lamphs

re: Frankfurt. Thanks for posting those details! I have an 8 hour layover at FRA in late October. I plan to go into Frankfurt for lunch and wander for a bit.

re: Best Western. Mixed bag worldwide. In the US, many are the motel-style, but serve the purpose for me when I just need a bed for a quick night as the price is right. There is one I use near IAD - stay the night before for early morning flights (and has a decent parking rate in a safe parking lot). Late last year, I stayed in a 'premier' property in Zagreb and it exceeded expectations. A couple of weeks ago, I stayed at one across the road from MGA, and it served its purpose.

re: IHG/HIExp. Generally good (and consistent) experiences with a recent excellent stay at one in central Lisbon. The only recent bad stay that stands out is one that considers itself an 'airport' hotel at JFK. It is not, BTW.

Concerto

Basel SBB - Frankfurt Hbf 1st class €47.90
Frankfurt Hbf - Basel SBB 2nd class €29.15

I made the right decision to book 1st class for this trip to Frankfurt, on a Saturday in mid November. The price was so reasonable that it would have been crazy not to book it. It was only a small increment to the 2nd class price, which was around €39. As it turned out, there was barely an unreserved seat in the 1st class carriages although I did manage to find one. 2nd class must have been a total zoo. Luckily it wasn't a Swiss SBB train, so there was a working WiFi connection, like on most German trains these days. I like travelling with Deutsche Bahn (DB), despite the fact that it is an utter disaster at the moment with constant delays and cancellations. As it happened, this train got me to Frankfurt Süd about 20 minutes late. This was not an issue because every 4 minutes there was a regional train or S-Bahn to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (main station), which took 6 minutes. The weather in Basel had been very rainy and this lasted until around Karlsruhe. Once I reached Frankfurt the skies were clear although the temperatures were colder than they had been until now.


A bit of late breakfast in the Swiss SBB train on the way from Bern to Bssel


Frankfurt Hbf (main station), with an odd commercial for Asiana Airlines on its main window

After my weekend in Frankfurt I booked an early train back to Basel which included the S-Bahn ride from Offenbach Kaiserlei to Frankfurt Hbf. This time I chose 2nd class at a pretty modest price for a Monday morning, especially given that I booked just 5 days in advance. Both tickets on this trip were Super Sparpreis, which meant no changes and no refunds. I made a judicious choice in booking 2nd class because the train (destination Munich) was far from full and I had a very comfortable ride to Mannheim, where I would change for another train to Basel. However, we ran about 30 minutes late and I missed the connection in Mannheim. So I picked up the Trenitalia train to Milan, which also passed through Basel, and it got me to Basel SBB about 20 minutes late, only. This train was comfortable in 2nd class but lacked an internet connection.


Leaving Frankfurt in the fog and rain to start the trip to Basel SBB station


Standard 2nd class accommodation on Swiss SBB trains

FRASEVEN

Enjoy reading your reports. Will be flying to Gladbach next weekend.
Just some remarks about Frankfurt. Like you with the Bar in Switzerland, I grew up next to Dauth in the 80er and still have an apparment 500meters away for the weeks i am in Frankfurt
​​​​​​Dauth-Schneider like most of the Bars in the area, are no beer Halls. They famous for Apfelwein, so we call them Äppler-Halls and you will often find me in one.
Also the streetcar you took a pic of, is our Apfelweinexpress, it is like Hop on Hop off plus you get Äppler.
And yes the Bahnhofsviertel is not nice, but we never new different.

1P

Have had nothing but good experiences at Best Westerns in France and Italy, with one exception (Angouleme, which was terrible). The English ones are a mixed bag, some very good, others meh.

Concerto

Thank you for your feedback. I was in Frankfurt just this morning (24 July) and really enjoyed it again. The area around the front of the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) seems a lot nicer, cleaner and less insalubrious. There is quite a big police presence there, which is a good thing. I had coffee at Café Hoffnung once again, just two minutes walk from the station. It offers the best coffee I have tasted in Germany.


On my train trips in Germany, I try to build in a stop at Frankfurt so I can visit this café, at the beginning of Kaiserstrasse in front of the main train station

Concerto

I should have done a multi-post quote for your post and the one by FRASEVEN, but I forgot!
This is good to hear, concerning the Best Western hotels you have experienced. The one in Como (near lake Como) is not great and it is not near the lake, but the people running the hotel are really friendly.

