Orestaia Simon Stone’s riff on Aeschylus. What a piece of theatre! The obligatory glass box set here worked well to contain the pent-up familial emotions on display. Much of the script is produced during rehearsals which the actors interviewed on the Bridge website found equally confusing, stimulating and liberating. How quickly can three and a half hours pass? Very, when the acting, staging and concepts are this good. Brilliant theatre.

Now to the next day. Up early, walk to Lee Station with carry on suitcase and rucksack, bus from London Bridge to Liverpool Street, Stansted Express to the airport all went swimmingly. Except that the toll on my arthritic knee with added burden was considerable, such that I asked Ryanair staff if they could arrange for assistance for me at Barcelona and on my return. A wheelchair, while denting my pride, might get me through the labyrinth more quickly. Part one of day highly satisfactory.

The flight arrived slightly early but no assistance was waiting at the airport. Kind passengers helped my with my cases up the ladder at Stansted and on the ramp at Barcelona. We enter passport control where the content of about a dozen simultaneous flights must have been congregated I use the word carefully – literally thousands of passengers. I accosted an agent, showed him my assistance confirmation email and he jumped me up the queue with a few askance glances but because I was accompanied by a hi-viz jacket wearer it was generally accepted. So my expedited passage through the passport control hall only took ONE HOUR AND THIRTY minutes. Chaos doesn’t describe it. Then the instructions for getting my hire car were incorrect but the dispatchers were immensely sympathetic and helpful. RecordGo rental strong recommend. Sadly I need a double USB C cable to use my phone through the car display, but I set off along the Ronda Littoral through seafront Barcelona with fond memories of many past visits and the happy prospect of some restorative sun on my knee. Part two mostly bad with an uptick at the end.

Short lived. As I reach Barcelonetta the heavens open and the remainder of my ninety minute journey are with wipers at full blast and there is flooding in the many tunnels along the route north to Lloret. We got lucky up here as this morning’s TV images from Valencia demonstrated. I found the hotel first go and luckily it is right opposite a Parking so no more stress there. As it is a hotel largely used by package tours like mine despite its misleading name of The Fifteenth Boutique Hotel it is not what I would normally have chosen. It has a lift, and complete miracle 358 is the first on the right out of the lift. Dee and I used to joke that receptionists had been persuaded always to situate us in the room furthest from the lift. Room 358 is spacious and comfortable with a balcony looking over the pool. After a fairly onerous day, I decide to eat at the hotel rather than exploring in the dark with a few spots of rain still falling. Dinner is a buffet with cuisine from all over the world – none of it done with any finesse. The upside was that they had a bottle of Ramon Bilbao Rioja with which I am perhaps too familiar, but it rounded the day off well. Hasta mañana!

Malaga and Cadiz 2019

Battered, bruised, down, but not out

Well I think that goes down as the most unusual Boxing Day I’ve ever spent. I woke after fitful sleep. I can’t lie on my left side because my shoulder hurts – it took a bang when I fell back from the wardrobe. I can’t lie on my right side as my swollen right eye hurts so I have to try sleeping on my back and have been advised to keep my head elevated by at least two pillows. I feel like I’ve been laid out in the coffin already but in my birthday suit not my best suit. And I have to get clothes past the culprits before I can go – that’s top brass I can tell you.
884C9FD7-FA38-474C-8645-FCCC2C72CCEB However the hospital Hospital Puerto del Mar want me to report at 09:30 so off I set in a taxi the hotel has kindly called after my profuse apologies for their disturbed night of gore and mayhem. I had to take a taxi because from the interior of an ambulance I had no idea where we had gone and when I came out I got straight into a taxi back to the now calm hotel without really being very aware of my route or surroundings.

I report to Triage 1 and a ticket is printed out for me along with a page of sticky labels with my name, date of birth, admission number and cause of admission ‘Caida’ – fall. I wait for about 15 minutes before being called into Trauma 1 to explain to a doctor exactly what had happened. Well I knew sock, calcetin, take off, quitar, caida, fall, armorio, wardrobe and manija, handle. So I manage to concoct a narrative after which he nods sagely and sits me down to examine the cuts and stitches which he approves, does a name and number, day of the week, address in Spain etc as a concussion test and says he’d like a face specialist to check me over to see if the stitches will suffice or whether I need plastic surgery. Back to the waiting room for rather longer this time. Just like English hospitals there are too many people for the seats available and the one unisex loo is out of service. So I stand patiently, glad I’d had the foresight to bring my Kindle on which I was reading Kamila Shamsie’s excellent Burnt Shadows which combines Japan with India and Pakistan in a timely, tense tale.

