NoNames European Vacation (Paris, Italy, Zurich)

[amaroo]

Paris, what a beauty! Always on the lookout for some new tips - we just booked a trip.

 

[GarrettM]

Paris, what a beauty!

Agreed. Our one and only trip five years ago was a last minute addition to our plans, as I had little interest in the place.
Can't believe how stupid I was, and the two days we spent there was nowhere near enough.

Looking forward to more of this report.

 

[NoName]

Apologies for the delay with this one. Not managing to get through it as quickly as id like but we will push on....

Paris Day 2


One of the early highlights of the trip was a visit to Disneyland Paris. While Mrs NoName may have been a bit indifferent to the whole thing, her two children (NoName Jnr & I) were very keen.


We made the short walk to the Chatelet Les Halles metro station so as to jump on the RER A train out to Disneyland and be there in time for opening. A pretty easy and uneventful process and we on board for the 45 min ride. Ok it wasn’t really uneventful.....

About 10 seconds after hopping on the train I noticed a gentleman (sic) with half his hand in my right pocket. When he realised that I had noticed he tried to nonchalantly remove the hand and pretend nothing had happened. I told him in no uncertain terms to get the $%#& away from me. He continued his pretend mobile phone conversation and turned around and exited the train (that he had entered 30 seconds earlier). A close call but a good lesson to continue to be especially vigilant when carrying around children’s items (prams, bags etc) in cities like Paris.

The rest of the ride was actually uneventful and soon enough we were at our destination.

The happiest place on earth!

NoName Jnr was thrilled to be here. He enjoyed going on several of the rides, seeing a couple of the different parades and characters that he recognised.

It's A Small World:

Alice In Wonderland Maze:

Princesses Parade:

Sadly, the fun always has to come to an end at some point and after long day walking around the park enjoying ourselves, the time had come to make the train ride home. This was a great day and something the whole family can enjoy. We will definitely return to a Disney park again in the future.


Onto the train and in a flash we were back at the apartment. We grabbed a simple soup an baguette from the shop around the corned for something to eat and then it was time to deal with an unexpected and unneeded inconvenience………

 

[NoName]

Paris Day 2 – Continued…..


Unknown to us there was an ongoing industrial dispute between Air France staff and management over pay (surprise surprise). No need to go into all the details but it seems that regular strikes were occurring (and may still be) which were causing severe disruption to their schedule as well as apparently costing the airline €300m. During the day I had received a text message advising that our Joon (AF low cost subsidiary) flight to Naples the next day had been cancelled. They advised that they would be in touch with alternate options.

Well, given we needed to be in Naples at the scheduled time so as to continue with pre-planned activities, we weren’t prepared to just sit around waiting for AF to help us out. A couple of phone calls that directed us to nothing more than a dead phone line and an internet link from a cancellation email that provided no help whatsoever and we were done. Logged on to EasyJet and €600 later we were on ORY-NAP the next day arriving at more or less the same time. As a side note, we never did receive any contact from Air France offering alternate travel arrangements. Another email the next morning with a non-functioning link supposedly allowing us to make the changes ourselves was all we ever received. Not a good look at all IMO.

With the drama sorted it was time to sleep. One more day in Paris and then it was off to Italy!

 

[NoName]

Paris Day 3

We decided on a slightly later start – 8am – for our last day in Paris. Walked down the road to a nearby café for breakfast. It was a similar story to our day 1 breakfast – croissant, hot chocolate & OJ. Do they all do the same thing around here? In any event, it was decent enough and the price wasn’t too bad so can’t complain.


From there we were back to the apartment for a quick tidy up before check out. Bags dropped at reception, taxi booked to ORY that afternoon and then we were off. We jumped on the metro to Barbes - Rochechouart and headed up the hill to Montmartre. We decided to be lazy and take the funicular up rather than walk the stairs. It was a bit of a novelty for NoName Jnr and he enjoyed it.

It’s really is a beautiful location at the church up the top with fantastic views out over Paris and the tourist crowds to boot.

Sacre-Coeur

We relaxed for a while just taking in the view until it came time to head back down. Down the stairs this time which wasn’t so bad and through the backstreets looking at the little shops as we made our way back to another metro station.