Concerto

Like many here on this talkboard, I am not a massive fan of Black Friday sales. A lot of the advertising is borderline cheating, with false full prices, and better deals can often be found elsewhere at other times of the year (e.g. January). In particular, I avoid being tempted by electronic goods offered in the frantic Black Friday advertising. Having said all that, often the hotels and airlines have flash sales which can represent a real saving (I booked a few IHG, Accor and independent hotels for next year). In addition, the cashback portals such as topcashback.co.uk, shoop.de and quidco.com had some shockingly good deals offering as much as 12-15% cashback on certain booking engines, such as hotels.com. The airlines had a few deals too, but not anything amazing. Best was an Aer Lingus deal from Rome to the USA (via Dublin) for £927. In addition Luxair offered round trips for €89 on many routes.


One of the challenges that must be activated in the Miles & More app
​​​​​​
I bought two Accor hotels vouchers which can be used as payment for stays, one for CHF100 (giving a 20% bonus of CHF20 on top) and the other for EUR50 (with a bonus of EUR10). I also purchased a number of Wünschgutscheine from REWE through the German cashback portal called Payback which yielded 16x points (about 600 in total). Still not quite sure how these actually work, but I would use them at expedia.de, Jacques Wein Depot, Tchibo and other online shops.


Voucher for Accor hotels with 20% extra bonus offered on the price shown

The other deal I jumped upon was an offer for a subscription (Abo) for the German magazine Grazia for EUR52, which came with 5,000° Payback points. It's a bit outside the normal ratio I adhere to (should not cost more than €10 for 1,000° points) but I thought it was a good enough deal given the absence of offers these days. The Abo is managed by Burda and I am not a great of Burda, especially after the mess they made of an erroneous offer they made for Grazia earlier this year (6,900° had been offered and they ended up cancelling everyone's Abos, claiming it had been an error that should never have been published).


This is how my Payback account looked after the points for Grazia were credited: the points remain locked for quite some time, then they can be transferred into Lufthansa Miles & More miles at a rate of 1 : 1

The other excitement wasn't necessarily a Black Friday deal, but we just heard that XPs for the Air France KLM Flying Blue programme can now be earned on flights with ITA Airways in Italy. There was a Black Friday offer of 30% reduction on ITA flights, which could have made for some interesting deals in business class. But the discount did not work for departures from many countries.


And this, sold in the Coop in Switzerland, is just in case I get bored and start missing all the hours of concertos I have to play

Concerto

We have lost our touch and become softies. Heavy prolonged rainfall and extensive snowfall is something that we have not experienced for several years now, thanks to a series of mild winters. So as we rolled into December and heavy snowfall hit southern Germany and much of Switzerland, most traffic systems ground to a halt. The German Deutsche Bahn train company came to a complete standstill in Munich and most of Bavaria. The much vaunted and traditionally punctual SBB struggled with their operation, each and every single train being somehow delayed which sometimes made me late if I didn't leave enough margin for delay. And I'm not even going to begin writing about the problems in the airports. Fact is, most of Europe has lost touch with weather reality and can't deal with even semi severe weather.


Weather in the Rhône valley, canton Valais


Everywhere in Switzerland was pretty waterlogged

I had rather a lot of funerals to attend this autumn and some of those were long term friends from when I first set foot in the Geneva region 30 years ago. One was the grande dame of the English society in Geneva, who had been director of the English Theater and who had staged many shows herself. Outside her job at the World Health Organisation, she spent most of her time in theater and organising choirs in Geneva. Her memorial service in the English Anglican church was outstanding and I had the pleasure of conducting the choir and organ in performances of Wesley and Stanford as part of the service (we had a good legs up afterwards with loads of wine).


Interior of the English Anglican church in Geneva, which is where the funeral of a dear friend took place in November 2023


A stall at the Christmas market in Zurich

With friend Christian, we drove over the snowy Simplon Pass to visit an outstanding restaurant called C'era una Volta in the Italian village of Oira. It was outstanding but not so cheap at €104 (but we emptied a very good bottle of wine in the process which itself cost €45). I also made a Saturday night outing to the Latino Restaurant in nearby Clarens, with a group of expats in the Montreux area. That finished up with us dancing on the tables in the bar called Territet & Co, just 2 minutes walk from my place (it was renamed as No Way! and now appears to be closed). A couple more trips over to Yvoire in France took place, taking the boat from Nyon, to meet friends who had been close to the recently deceased grande dame of the English society. I had left a number of things, mainly musical scores, in her house and they needed to be sorted out. Lastly, I made a trip to Zurich for the Vielfliegertreff Stammtisch (people from the German speaking equivalent of Flyertalk). We had a quick look at the Christmas market in Zurich then had dinner in an excellent Italian place called Pizzeria 99 (CHF32 for two courses plus dessert). I spent the night at the Holiday Inn Express near the airport, which was a short night because I had to be in Sion the next morning for rehearsals.