A lady in blue with a face mask comes by and somehow I know she’s my face doctor. She must have seen a few others and then after a while she calls me into Trauma 2 and checks my eyesight with torch and fingers to count – no double vision and I’m glad that’s an index finger you’re holding up. She declares that the sutures will do the job and that no plastic surgery is required but they do want me to go to x-ray to check that no bones were broken – I think I would have known. So back to stand in a corridor outside the radiography room until my name is called. Eventually I enter and two young rather giggly radiographers are keen to know how to pronounce my unusual nombre. They try Raggett for size a few times and I tell them they’ve got it. A quick dose of rays and then back to the waiting area. The original doctor sees me again and tells me a nurse will give me a tetanus jab and dress the corner of my brow which persists in bleeding (sangrando) adding another verb participle to my vocabulary. He also said I should go to my Primary Care Centre in three days (it’ll be Monday at my surgery which will be the fifth day so maybe the stitches can come out too which he suggested should be in a week). The nurse then stings me horribly trying to clean up the mess a bit more and applies a big cotton pad with tape over my eye to stop the bleeding. Then I’m told I’m free to go and thank them all profusely for what has been excellent attention to a stupid accident. The worst part of it is that I had discarded a previous pair of freebie Bam socks because they kept slipping on my wood floors. Total idiot. Also I once heard a radio show a while back in which the presenters were discussing how sitting down to put socks on and off was a sign of old age. From now on I’m old.

I need a pharmacy and a loo by now so I walk away from the Emergency Department where I note I’ve been for just on three hours so I stride off towards what I believe to be the main Avenida Juan Carlos II that runs north-south through the new part of the city. It is and I find a pastry shop with coffee and churros so I set into those, recalling from goodness knows where that after a shock it was good to eat or drink something sweet. Well I’m not putting sugar in my coffee but a sugar coated churro will do the job. It also of course has a loo. Refreshed and emboldened I decide to catch a bus back up to the old city and my hotel. It worked fine with a one euro ten cents flat fare and there’s a pharmacy opposite the hotel so I get my prescription filled but have to repeat my now more fluent tale of Christmas Night. Jokes about amateur bullfighting and what the other guy looks like happen in Spanish too but armed with amoxicillin I go back to my now spotless room. I take pills and then a kind of, I suppose, post-shock lethargy sets in. I did of course sleep very little during the night and sit in an armchair and drift off a bit. Then alert again and turning on iPad mini to watch the footie later, I realise that what I’d written about Christmas Eve and Day had not saved properly so I had to recreate all that whereupon several photos duplicated themselves. Foreign internet, weird WordPress or just DRD – defective Raggett digits I’ll never know.

I feel I ought to go out and grab some lunch before it’s time for Prime to watch Watford at Sheffield United – my Blades-supporting nephew has wished us Happy Christmas and more wins but not today. But by the time I’ve thought about where or what it’s too late so I settle down to see the excitement of a lead unfold followed by a stupid penalty for their equaliser. So that’s draws home and away but at least this one had a proper goal and we’re off the bottom of the table. The later Leicester v Liverpool match is much more exciting and after that I decide that fasting will do me no harm and retire again for a disturbed but better sleep.

Friday morning sees me shower (avoiding getting stitches wet) pack and take my bags to the car. I then go for breakfast in the Plaza Espana and realise that my decision to visit the chapel with the Goyas before driving back to Malaga was muddled with 24 hours clock confusion – my flight is at 4.25 not the 6.25 in my head. However I can still make it easily albeit it not by the fully scenic route intended. But it gives my time to admire a few more of the fabulous buildings and squares of Cadiz – just why is it only men taking breakfast? – and amble through its cobbled streets to find that the Oratorio is open.

Cadiz Government

Painted Tower building

Typical street

Why do only the men take breakfast?

I go up to the chapel in which there are five frescoes around the ceiling, three by Goya although from the distance and the lighting you’d be hard pressed to tell it if you’d just happened to wander in in ignorance. Still it had been on the tick list.

