Bored in Berlin? Head to Poland for Lunch The Decision in Berlin Unsurprisingly, there is no tourism office in Rzepin. There are no tourists, and from a brief wander through the town, this is hardly surprising either. Coming here was a good idea. Dining at a lovely little local Bulgarian restaurant in Berlin last night, […]
Astana, now branded as “Nur Sultan” is the capital of Kazakhstan, and a completely surreal place to visit. I loved it Tourists in Kazakhstan are, it may surprise you to know, less than common in November, and Canadian tourists in Astana are particularly thin on the ground. The early winter winds show their face in […]
Dakar, Senegal is a most curious place Travelling in West Africa is complex because West Africa is complex. The last leg of my journey was a short hop from Guinea to Dakar. This 450-mile leg is as Dallas to Kansas or San Francisco to San Diego, yet we flew over four international boundaries. Had we […]
The Shosholoza Meyl train is a gentle introduction to private trains! Private Railways Private railway travel evokes some rather splendid images; The Orient Express and The Golden Eagle are but two of the companies offering the most luxurious of travel on board their private railway carriages. And wonderful they are too, to which I can […]
Aeroplan is changing; are we? The Aimia/Aeroplan saga trundles along as it will for some time to come, with a regular diet of smiles and positivity coming to us all from Aimia. This, of course, is to be expected, but there are certain elements of the future that are far from defined, and far from […]
Aeroplan’s slow demise started months ago, and Air Canada’s announcement yesterday that they were going to intervene in their headline program was simply an inevitable conclusion to a slow motion drama. That Air Canada did not own their primary trade-brand has come of a bit of a shock to a lot of people. First, some […]
Here, in a different spin on the blog, is a conversation that I had with CBC Radio’s Nadia Kidwai about the ever-changing rules and regulations about travel. Not only passport validity needs to be checked, and the requirements vary from country to country, but visas, childrens’ documentation and other entry requirements. Canada’s introduction of an […]
Are you again supposed to reconfirm your return flights? United Airlines – tell us it ain’t so …… A friend checking in to Lisbon airport this morning for a United flight to Newark was advised that his reservation had been cancelled three days previously. Curiously, he had been invited that morning by United to check-in […]
United Airlines over booking their flight, UA 3411, opened a difficult and messy can of worms. And not before time. More folks flying means more crowded and overbooked planes The United Airlines incident is a most instructive situation, and one that has drawn a number of issues to the public’s attention. I worked in the […]