Rosaline and I joined a Gate 1 Travel’s guided tour, called “13 Day Kaleidoscope of Central Europe”. It traversed through:
1. Warsaw and Krakow in PolandMost of these places are recognized by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites.
2. Budapest in Hungary
3. Vienna in Austria
4. Brastislava in Slovakia
5. Cesky Krumlov and Prague in the Czech Republic.
We departed LAX on 9/29/2016 and returned back to LAX on 10/11/2016.
We like traveling to Europe. We enjoy seeing the scenery, learning the history, exploring the historical sites, admiring buildings of different architecture styles, indulging in the convenience of modern lodgings, tasting the varieties of food, watching people going about their daily lives, and being awed by just about anything that is different.
Gate 1 Travel has frequently been recommended to us by many of our friends. It so happened that one of its Central Europe trips was having a discount so we took the opportunity to engage Gate 1 to go where we have always wanted to go.
The cost of the tour included round-trip airfare to Europe, hotels and ground transportation, breakfast every day, some dinners, a tour director throughout the tour, and local tour guides for cities we visited. Most of Gate 1’s tours have, for additional fees, multiple optional side trips during the course of the tour. These side trips include visiting additional castles or palaces, dinner on a river cruise, evening concerts, dinner at a farmhouse, …, and etc. Since we figured that we might or might not come to this part of the world again, we might as well take full advantage of the available options while we were there. We ended up signing up for all the optional side trips. The final cost, with last minute sale discount and 5% cash payment discount, came well within our budget.
Details for this guided tour can be found at Gate 1 Travel website https://www.gate1travel.com/europe/central-europe/2017/central-europe-tours-13dkalceu17.aspx
After hearing the story of a friend’s friend having a heart problem during a Caribbean cruise, and how his travel insurance airlifting him back to his home in LA, we purchased travel insurance for the very first time. We shopped online and found a policy from Allianz that was of about the same price as that offered by Gate 1 but with better coverage. We went with Allianz.
Our flight to Warsaw was via Air France. We first flew from LAX to Paris, then transferred to a connecting flight to Warsaw. Both legs of the flight were uneventful. Surprisingly I found the airline food on Air France quite good. I devoured everything on the plate. Maybe it’s my affinity for anything French? While sitting at the Charles De Gaulle airport waiting for our connecting flight, It suddenly dawned on me that we should have arranged to arrive in Paris two days in advance. We love Paris and we have wanted to visit it again. Rosaline loves looking at paintings. Last time we were in Paris we didn’t get to visit Musee d’Orsay to see its impressive collection of the Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces. We said we would one day go see it. During this trip, with careful planning, we could have spent two days touring Paris before heading to Warsaw. We missed our chance this time.
It was a Friday afternoon when we were on the flight to Warsaw. The plane was packed and we found that many passengers were going to Warsaw just for the weekend. It seems Warsaw, a two-hour short hop from Paris, is a popular weekend getaway for many Parisians.
We’ve checked in two pieces of luggage at LAX. They were tagged for destination Warsaw, via Paris. When we arrived in Warsaw, we were so glad to find our luggage arriving with us too. You can never be too optimistic about finding your luggage, or yourself, when on a multi-hop intercontinental flight. (Last year our flight to Rome via Chicago on American Airlines was a disaster). We retrieved our luggage and just walked into the waiting hall of the airport. No immigration, nor custom, to go through. We were very baffled and thought we might have made a wrong turn or stepped through wrong doors. Suddenly among a sea of greeting onlookers, we spotted a gentleman holding a placard with Gate 1 Travel signage. Only by then were we relieved and knew we had finally arrived at our destination. We soon met another couple, Paul and Linda from Seal Beach, arriving on the same flight for the Gate 1 tour.
The Gate 1 car service took us to the hotel. We checked in to our room and immediately went to meet our group of 40 people for dinner. Our fabulous tour director, Neira Milkovic from Dubrovnik, Croatia, went carefully over some logistic rules and issues. The dinner was in one of the hotel’s restaurants and the food was pretty good.
We got back to our room after dinner and were in awe of where we were. Just not too long ago we were still debating where we should go for our vacation; and here we were, in a room thousands of miles away from home and excited about the new adventure. We couldn’t wait for the daybreak to begin our journey.
Bye, bye, LAX,-Joe
Off we go, to a faraway place.
Somewhere on the opposite side of the hemisphere,
The weather is comfortable and a little chill.
A city of Chopin, not shopping,
How refreshing! It’s also very welcoming.
The journey is exciting and enriching,
I hope you find my travelogue worthy of your following.
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