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I did an overnight at CHC and it was boring but I survived by catching up on AFF threads. One thing to keep in mind is the possibility/likelihood of a delayed arrival. The night I was at CHC the flight from SYD was 3 hours lare arriving. Imagine how you would feel if you had booked a hotel...

No visit to Bordeaux would be complete without a winery tour: We paid for a one hour tour of the estate with a tasting of two Grand Cru wines. We started by looking at the Chateau; that's our guide making a cameo appearance... Then inside where the magic happens... Cost was EUR18...

Arcachon A few kilometres north of the Dune du Pilat is another pleasant seaside town: Arcachon. After climbing the dune we took a stroll around town before heading back to Bordeaux... As it was a Sunday and the sun was shining, there were quite a few people out and about:

Thanks for pointing that out; I'm getting too old to remember all these traps.

Yeah, agree that the wine usually posts shortly after dispatch. I was specifically wondering about how long after the last leaf posts do you get the email to choose points or SCs. I have enough points in the pipeline to cover the shortfall but they are coming from QF hotel bookings and they...

Any recent data points on how soon the points/SCs offer takes? I'm needing 10,000 points by 31/12 for points club and thinking QF wine is probably the safer option.

One of the challenges of writing a TR is having sufficient internet quality to be able to upload photos. Hopefully back soon.

La Dune du Pilat Sixty kilometres southwest of Bordeaux is Europe's tallest sand dune. At around 110m it isn't as high as Dune 45 in Namibia (170m) that I climbed in 2017 but this one seemed quite a bit steeper (or maybe I'm just 7 years older)... Great views from the top:

Some more examples of how busy it is in Bordeaux (and this is December) And lots of restaurants have queues to get in... especially the following one that only serves one dish: steak with chips and salad. No bookings accepted; you just have to join the queue. Every time we walked...

You must be quite a lot younger than I!

I was surprised too. Most of SW France seems to have shut down once November rolled around but Bordeaux is very busy. Could have something to do with Christmas markets starting up or maybe something else but it is certainly very busy. Hate to think what it is like in peak season if this is...

What if LTG came with DSCs on all future bookings? I know; tell him he's dreaming!

Bordeaux From Saint-Jean-de-Luz we drove north to Bordeaux where we are due to hand our car back. I've been sitting on a few Hilton Honors points since before the pandemic but it's become difficult to get decent value since Hilton moved to dynamic pricing. I decided to bite the bullet and...

The Sun King (Louis XIV) Again from Wikepedia: In 1659, Cardinal Mazarin spent several months in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, from where he would embark on almost daily trips to Pheasant Island in the river Bidassoa (near modern-day Hendaye) for Franco-Spanish meetings that resulted in the Treaty of the...

Hendaye Heading around 15 minutes to the south from St-Jean you come to Hendaye, which is situated immediately to the north of the border with Spain; another pretty beachside town. Looking along the main beach with Spain in the distance...

Biarritz About 15 minutes drive to the north of St-Jean-de-Luz is Biarritz, so we took a day trip. We were last here in 2010 and there doesn't seem to have been much change except that the number of surfboard riders has increased. I came across this quote from Victor Hugo who visited in 1843...

Just received an offer from GHA that for a mere $US500 , I can extend my platinum status for 12 months and they will add 500 Discovery dollars to my acciunt. "So it will cost you nothing." But why would I do that when I can reach platinum by staying at 2 different brands or titanium after 3...

le Petit Train de la Rhune Earlier, I posted a photo of La Rhune, a 905 metre mountain just inland from Saint-Jean-de-Luz. There are two ways to reach the summit: you can either hike or catch the rack & pinion train: Le Train de la Rhune The train runs from March to October so we were not...

I was thinking more in relation to our support for Ukraine. How was the welcome?

Sare The last of the villages mentioned in post 275 is Sare, another village listed on the "most beautiful villages of France" website. Again a typical Basques village full of 17th and 18th century buildings. One of the more interesting war memorials I've come across: