Franchu's Lair » travel

Trip to Vigo, Spain

Franchu — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:18:25 +0000

Once more I had the chance to visit Vigo, a city in the north west of Spain. This time I was there for work, so not much time for sightseeing, but I think knowing where to stay and where to eat might be useful for someone. So there we go…

Hotels

The group was split in two hotels. They are not exactly the same quality, but both were ok and quite close to each other.

Hotel América – I didn’t get to see the rooms, but the people who stayed there said they were ok for a three star hotel.
Hotel Princesa – I stayed in this one, and even if the rooms are quite small they are clean. The people at the reception desk (Nestor) are really friendly, although they don’t speak english very well. You can check their website for pricing information.

Eating and party

As it is usual in Spain, there are many places where you can eat on a budget and the quality is good. If you like fish and sea food in general this is a great place to go to. Just walk around the center and try one of the many places that you will find.

If you want to play it safe though, we found a very nice place called “El Cortijo” on the street Rosalia de Castro 59. Pili, the waitress, took really good care of us. Ask her for help to know how much food to order and what are the best choices to cover the wide variety of regional specialities. She gave us some discounts for drinks at Marmara, a music pub on the same street walking towards the center. The average age was a bit high, but it was a fun place to finish the workshop.

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Trip to Poznan, Poland

Franchu — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:45:59 +0000

Last week I was in Poznan, Poland for a workshop and had a great time there. The city is really nice with its old city center and as soon as you get out of it you can still feel the communist past of the country. All in all a great experience for a westerner.

We sampled a few pubs and I recommend the following:

Brovaria: A nice restaurant/bar with its own brewery. They have wheat beer, normal beer and honey beer, plus a selection of good food.
Dragon: A cool place with lots of wooden stairs around a central patio. It looks like a castle
Johnny Rocker: Quiet place near the square. Good place to set a meeting point while enjoying a glass of Ziwiec or Lech (Polish beers)

You can see some of the photos of the city and the workshop:

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Trip to Budapest, Hungary

Franchu — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:05:44 +0000

After spending some time in Zagreb, as I described in a previous post we drove from Zagreb to Budapest. Before checking I thought that the two cities were quite far, but in the end it is just a 3 hours and a half drive on great highways.

As soon as you cross the border by car, you need to look out for a place to buy the vignette that allows you to drive in Hungary on the highway. There is nothing stopping you from going on the highway, but I guess you don’t want to be stopped by the police and having to pay a huge fine for not paying a couple of euros (If I remember correctly it was around 7€ for a four-day vignette). To buy it, you have to follow the signs that take you out of the highway with the vignette logo on them, and when you reach a restaurant or a petrol station ask for vignette or matrica (not sure how to spell it, but it is pronounced “matritsa”). They will ask you to write down your car plate number and then after paying you will get a receipt that you have to keep in the car in case the police stops you. From what we understood there, the enforcement of the vignette is carried by videosurveilance on the highway… if you get caught, you can’t say I didn’t warn you

When we arrived in Budapest it was really cold (-7ºC) for our Spanish standards and we went straight to the hotel. In Budapest we decided to stay at Le Meridien Budapest which is situated in the very center of the city, next to the famous Deak Ferenc street, and withing walking distance of Saint Stephen’s Basilica, the Opera, the Synagogue, the Parliament, the Chain Bridge and the Fisherman’s Bastion and the Castle on the other side of the Danube over the hills of Buda.

That evening we went to Buda to see the Fisherman’s Bastion and the Castle, and we were rewarded with an amazing view over Pest with the Parliament and the Chain Bridge as the most eye-catching visible landmarks.

The next morning we decided to enjoy the Sauna, Jacuzzi and swimming pool at the hotel to try to get warm before going out to freeze queuing to get tickets to visit the Parliament. After waiting for more than one hour, we managed to grab some tickets for the French/Italian last tour of the day. After all, we didn’t queue in vain! Nevertheless, as the visit was more than one hour later, we strolled through the center of the city and managed to visit Saint Stephen’s Basilica and grab a drink at BOB (Bacardi Original Bar) on the same square of the Basilica. The bar is quite posh but prices were not high (two hot chocolates for 4€).

We also tried to get into the Opera, but unfortunately the visits were at the same time we were supposed to be in the Parliament, and the big Synagogue was closed as it was Saturday.

We enjoyed very much the visit of the Parliament, and I’d recommend it to everybody. If you are a EU citizen you get 100% discount Not sure if it was because it was Saturday, but anyway, being inside is well worth it.

