Daver6 World Tour 2016

[Daver6]

Coming down, we took the easy way
[video=youtube_share;-KNxuvIKiTw]https://youtu.be/-KNxuvIKiTw[/video]

 

[Daver6]

Didn't really get a picture that did Masada justice.


After the morning climb we hung around the pool at the hostel for a bit before packing up and heading for a swim in the Dead Sea. It really is worth doing. It is such a strange experience being so buoyant in the water.

 

[boomy]

Wonderful TR Daver6!

I have the privilege to visit Israel at least twice a year and it's such an amazing country, words can't describe!

 

[Daver6]

Another day trip to Akko, but first a stop in Haifa for breakfast and to see the Bahai gardens in Haifa. There is no public access to the gardens except for a free walking tour. You can't book in the for tour. Turn up early as numbers are limited. We missed out on the tour. Wasn't the end of the world as it meant more time in Akko.

 

[Daver6]

The old city of Akko is a walled city. The markets had such amazing food. There are several good fish restaurants in the town and that was our choice for lunch. I wasn't disappointed!

 

[Daver6]

One thing I'd avoid. We did the Templar tunnel walk. Was a bit of a waste of time (5 minutes) and money. On the whole though, Akko is great. Go with an empty stomach

 

[Daver6]

Otherwise the rest of the time in Israel was spent around Tel Aviv seeing family and friends.

Wanting to try Israeli wines but not having the opportunity to go to wineries we found a restaurant called The Tasting Room in Sarona (Tel Aviv). Its in the basement for an old building and takes some finding. However, they have 40 wines by the glass/half glass/30ml tasting from Enomatic machines. 36 of the wines are Israeli. The food was excellent too. There may have been a sore head the following morning.



The Azrieli Centre at night

 

[boomy]

The old city of Akko is a walled city. The markets had such amazing food. There are several good fish restaurants in the town and that was our choice for lunch. I wasn't disappointed!

Did you had the chance to go to Said for Hummus?
He is an institution in the old city of Akko.

 

[Daver6]

Our time in Israel had come to an end so off to London on a BA 777. Having never flown BA J I was prepared to be under whelmed. BA use the Dan+ Lounge. This is a step up from the regular Dan lounges, but still pretty average. Some booze and nibbles are available.

I had read that the last row in J is a good option as you don't need to step over anyone to get in and out of the seats. The cabin was maybe 40% full. So MrsDaver6 and I had two centre seats for the day time flight of about 5 hours. No one on the aisle seats so we avoided that awkward time of having to stare into a strangers eyes.

Of the two entrees they had run out of one by the time they asked me. Now I know for a fact I was about the 7th pax asked. I don't think they actually ever had it on board. Service while friendly was pretty average. Nothing was really wrong, but nothing was right either. I also thought the seat design was terrible. No personal storage except by your feet. You need to physically get up to adjust the foot rest. I can't believe BA persist with this design.

 

[Daver6]

Arriving in London on a Friday evening about 8pm we stood in line for about an hour to go through immigration. That was the express queue! Complete joke.

 

[Daver6]

Did you had the chance to go to Said for Hummus?
He is an institution in the old city of Akko.

No. Wasn't actually aware of Said. Next time. Damn, this is making me hungry

 

[boomy]

BA 777 J is terrible, problem is their direct competitor on this route, LY, have an even worse product!

 

[Daver6]

BA 777 J is terrible, problem is their direct competitor on this route, LY, have an even worse product!

No arguments there. Got to experience the BA A380 in J too. Much the same thought and will go into further details about it later in this TR.

What this trip has shown me is just how good QR actually are (although we did have an issue which I'll go into later in this TR too).

 

[Daver6]

Not too much to report from London. It was really a short stop, staying with family. Much good wine was consumed and fun times had.

Couple of useful bits of information. Using the tube is extremely easy for tourists now. You can just use your tap and pay credit card to enter and exit the stations. No need to first purchase an oyster card and added credit. Secondly, our flight out of London was a very early morning flight out of Gatwick. We decided to stay by the airport the night prior rather than having to get up at 3am or something ridiculous.

We stayed at the Hilton LGW. I would highly recommend this hotel if you need an airport hotel. You can access it all under cover from the south terminal. This is also where the train station is. Access to the north terminal takes about two minutes on a special train that connects the terminals. My lesson learnt though. There are a few different train companies one can take from central London to Gatwick. We chose the cheapest (and slowest). Fastest is just under an hour, this was about 90 minutes. Boy does it go slowly at times.

The hotel was pretty good. Copied from my post in another thread...

Arrived at the hotel about 7:20pm and there was a decent size check-in queue. Went to the EL to check-in and was upgraded to an exec room. Asked about suite availability and mention I'll be checking out at 5am. Upgraded to the junior suite. Pretty happy with that.

Lounge is small and quite packed. Food offering was average. After 4 days of solid drinking in London, I was that keen on alcohol but still had a beer. Went to the lobby bar for a burger for dinner.

Would happily stay here again. Pics to come in my TR thread later.

Please excuse the mess but here are the promised pictures.

 

[Daver6]

An early start the next morning for the short flight to Bordeaux. Given we were departing prior to breakfast, a breakfast to go was packed for us and waiting at reception.

Check-in was a breeze and non-existent security lines had us in the lounge quickly. I did notice our row 1 seats had changed to row 4. No problem back to row 1 from the check-in agent. The actual BA lounge is closed (not sure if being upgraded or just because BA are moving to the south terminal soon), so we were directed to the No 1 Lounge. The lounge isn't anything fancy but isn't bad either. The menu is below. Note you need to pay for premium booze. What I really liked what the library area which was away from the main section and nice and quite.