Back one last time to the car park – huge so I always wrote my bay number on the ticket – set up TomTom for the car rental place and off I go. While we had previously gone all along the coast down to Tarifa to look across at Africa and then along past Gibraltar, today’s faster route went diagonally across Cadiz province giving me only a fleeting view of Gibraltar – It’ll be interesting to see what happens about that in the next few years. Then it was along through celeb/gangster country Estepona, Puerto Banus, Mijas, Fuengirola, Marbella, and on to Malaga. They are amused to see that the car has no damage, just me, so my tale is told again with winces and sympathetic handshakes before a shuttle bus whisks me into a surprisingly quiet Malaga airport. I’m quickly through security and off to the Sala VIP lounge thanks to my subscription to Priority Pass. It’s also nearly empty and I catch up on emails and messages before heading to the gate.

E6CC61F6-91DC-49F3-A7D6-51E11188EC4B As is the new norm with Ryanair the Priority Q is longer than the paupers’. But in, I think, a first for me we board through an airbridge not by walking across the tarmac and climbing steps. The captain urges people to stow their stuff quickly as we can actually make our 16:25 take off slot if they get a move on – since we’d seen him and the cabin crew walk past us twenty minutes earlier maybe they could have got the plane loading sooner. However we’re in the air on time and I can construct the last blog from this excellent but eventful Iberian adventure. Obviously I’ll have to post it later when there’s some wifi – probably back home. Where I now am.

Well after a perfect journey back as far as my car at Stansted after which I endured a thirty minute hold up for an accident on the A12 and then a diversion for a burst water main close to home in Kidbroke. Is that an omen?

Lisbon 2018

Departure Day

Why is it that the weather on your last day is always the best? I guess you could call it ‘Sol’s Law’. I got up quite early, used the hotel lobby WiFi to add pictures to yesterday’s blog, checked out, leaving my bags with the concierge and set off under the brightest of cloudless blue skies to where I should have made my way last night. The trusty Blue Line from Parque took me to the river near the ferry terminal and the one major area of the city centre I hadn’t yet explored – Alfama.

Breakfast in a sunny square was good but maybe I should have waited to feast at one of the more traditional establishments that line the narrow streets of Alfama. I didn’t get to check out why there was a big poster for Jose Saramago, an author I like a lot. However, refreshed, I make my way up to the cathedral a fine edifice with imposing twin towers and more tuk-tuk operators than you could shake the proverbial stick at. They could probably have taken me up to the nearby castle but I preferred to saunter in the sun through the narrow streets and plunging stairways of the district.

I felt doubly bad about missing fado last night as I though all the shows would start around 22:00 (a friend told me the best ones do) but many of the bars advertised shows starting at 19:30 so I might just have stayed awake,

Alfama is a fascinating district with many souvenir shops aimed at the tourist market but also dry cleaners, bag wash shops, hairdressers (no – barbers) and minimercados with those dim interiors that reveal so many product lines to the intrepid. Also there’s a full complement of churches as befits one of the earliest settled parts of the city. My foot funicular took me along part of the route of the famous Tram 28. The queue to board was already long so I just snapped it and thought of San Francisco.

After an hour or so of exploring I found a view of the river through a break in the street and made my way down steps and steep and slippery cobbles to Santa Apolonia which is the eastern terminal of the Blue Line. I thought I’d have another look around Chiado so rode the two stops to the Baixa-Chiado station. This must be one of the deepest stations on the metro (Google confirms it as the deepest at 45 metres) as I had steps and then four long escalators before reaching the surface. It was much livelier today than on my previous Christmas Day visit and after a bit of sightseeing and window shopping my eye was caught by a barber shop with beer. It’s a really funky venue where you have a trim with a Lagunitas IPA (if trendy, Sagres if not) while your friends enjoy a drink and/or a snack.

Time to head back, pick up bags and make for the Red Line to the airport. That was the easy bit. The metro delivers you to Terminal 1 and you follow signs to Terminal 2 as that’s what it said on my boarding pass. In a large concrete desert is a little bus stand with a shuttle bus to T2 – you have to be sharp to spot it! This takes you to the distant, isolated terminal which is exclusively for Ryanair, EasyJet, Whizz and Norwegian. It’s not connected to any other part of the airport – no lounge! – and is very sparse and functional. I do recall a lengthy bus transfer when we arrived but nowhere else have I ever had rubbed in so firmly “Hey guys you opted for low cost air travel – this is what it feels like”. Once again the Priority Queue was longer than the Other Q as they call it and since we all had to go to the plane by bus it didn’t really matter. The flight was thirty minutes late leaving and struggled with a head wind but my faithful Data Cars driver was there to meet me at Stansted. He’s a Pakistani with an MBA from London Metropolitan University and the best job he can get is driving. We had a lengthy political discussion all the way down the M11 fortunately with shared views about most of the ills of the modern world.