Just a last tip, if you stay at Le Meridien, try to get a room on the top floor overlooking the square. You won’t be deceived

And after all this text, take a look to some pictures I took while we were there. Hope you will enjoy them as much as I did taking them!

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Trip to Zagreb, Croatia

Franchu — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 07:00:22 +0000

No matter how many times I go to Zagreb, I always find something interesting to do there. It is one of these cities that are alive, and that are all the time changing. This time we went there for New Year’s Eve and even if it was too cold to go to Trg Bana Jelacica for Oliver Dragojevic’s concert, having a walk the first day of the year across a freshly snowed Zagreb was priceless

We stayed at the Sheraton Zagreb that is 5 minutes on foot from the train station (Glavni Kolodvor) and 10 minutes on foot from the main square (Trg Bana Jelacica). Pricewise, while it is not cheap, for the location and service that we got it was an outstanding offer. Great continental breakfast buffet, swimming pool and fitness center, and a very nice room with wired free Internet I’m really happy to have checked the offers, as during the low season prices are comparable to other hotels in town.

If you are hungry there is a little place behind the main square called Nocturno where you can eat pizzas, pasta or typical Croatian food if you prefer. Prices are affordable (around 10€ per person) and the food is really tasty.

Here you have some pictures that I took those days.

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Trip to La Palma, Spain

Franchu — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:18:39 +0000

La Palma is one of the seven major islands that form the Canary Archipelago. Being a volcanic island you can expect to see a mountain rise from the sea, meaning that in a 10 minutes drive you can be by the sea or on top of a mountain.

To reach the island you have direct flights from Madrid, or you can fly to Tenerife Norte (TFN) and from there there are hourly flights to Santa Cruz de la Palma (SPC). There are two companies that do the route: Binter and Islas. A friend from Tenerife recommended me to fly with Binter and so I did. A wonderful on-board service for the 30 minutes flight, and if you can get a seat on the left side of the place to get a priviledge view of the Teide peak as you fly near it

Hotel: I stayed at the H10 Taburiente Playa which is on the way from the airport (SPC) to Santa Cruz de La Palma. You have to take the exit “Los Cancajos” and follow down the road until you see the hotel on your right. Try to get a room with views on the sea and Santa Cruz de La Palma. Seeing the sunrise is breathtaking Beware though, that some rooms don’t have wifi internet access. Breakfast is a nice buffet with many things to choose and the inside of the hotel is stunningly beautiful (there is a waterfall and some lakes with live fishes!).
Meal: I never made it for lunch in the three days that I stayed in the island (too much work). For dinner I went to a little place 5 minutes on foot from the hotel called “ALAVASCA”. When you get out from the hotel, turn left and walk uphill until you see it on your right. The fried cheese with pepper marmalade is delicious Also, if you happen to be on the west side of the island near Tazacorte, there is a very nice beach bar in Puerto Naos, that serve natural fuit juices that are simply amazing.
Sightseeing: If you are a plane spotter, you have a very nice view of the runway facing south from the road at the exit you would take to go to the hotel in Los Cancajos as described before. Instead of turning right you can take the exit on your left and park on that side of the road for a priviledged point of view on the runway. I also drove around the island to reach each of the lighthouses that I had to work on and the views are amazing. You can find yourself inside a banana field and 15 minutes later you can be inside a pine forest. Be prepared to be surprised by the landscape! On the map you can see the landmarks of my trip.

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Trip to Zadar, Croatia

Franchu — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 06:13:10 +0000

Last summer I spent two wonderful weeks in Zadar, Croatia learning Croatian, meeting amazing people and visiting wonderful places that are very near Zadar.

For the Croatian lessons I attended the Lin-Cro school. We stayed in a house where we could cook and wash our clothes and within walking distance (10 minutes) of the place where we were having the lectures. In the morning we would go to the lectures, and in the afternoon we would go to the beach enjoy the sea and sun while we would do our homework.

During the course we visited Nin, an important historical city in Croatia, and National Parks Krka and Kornati. Both are amazing places to enjoy a relaxing day and have a swim in a non-usual environment. In Krka you swim by a watefall, and in Kornati you swim by a remote island

To go out in Zadar you can go to The Garden, a lounge bar by the sea on top of the city walls, or if you want a more dynamic ambience you can go to “Medussa” bar on the Kolovare beach (mostly Croatian music), or to “Maraschino” which is between the bridges.