We wanted to go for more of a walk down the Champs Elysees so jumped off a few stops later.

Since it was lunch time we found our way into a close by restaurant. This was expensive for what we got. Food was ok and nothing to really complain about there but there is no doubting it was overpriced. Having looked at the menus of a few other places I feel like this is par for the course. You are paying for the location, no doubt about it.

We kept wandering, looking at the sites and through the occasional shop, all the way down to where we had been a couple of days earlier at the Place de la Concorde.

Charles de Gaulle:

Jumped back on the metro one last time, back to our apartment and then, all of a sudden our Paris visit was over. Taxi arrived right on time and off we went on our way to ORY. Good bye Paris. Our time was short, but we loved you just as much as we did 6 years earlier. We will definitely be back!

 

[Pushka]

Just returned from Paris also. The Reno’s around the Eiffel Tower are going to take 30 years. We were there just a couple of years ago and you could just walk straight to the area underneath. Not so anymore. We took so long to walk through the crowds to go through security we couldn’t be bothered checking to see if the gardens were still there but pleased you said they are. We found Paris rather more threatening this time which is probably a function of where we stayed. We’d stay there again but it’s a bit sad how the city has been changed.

We rebooked our Air France flight for last week as we couldn’t risk a sudden no fly. It was a cheapie so no bother. We were also impacted by the train strike but they refunded our money immediately.

 

[Milboo]

I’d have to admit to not finding Paris overly different in November vs 5 years ago.

 

[Pushka]

I’d have to admit to not finding Paris overly different in November vs 5 years ago.

I’m betting you could walk straight under the Eiffel Tower with no security and fencing and armed soldiers walking around.

 

[OZDUCK]

I’m betting you could walk straight under the Eiffel Tower with no security and fencing and armed soldiers walking around.

In 2011 fencing was not there but plenty of armed, constantly patrolling soldiers - and Petition Scammers.

 

[Pushka]

In 2011 fencing was not there but plenty of armed, constantly patrolling soldiers - and Petition Scammers.

Oh yeah. Petition scammers still present. We returned in 2015 and the soldiers were there but not a couple of years earlier.

 

[OZDUCK]

Oh yeah. Petition scammers still present. We returned in 2015 and the soldiers were there but not a couple of years earlier.

In 1976 there were no soldiers or even Petition Scammers!

 

[Pushka]

In 1976 there were no soldiers or even Petition Scammers!

Wow. Pristine.

 

[NoName]

ORY-NAP U24257 Somewhere towards the back

As most would know, Easyjet is a LCC and as such pretty much everything comes at an additional cost. While we had no choice about paying for our check in baggage, we were not prepared to pay to choose our seats, particularly when all that was left with 3 free seats next to each other were rows with extra legroom which were going for about €30 each. When we checked in online we found that the system had selected these more expensive seats automatically for us anyway which would have been fantastic except for the fact that it had also given NoName Jnr a seat in a row by himself. Of course, having a 4yo by himself was never going to be acceptable and when we went to drop our bags the staff were very happy to swap people around the cabin to accommodate us in a row about ¾ the way down the back. An early tick in the positive column for Easyjet.


We killed a bit of time on the free wifi in the terminal while NoName Jnr entertained himself in a little children’s play area which consisted of a bike which when pedalled powered a couple of flashing lights and an interactive semi-educational computer game (don’t ask me to describe it). After about an hour it was time to board and we made our way down to the gate. On we went and got settled into our seat. About 5 min later another couple came down and asked us to move. We showed the our boarding passes with the correct seat number which resulted in a puzzled look as they had the same number on theirs. Well as they say its first in best dressed and with a tired child we weren’t moving unless directed to by staff. They ended up going back up to the front where they were eventually directed to a couple of other spare seats. Not sure what would have happened if it had have been a full flight. In any event, we were happy and set to go.


