andreinicoara.com

While I still haven’t processed the last batch of photos from the Helsinki trip (the ones from the Sveaborg / Suomenlinna island), I did browse the net and found a few interesting links and newsworthy items.

The great news is that lazy-blogger Cristi restarted writing on his blog. A new look, a new language, and a flurry of posts in just a few days – I see great potential! And it’s said the third time’s a charm, right? So, blog.cristianradu.com is reborn!

I also read  a new photography blog (new for me, somewhat), where the latest highlight are photos taken in Iceland. Brilliant images! Pay a visit to La vie en gris – warning: it might give you a strong urge to travel and see the world through the camera lens.

The last blog-link for today is Go Backpacking, which I found by reading @Lonelyplanet. A lot of interesting stories, very well written and informative. The posts from a 15 months long trip around the world will probably keep me interested for a long time. An example of a very interesting post is “cost of a trip around the world“.

This week also saw the introduction of autumn special offers from a few airlines. KLM, Air France, MALEV and probably others started a new round of fighting for our travel budget.

KLM - highlights include round-trip to Amsterdam for 139 Euro, Air France – Paris for 149 Euro return. Malev has other interesting offers, a lot of them appearing as best buys in Skyscanner.

I will also return to the good habit of posting photos on the blog, but until then feel free to enjoy the photos an stories from the first links.

flights to China from Finnair

Found a pretty good offer to fly to China (Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong) from Finnair for 1655 ron, which translates to 396 euro. The offer is a special deal, so it is available only to June 3rd. The biggest problem though is that in summer China can be pretty hot. These days Beijing enjoys a scorching 37C.

Having said that, the price is pretty hard to beat…

The post today is going to have more of an utilitarian purpose. I know when I started to plan for the trip to China I was definitely looking for this kind of info. And while it is true that usually it is not hard to find specific info – and probably more detailed than what I am going to write here – it still might help people doing research. Or those to scared to consider a trip to China because of language barriers and concerns about managing day to day tasks.

Sadly this post cannot shed any light on long-distance bus rides, nor metropolitan transit in other cities beside Shanghai and Beijing. However, as I traveled Beijing – Shanghai by train and plane and in the cities themselves by a few means of transportation I hope I can give a general idea what to expect.

I will start with the long-distance and then move to short-distance.

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Today I will try to catch up with last two days events – mostly arriving to Beijing and first day spent here wondering at the strangeness of this city.

But first things first: the flight from Bucharest to Amsterdam (by KLM) was one of the nicest I’ve been on. It’s a shame that this was not the main one, but just the first step before the longer flight from Amsterdam to Beijing. I had the luck to be seated near the emergency exit, which meant (beside the mandatory emergency exit training) that I had a lot of space to stretch out. Really, I felt like in business class, without paying the premium. Also the food, while limited, was pretty delicious.

Also on this flight they handpicked the best-looking flight attendants I’ve ever seen. Absolutely lovely! The 2hr20 flight felt great!

Then, after a short layover in Amsterdam, things got worse…

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I started using TripIt to organize my trips. This website has a few nice features, among them nice graphic organization in a chronological order of flights, transportation, lodging, maps, directions, etc.

However, the greatest strength is the easy import of reservations. Using a simple e-mail forward, you can import flight details (from e-tickets), hostel bookings (from e-mail confirmations) or car reservations.

The website also tries to add content of it’s own: local weather, local maps, directions from airport to hotel amongst others. However, these are not always available.

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I promised some time ago that I will post some short info on the websites I use most frequently when I plan a trip.

I start today with skyscanner.net, probably the best flight search website (at least for low-cost airlines). There are lots of websites that allow you to search for a flight on specific dates, for a specific destination. But most often I do not have a particular destination in mind, nor a specific month. I am just waiting to be surprised. And Skyscanner can do that. (continue reading…)

Finally I finished doing the reservations for the trip in March…

4 flights, 2 air carriers, 3 hostels – so I finished the bulk of preparations. I am still undecided on the day-trips around Madrid and Lisbon, but at least the general plan is put into place.

So, I’ll fly to Madrid on March 14th and I’ll return on the 29th. Between 18th and  24th I will be in and around Lisbon.

I had surprisingly many difficulties with pricey flight tickets from Romania, and also with a certain lack of beds in the hostels that I really wanted. But all finished well, so now I can relax a bit and plan some details.

My inspiration is the Rough Guide to Spain and Lonely Planet Portugal (when a certain someone will lend it to me ), and I deffinitelly don’t lack possible destinations. Toledo, El Escorial, Aranjuez in Spain and Sintra, Porto, Obiedos in Portugal are main attractions, and I hope I’ll visit at least some of these places.

Next step is to fix my broken Canon lens and….I’m ready to go