Lisbon provided an extremely pleasant break over Christmas. There is much more to see and do and it would feel very different at other times of the year. Worth another visit? Definitely.

Rome for Christmas

Il ritorno di Michele

I have now been back through the Rome blogs and add photos so if anyone 
wants to flick through them again you'll be most welcome.

Sorry Monteverdi – it was all that baroque last night and then on iTunes while I was writing. Ulysses’ return was a more dramatic story than mine and made for a fine opera we saw a couple of years ago. My return journey began with packing my one carry on bag – first time for a long time I’ve travelled without checked in luggage. Breakfast, checkout, store case with porter and set off to Galleria Borghese for a final cultural treat. The concierge advised the metro to Flaminio and then walk through the lovely Borghese Park. It is sunny and bright, not too cold and I stride off purposefully through the, indeed, lovely park. It dawns on me quite early that to get to the gallery it’s all uphill and nearly two kilometres. The signage is plentiful but confusing as there are several other museums and galleries in the park so the map had to come out a few times to confirm I was on the right path.

Borghese Park - Copy

A couple of pauses to watch red squirrels cavorting – why do they look so much more agreeable that the grey vermin I constantly shoo off my bulbs? – and I make it to the gallery shortly after my timed admission slot from 11:00 till 13:00 – one occasion when I really appreciate the timed-ticket system as it meant I was able to admire the works on display.

Borghese gallery - Copy — Galleria Borghese – at last!

Painting perfection

The permanent collection houses lots of Berninis but also had a special exhibition showing his work as a painter at which he excelled in his early years and then largely abandoned once commissions for sculpture and architecture filled his days. The first floor sculpture galleries contain pieces from ancient times, mosaic floors of great beauty and loads of Bernini busts in an amazing row through a long gallery. Perhaps the most startling piece is the prone statue of Hermaphroditus from the second century AD, reclining on a mattress sculpted by Bernini which you are sure will respond to your touch. But I was soon headed up the spiral staircase to see the paintings. Fortunately their Caravaggios hadn’t all gone to Florence and David with the Head of Goliath, Boy with a basket of fruit and others only seen in reproductions were there to marvel at. As indeed were Raphael’s brilliant Lady with a Unicorn (as on trend in 1506 as in 2017), and Deposition of Christ. There was a fine Bernini self-portrait and then Titian’s amazing Sacred and Profane Love which reignited my musings about secular and religious art prompted by last night’s concert. My time was up but I would happily spend another two hours absorbing the works in this elegant setting, where they are so admirably displayed. It was great not being shuffled and squeezed along a toothpaste tube of visitors.

Tempus fugit but memories remain

I decided to walk out of the park by a different route clocking a location for another visit, the highly regarded Museum of Modern Art on the way. Its facade was tempting but I did have a flight to catch. I arrive on via Flaminio close to a tram stop for the number 2 that I had used on Wednesday so waited for the next tram to take my tiring limbs back to the metro stop. I looked at my watch and it was exactly 12:25 the time my wife died a year ago.

Tram 1225 So I had a little moment and resumed my journey on a packed tram. I had time to raise a glass to her in the Piazza del Popolo and found another birra artiginale this time from brewery Beatrice with a pale ale called Diana – all very British royal family! With some complimentary crisps and nuts I was ready for the last leg. I had done very well using metro, trams and a bus and decided to treat myself to a luxury ride to the airport in the hotel’s shuttle bus which proved a good plan as we arrived in good time and I was able to find a seat and write a previous blog.