This was a non-eventful flight so not much to report here. The leg room was diabolical but we had known it would be and given that our objective was simply to get to Naples on time, it was really of no consequence. We didn’t buy any of the inflight F&B but they had the usual types of items on offer – drinks, chips, chocolate bars etc etc. Just the normal LCC stuff really. Overall we were happy enough with the Easyjet experience. I have read negative things about the airline but we really didn’t experience them. Perhaps its hit and miss and we got lucky with a hit? In any event, we would be happy to fly them again for short intra-Europe hops.

Landed in Naples soon enough, grabbled our luggage pretty quickly and into a cab on the way to our hotel – Hotel Ideal. We had booked this hotel simply as a place to sleep before being picked up and driven to Positano the next day so we weren’t overly concerned about luxury. That was a good thing because it was quite basic, just a couple of beds and simple bathroom. It was located right next to the main train station so I suppose that could be a plus in terms of location, however my brief view of the outside area suggested it wasn’t the safest place to be. Of course I could be wrong so happy to be corrected here. Breakfast was included but was decidedly average. Most of the food looked (and tasted) like it had been sitting around for a while and had definitely seen better day. While the hotel served its purpose, the name is really a misnomer as about the only thing ideal about it was the price which was around A$100.

 

[NoName]

Naples To Positano


Up early and after the previously mentioned woeful breakfast offering we packed up, checked out and ventured out the front door to meet our driver for the day – Tony. We had booked Aldo Limos to take us from Naples to Positano with a stop at Pompeii and for lunch at a winery near Mt Vesuvius. Total cost was €260 cash. While we could have done the transfer ourselves a lot cheaper by taking trains etc, the convenience of door to door service as well as stops in the two locations made it well worth the cost, particularly having a child with us.

The drive from Naples to Pompeii took just under an hour and was pretty uneventful. Vesuvius was an imposing presence getting bigger and bigger as we drove, quite impressive to see. Soon enough Tony dropped us off at the entrance to Pompeii and we were out ready to look around the ruins.

This was well worth is stop to see such a famous historical place. It was an excellent experience to walk around and imagine what the town may have looked like before being buried in volcanic ash. Highlights would be the plaster casts of a couple of the bodies discovered as well as the Teatro Grande & The Forum.

 

[NoName]

Naples to Positano - Continued....


After a couple of hours we were done. Not because we had seen it all but because we were unfortunately time limited. While we spend maybe 2.5hrs here, you probably could use about 4hrs to see the whole area. It was definitely a worthwhile experience that I would recommend. From here it was off to Sorrentino Vini Vesuvio for lunch. This local winery is located right near Mt Vesuvius and was a pleasant place to relax and have lunch.

Mrs NoName & I went for one of the set menu options with matching wines while NoName Jnr had a kids meal of spaghetti which he barely touched. Oh well. Food and wine were great. We would definitely recommend visiting this or another winery in the region.

With full stomachs and feeling a little tipsy we jumped back in the car for the rest of the drive to Positano. Traffic was quite heavy and it was interesting to see the aggression that many drivers took weaving in and out trying to save time. We were glad someone else was behind the wheel rather than having to drive ourselves and this was reinforced when we began to get close to Positano and the roads became extremely tight as they wound their way around the cliffs.

Before long though our minds were off the hair-raising road conditions as we were distracted by some of the most breathtaking views we had seen.........

 

[ellen10]

I am enjoying your trip report. Well done travelling with an energetic 4 year old.
We have done quite a few trips with Easyjet in Europe and every flight has been a positive experience. I think it is one of the better LCC carriers.

 

[pgsdiver]

Loving this TR.
We are booked for Europe at the end of this year, although we'll have 3 kids with us which both complicates things and ratchets up the expenses.
Kudos for taking the youngster - while he won't remember details he'll have sights, sounds and smells that will stay with him for life.
Looking forward to the next instalment.

 

[Cossie]

In 1976 there were no soldiers or even Petition Scammers!

Might have seen you there!

 

[OZDUCK]

Might have seen you there!

I am sure neither of has changed much

 

[Pushka]

We took our 4 year old to the USA. We talk about the trip so much - it was an amazing trip across the country for 6 weeks and many Disney’s were visited, he says he can’t recall what he actually remembers versus what we have talked about. I think that’s good.