Left Australia a week ago when the temperature was in the 30’s, now sitting in Helsinki at 0 degrees and tomorrow heading north to Ivalo in Finnish Lapland where today it was – 33 degrees.
Background
Travel has been a bit restricted these last couple of years as I have very willingly helped with child care of my beloved grandchildren. But with one grandchild starting school and another’s mother deciding to extend her maternity leave by a month, there suddenly was an opportunity to travel somewhere, anywhere! Lots of places were considered, Africa, South America, but I couldn’t find award flights at short notice. Initially I thought Europe in February would be too cold and dark but realised that maybe I could capitalise on that and chase the Northern lights. My long-suffering travel companion (TC) agreed to come and with less than 4 weeks to go I set about piecing together an itinerary with the greatest chance of seeing the Lights.
The first date we could leave was Sunday 27 January and we have to be back exactly 4 weeks later. We needed to get to Helsinki but as we have previously been there, we wanted to spend some time getting over jet-lag in any northern European city we had not previously visited. Checking out various options Lifemiles threw up an itinerary of SYD-PEK-FRA-TLL (Tallinn in Estonia).
Jan 27 20:40 CA174 Sydney (SYD) – Beijing (PEK) First Class
Strange flight as we were the only ones in an 8 person first class cabin, we did not see another passenger for 11 hours. We were nearly 2 hours late leaving SYD due to storms, so dinner was served about midnight by which time I just wanted to sleep. The seats were roomy but the mattress pad very thin and the seats were firm. I found that adding the blanket/duvet folded over to the mattress pad made it easier to lie on. The seat belt sign was on for the entire flight which with the no smoking sign made very bright yellow spots on the plane ceiling all night. The pyjamas looked nice but seemed to be made of a synthetic material which was a little abrasive.
Jan 28 11:20 LH721 Beijing (PEK) – Frankfurt (FRA) Business Class
Nice cabin but being business class, the lie flat seats had more restricted foot space. Although this was a long flight (10 hours) there were no pyjamas! The food was better than the previous flight, but the toilet floors were absolutely disgusting, thank heavens for the provided slippers which I could leave behind. I can only assume there was no toilet cleaning during turn around in Beijing.
Jan 28 20:40 LH884 Frankfurt (FRA) – Tallinn (TLL)
Typical European business class, economy seats with middle seat free. Arrived exactly on time 23:59 with temperature showing -7 degrees.
Long wait for luggage, taxi to hotel and collapsed into bed vowing not to do 3 flights in a row again!
Background
Travel has been a bit restricted these last couple of years as I have very willingly helped with child care of my beloved grandchildren. But with one grandchild starting school and another’s mother deciding to extend her maternity leave by a month, there suddenly was an opportunity to travel somewhere, anywhere! Lots of places were considered, Africa, South America, but I couldn’t find award flights at short notice. Initially I thought Europe in February would be too cold and dark but realised that maybe I could capitalise on that and chase the Northern lights. My long-suffering travel companion (TC) agreed to come and with less than 4 weeks to go I set about piecing together an itinerary with the greatest chance of seeing the Lights.
The first date we could leave was Sunday 27 January and we have to be back exactly 4 weeks later. We needed to get to Helsinki but as we have previously been there, we wanted to spend some time getting over jet-lag in any northern European city we had not previously visited. Checking out various options Lifemiles threw up an itinerary of SYD-PEK-FRA-TLL (Tallinn in Estonia).
Jan 27 20:40 CA174 Sydney (SYD) – Beijing (PEK) First Class
Strange flight as we were the only ones in an 8 person first class cabin, we did not see another passenger for 11 hours. We were nearly 2 hours late leaving SYD due to storms, so dinner was served about midnight by which time I just wanted to sleep. The seats were roomy but the mattress pad very thin and the seats were firm. I found that adding the blanket/duvet folded over to the mattress pad made it easier to lie on. The seat belt sign was on for the entire flight which with the no smoking sign made very bright yellow spots on the plane ceiling all night. The pyjamas looked nice but seemed to be made of a synthetic material which was a little abrasive.
Jan 28 11:20 LH721 Beijing (PEK) – Frankfurt (FRA) Business Class
Nice cabin but being business class, the lie flat seats had more restricted foot space. Although this was a long flight (10 hours) there were no pyjamas! The food was better than the previous flight, but the toilet floors were absolutely disgusting, thank heavens for the provided slippers which I could leave behind. I can only assume there was no toilet cleaning during turn around in Beijing.
Jan 28 20:40 LH884 Frankfurt (FRA) – Tallinn (TLL)
Typical European business class, economy seats with middle seat free. Arrived exactly on time 23:59 with temperature showing -7 degrees.
Long wait for luggage, taxi to hotel and collapsed into bed vowing not to do 3 flights in a row again!