Upon boarding it became apparent why our seats changed. An aircraft swapped. Our new allocated seats were 1A and 1C. Plenty of leg room but given across the aisle was free we moved there. For a short flight the bulkhead wasn't an issue for me. Breakfast was server. Hot English breakfast. Not amazing, but did the job.



Finally the sun rose somewhere over the English Channel.

 

[Daver6]

Being a bit of a wine nerd, I got pretty excited seeing the Gironde and the northern tip of Entre-Deux-Mers


Seems I was a little remiss in taking pictures of our accommodation. Hotels were not cheap in Bordeaux and rather booked out. We wanted to stay somewhere central and were prepared to pay. We landed up at Best Western Bordeaux Bayonne Etche Ona which is smack bang in the middle of town. Location is excellent. Given Best Western matches you to their loyalty program without condition I quickly got matched to diamond from my HH diamond. In the end, I don't think I got any extra recognition or value from it, other than earning some more Best Western points. Turns out the four night stay was enough points to claim a $50 AUD pre-paid Mastercard. So I'm happy with that.

Arriving in Bordeaux I decided to use an UberX. Taxis are meant to be about 50 Euros and an Uber about half that. Instructions to the pick-up point were simple. Meet by the large wine bottle outside. Coming from Australia, when we say a town has a big sheep, lobster, banana we mean big. So I struggled to find the big wine bottle which was only about a metre high. We were picked up in a snazzy Infinity and the driver spoke English. Trip to the hotel took about 30 minutes.

The hotel is actually in two different buildings about 30 metres apart. It really isn't clear from the booking which one you need to go to. Obviously we went to the wrong one first, but it really wasn't a big deal.

We booked the cheapest room and I was expecting something tiny. We were pleasantly surprised. It looked like the rooms had been recently refurbished. The bathroom while not huge was more than sufficient. The only negative of the hotel is the wifi was slow at best.

I'd recommend the hotel, but perhaps next time I'd try another hotel in the same area. This was about our third or fourth choice. First few we wanted were booked out.

 

[RooFlyer]

After the morning climb we hung around the pool at the hostel for a bit before packing up and heading for a swim in the Dead Sea. It really is worth doing. It is such a strange experience being so buoyant in the water.
View attachment 84165
View attachment 84166

Just catching up with this great TR.

A question about the Dead Sea. When I visited, on the Jordanian side, the hotels and their 'beach side terraces' are all stranded about 20-25m above the level of the sea, due to the falling level of the sea over the past 20+ years (water taken out for industry >> rainfall input). This meant a climb down a path and scramble across some rocks to enter the water at the Marriott.

The beach you show I guess could be 'artificial' (or at least re-placed sand) but the hotels don't look too far above the water level either. Are they new-ish? Did you notice the drop in water level much along the Israeli coast?

This was the walk down to the water at the Marriott (about 30 years old). Much less nice, although of course they 'sold' the mud as a virtue - people did the face-pack thing.

 

[Daver6]

The area with the hotels you saw in the pictures is Ein Bokek, which is by the southern basin. My understanding is the water level hasn't dropped hear nearly as much. I don't know for sure, but some of those buildings looked at least 20 years old.

By Ein Gedi which is on the northern basin there is very clearly a massive drop. At the Ein Gedi resort and spa they have a tractor that tows carts (think train) to the shore which is a couple of hundred metres away now. The shore is much shallower, hence the greater distance but less dramatic drop.

 

[Daver6]

Bordeaux was an amazing place. I won't go into too many details and post typical touristy photos. Instead, I'll mention a few things that stood out.

On the day of arrival we just spent the day walking around the centre of the town and along the river. Essentially just taking it all in. It is a really pedestrian friendly town. There is also a tram system which is easy enough to use.

The following day we went to La Tupina La Tupina, restaurant in Bordeaux, presents various restaurants for lunch based on a recommendation from a friend. This place specialises in all sorts of meat and 95% is locally sourced. It wasn't cheap and really rustic, but we loved it. Our waiter was fantastic too and had a great chat with him about his time in Australia as well as giving us plenty of local knowledge.


This chop was huge. The plate was probably 15" in diameter!

As you walk in, some of the meat is shown

The fire in the middle of the restaurant where most the food is cooked

The wild mushrooms were huge! Clearly wild as you can see where a deer has had a bit of a nibble on one of them.


After lunch we headed to La Cite du Vin La Cité du Vin | a world of cultures Basically a new museum all about wine. It gives the entire history of wine, how wine is made, its importance through history etc etc. Really well done and for anyone who doesn't know much about wine, it is a great starting point. They also do tastings, educational sessions etc. If you have an interest in wine, it is worth a visit.

 

[Daver6]

The next day we have a private tour of Chateau Pontet Canet. Having previously met Alfred Tesseron at an intimate Pontet Canet tasting in Perth, he said if we are ever in the area to drop by, so we did. We organised a private driver and it took about 90 minutes to head north to the winery in Pauillac going past many of the famous right bank wineries. The tour was fascinating and culminated with a bottle of the 2008 Pontet Canet.

We had booked lunch at the one Michelin star restaurant at Château Cordeillan‑Bages Cordeillan-Bages, combining fine cuisine and wine about 10 minutes away. This is part of Château Lynch‑Bages. Food and service was impeccable. A long lunch was had before heading back to the hotel around 5pm.