Travel Man

We’ve been travelling around but with little to report in the way of adventures over the last week or so. After Hythe we went to visit the ageing parental in Worth and stayed there for three nights. Visiting the ancient Cinque Port of Sandwich and meeting one of Heide’s chums. For those in New Zealand complaining about the cozzie livs, I’d just like to point out that a short black in a Sandwich café set me back £5.40, or NZD12.30. Yeah, you can keep it. We also took in a visit to nearby Deal, and saw Dad's grave monument.

We spent the night at a Heathrow Hotel, Radisson Blu, in order to catch our flight to Cyprus on Monday morning. I recall last time we did this I was less than impressed by the hotel, with it’s boast of being just 0.7 miles from Terminal 5. Yes, if you’ve got a pair of wirecutters. The hotel itself seems to have improved over last time, although the restaurant service was a bit slack. On Monday morning we were up with the lark, breakfasted and ready to catch a bus by 0725. The bus takes half an hour to get down the road, inching along – we amused ourselves by watching the snails speed past us – until reaching a roundabout where it could do a 180° turn and speed along the empty road on the other carriageway, make a couple of stops at more hotels to no avail, then depositing us at Terminal 5 five minutes later.

We got through security with ease, and then had a wait until our gate was announced. The refreshment options through security are somewhat limited: there’s a Gordon Ramsey restaurant (no thanks), Starbucks (double no thanks) or Pret A Manger. We found a seat and had a coffee and a tea: NZD16.08. New Zealand, you don’t know how lucky you are.

We arrived at Larnaca and made our way, in fits and starts, to Nicola’s new parental pile, in a village called Pyrgos outside Limassol, or Lemesos as we should call it. We spent a few days just chilling, playing bridge, and exploring the village (they’ve only lived there six weeks).

Our flights to Skopje were in the evening so on Friday afternoon we boarded the bus to Larnaca Airport and checked ourselves in on Aegean Airlines. After clearing security, we were stunned and amazed: different restaurants! Bars and cafés! Variety! Eat shit, Terminal 5!

Our plane, too, was an improvement on the British Airways flight to Larnaca. The plane was a next-generation A321 Neo, with more legroom, and a handy little clip-type thing on the seat back to hold your mobile phone. The refreshment offered was pasta salad and baklava – a far cry from BA’s measly packet of corn snacks. BA – once the self-proclaimed “world’s favourite airline” - is definitely second division these days, far outclassed by Aegean. We transferred at Athens, where we met some of the friendliest security guards I’ve ever come across, to a smaller Olympic turboprop to Skopje; but even this was more comfortable than BA.

We arrive at around midnight, but as last plane through on a half-empty flight we collected our bags quickly and were met by a very welcoming driver who took us to our hotel whilst giving us some information along the way.

We collapsed into bed, and didn’t need to get up early the following day. Our Balkans Tour doesn’t officially start until 1800 on Saturday.