Dies irae

All good things come to an end and my very enjoyable first taste of Rome ended in anger with the inefficiency of Ryanair’s ground handling subcontractors at Ciampino airport. As this was my first trip for ages without checked baggage, I had paid the extra six euros for priority boarding that enables you to take your wheelie case into the plane. There was no priority line for check in and as I arrived at the top of the steps I was informed that my bag would have to go in the hold. I explained that I had paid for priority simply to be able to place my case in the overhead locker. ‘Well you should have checked in earlier.’ ‘I would have done but having gone to the desk to find there was no Priority Lane I had to join nearly the end of the Other Q, as you so nicely put it to the plebs.’ To be fair a helpful flight attendant did look at a number of lockers but to have removed the bags of non-payers to make way for mine would have delayed the flight so I reluctantly allowed my case to go to the hold and sat down to sulk my way home. Given all the alarms I’d heard about problems at Stansted during the week I guess I was lucky to be coming back at anywhere near the scheduled time. We landed and of course mine was the last case onto the conveyor – fortunately identifiable since no one gave me a baggage claim receipt.

All’s well …

Faith in customer service was refreshed as I arrived at the mid-stay parking exit. When you have pre-booked the gate opens on recognising your number plate. However on Christmas Eve I actually arrived an hour early so it didn’t clock my reg and no one answered the help button so I had to take a ticket. I half-expected to have to pay the price at the exit and then reclaim my costs later but a splendid operator, who did answer the help button this time, checked me on the system and opened the barrier with no charge for my extra hour. A quick run down the M11, a clear Blackwall Tunnel and back home after a stimulating and enjoyable trip. Exhausted but happy and with a welcome home hug from neighbour Jan, who lost her father two days before Christmas.

Rome for Christmas

Roman Holiday

This will be my first effort from a lovely iPad mini my son and daughter in law gave me for my birthday. So no pics till I get home as I haven’t yet got an SD card to iPad reader and took photos on camera not on this – doh! (Pictures since added to later blogs – ed.)

Come uppance

In a number of messages on Christmas Day, there might have been the hint of a smug smirk as Rome was bathed in sun and blue skies. Yesterday was good too but today saw me return tail between extremely soggy legs, wet through to my underpants – and no it wasn’t aged incontinence but penetration. I had booked a ‘skip the line’ tour of the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel. Well it might take less time to get in than if you start from scratch but we still shuffled along for 35 minutes, It drizzled a bit and I resisted the blandishments of brolly and poncho sellers. Then it rained, Brolly sellers like taxis had vanished, then there was thunder and hail. The TV later mentioned snow, trees down and traffic disruption. Showered, changed into dry clothes, fed and with the Milan clubs in extra time in the TIM cup semis – and with a nice Sangiovese = it all seems quite amusing.

Ryan there

It all started so well – except for Saturday in Brighton – I got to Stansted easily, spent time in the lounge, boarded quickly and got to Ciampino 15 minutes early – cue applause from the passengers. First time for ages I’ve travelled with only hand luggage – thankfully I did have room for a second pair of trousers! I had decided on the adventurous route to the hotel, taxis for one seem extravagant somehow. So I got a shuttle bus to Rome’s Termini station where I can get a metro to Cornelia on the A line which is six minutes walk to the hotel. If you take the right exit. Whoa! Metro stations are huge with lengthy tunnels, Cornelia is deep too, Thirteen steps, three long escalators and then twenty more steps to the street. It’s dark when I emerge and for the second time in two days – Lewes on Saturday – I finally resort to Google maps that says I’m 16 minutes away not the six I was promised. I eventually ask at a gas station and am told it’s back down the street I was on. I stride off confidently when …

Cop Con

Pulling my wheeled bag and with camera bag over my shoulder, I am forced into a lay-by by a car marked Polizia and told to stop, Cop 1 showed me ID and said there had been a problem nearby with some Germans and a lone guy at night was suspicious. It may not have helped that I said – in German – that I was not Tedescho doch Englisch. They then wanted to see my passport, asked if I had money and I showed them my wallet with pounds in it still. They then asked if I had euros as without local currency I could be taken in as a vagrant. I did have one of Dee’s highly organised purses with euros that I was going to swap with the sterling in my wallet later. They counted it, agreed I was possessed of suitable funds, They showed me the way to the elusive hotel and only when I’d checked in and unpacked that I realised they’d filched 50 euros. Short for Christmas present money I suppose, underpaid state employees perhaps and of course, after the journey and location problems I was maybe not as alert as I should have been. Lesson learned. And btw Milan 1-0 won AET so Paul Goss won’t be pleased.

GT bus On the football theme I was pleased to see this bus parked near the entrance to the hotel. Well Graham Taylor did get Watford into Europe and maybe we’ll need another Eurobus one of these days and we can dedicate it to his memory.