For dinner, we hit several times a little place called “Malo Misto” where you can eat cevapi, another one called “Tu mi je lipo”, another little konoba on tri bunara square (really near The Garden lounge bar), …

While in Zadar don’t miss the monument to the sun, the sea organ, and walking around the city center in the peninsula. After all, most of the city life is around Siroka Ulica, the main street in Zadar

To finish with this little summary of Zadar, I recommend you to take a look at the photos and enjoy the sights of the city and its surroundings.

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Tráfico aereo mundial durante 24 horas

Franchu — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 13:41:47 +0000

Me acabo de encontrar un video con una representación del tráfico aéreo durante 24 horas. Es bastante curioso ver cómo se van activando las regiones en función de la hora del día y como se unen las distintas zonas del planeta

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Descuento en la autopista Asturias – Meseta

Franchu — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 10:45:55 +0000

Este mes he ido un par de veces desde Valladolid a Asturias y cogí la autopista Campomanes-León para evitar el puerto de Pajares (si vas con tiempo y te apetece hacer carretera de montaña merece la pena verlo).

Hasta aquí todo normal, la sorpresa ha sido cuando he visto en mi cuenta bancaria que tenía una devolución con concepto: “DTO.R.D.1752/07″. Y me he puesto a investigar porqué mi banco había decidido devolverme dinero, y con una referencia a algo que parecía un Real Decreto.

Buscando por Internet, me he encontrado el Real Decreto 1752/07 que estipula que para los vehiculos ligeros que realicen el recorrido más de una vez al mes, se les reintegre el 50% del recorrido Obviamente, esto solo lo pueden hacer si pagas con la misma tarjeta de crédito/débito o usas el Via-T. Si pagas en metálico te quedas sin el descuento porque no hay forma de que ellos lo automaticen.

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Wolpy, y tú, ¿dónde has estado?

Franchu — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:08:44 +0000

Hace bastante tiempo Ana Belén me mandó una invitación para usar Wolpy, un sitio web de su creación para colocar en un mapa los sitios que has visitado y poner comentarios de los lugares que más te hayan gustado.

Tras haberlo probado desde Mayo, me ha gustado mucho lo sencillo que es añadir nuevos puntos al mapa y las estadísticas sencillas que proporciona (de momento recuerdo haber estado en 298 ciudades de 24 paises! )

Aquí teneis mi mapa, os animo a que hagais el vuestro

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El manual del viajero intrépido (Qué llevar y dónde dormir)

Franchu — Sat, 03 May 2008 08:14:05 +0000

Seguimos con la serie del manual del viajero intrépido, y ahora que ya sabemos cosas sobre nuestro destino, cómo llegar a él, y hacernos entender, vamos a ver qué llevarnos y cómo encontrar un sitio para dormir.

¿Qué llevar?

Como primer punto es necesario saber qué tiempo hacer para planificar un poco qué tipo de ropa llevarnos. Esto nos lo dirán amablemenete en la página de weather.com cuyas predicciones a 10 días suelen acertar bastante o si necesitamos estadísticas de la climatología en años anteriores podemos recurrir a weather underground

Con la información del tiempo, podemos pasar a otra página en la que nos ayuda a hacer una list para que no se nos olvide meter ninguna cosa importante en la maleta. A continuación podemos seguir estos consejos para que no se arrugue la ropa que metemos en la maleta. Aunque también hay más páginas que hablan de ello.

Siguiendo con el tema de qué meter en la maleta, si viajas con más gente de confianza mezclad ropa en las maletas por si se pierde una que todo el mundo pueda tener algo de ropa limpia en lo que aparece la maleta extraviada. Si viajas solo, mete una muda en el equipaje de mano y por lo menos podrás cambiarte después del largo viaje si te pierden la maleta.

Un tema que se olvida con frecuencia es las diferencias entre loos enchufes de diferentes países y es bastante molesto llegar a un hotel con la batería del móvil y del portatil pidiendo una recarga como agua de mayo y darse cuenta de que los cargadores no encajan en el enchufe. Te sientes otra vez como el niño que intenta meter el cuadrado en el agujero circular Afortunadamente existen páginas que nos dicen qué tipos de enchufes hay en cada país para que podamos comprar un adaptador en el aeropuerto o en cualquier gasolinera antes de que sea crítico usar un enchufe para recargar algún dispositivo.

¿Dónde dormir?

Para encontrar alojamiento, yo suelo hacer una búsqueda online en cualquiera de estos sitios: Muchoviaje.com, venere.com y hostelworld.com

Otra opción es recurrir al CouchSurfing. Si estais interesados podeis leer el post de Harry hablando sobre su experiencia.

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