Driving over the Simplon Pass on the way to Italy


Altes Spittel on the Simplon Pass road, which was a hospice for travellers and traders until the 1830s


A medley of photos of the meat based dishes we had in the C'era una Volta restaurant

Concerto

For some years now I have been commuting from Montreux to Sion, always happy to return home at night. The train journey along the Rhône valley in the Valais Alps is quite pleasant and lasts about 45 minutes. All these years, the Valaisan Championships of solo brass instruments have taken place in the Collège des Creusets in Sion, an easy 15 minutes walk to Sion train station. Just 2 years ago, they moved the competition out to the village of Grône, which is a real groan because it's about 25 minutes drive back to Sion station. So this year I decided to stay at the ibis Sion for the first time ever, instead of rushing for the last train back to Montreux.


Exterior of the ibis hotel in Sion


View from my room on a Sunday morning in December

After the long day of playing for the contest and getting sloshed on local wine afterwards, I ended up getting dropped off at the hotel in the endless tipping rain shortly before midnight. Reception was very pleasant and welcoming and I was quickly settling into my room up on the 4th floor (406). The room was simply appointed but spacious enough and the bed, while firm, was very comfortable. I had a surprisingly good night in that room, despite crashing out with the lights still on! There were no cupboards but there was enough storage space with a corner set up as an open plan pseudo wardrobe. There was even a small but adequate desk in the room. The only amenities supplied were two very welcome small bottles of water.


Room 406 in the ibis at Sion


The bathroom, in reality just a shower room, was functional and pleasantly outfitted (for example, the lighting)

The toilet and shower room was clean and nicely outfitted. The shower itself had good water pressure and the temperature was easy to adjust. Soap and shower gel were in dispensers attached to the wall. There was a bit of a view from the window of the bedroom, looking up at the snowy vineyards behind Sion. But the incredibly ugly buildings of this modern part of Sion make a city like Novosibirsk seem almost like paradise by comparison. The hotel building is a concrete carbuncle on a suburban road heading out of Sion that dates from the 70s or 80s. That said, the hotel has clearly been refurbished and there is an attractive bar area next to reception which doubles as the breakfast room. However, the price of CHF126 for a night in a hotel of this quality is very high, considering that breakfast was not included.


Attractively presented front desk in the ibis Sion


The breakfast room is more spacious than other areas

Concerto

Preparing for the Valaisan Championships, a solo brass instruments contest, is usually quite frantic and stressful. But this year's edition was quite efficient and pleasant, including the day of the contest itself and I had 2 players in the Finale (but no winner this time). For many years it took place in Sion but now has been moved out to the village of Grône where the facilities are better. The rehearsals in the Lötschental were slightly heavy going though, mainly because of the effort of getting up there in the driving snow but also because of the late returns home, often well after midnight.


Looking out of the community center house onto the main street of the village of Wiler, Lötschental


In Vétroz, near Sion, looking out of the window of the band room of one of the many brass bands there

The SBB CFF train company had difficulty in maintaining a schedule in the snow, which turned to rain from mid December. This meant that I once completely miscalculated the connection in Brig for getting up to Goppenstein for one of the Lötschental rehearsals, making life difficult for teacher friend Christian. In the middle of that rehearsal I had to rush down to Martigny to play a trombone exam of difficult pieces, then hightail it back up to Lötschental a second time that evening.


Through the Simplon Tunnel with the train and it's aperitivo time in Domodossola !


The meal that I had at restaurant l'Atelier, in the Hotel Eurossola, in Domodossola

I managed to find time to make a couple of trips to Domodossola to relive gastronomic experiences in the restaurants La Meridiana and l'Atelier in the Hotel Eurossola, where chef Georgio Bartolucci is still holding onto his Michelin star (deservedly so too). The 3-course lunch menu is a steal and there is almost too much to eat, even for me!


The now iconic wheel at the Christmas market in Montreux


One of the café bars in the Montreux Christmas market village

Back in the Valais, at around 08h00 on the Monday after the Valaisan solo brass championships, a gunman went through the streets of Sion shooting people, leaving two dead and a number of injured. This sort of event is almost completely unknown in Switzerland, especially in canton Valais. And the never ending rain led to flood warnings being posted for the whole canton. Finally, I was able to set some time aside to make brief visits to the Christmas markets in Montreux, Vevey et Lausanne.


The Christmas market at Sion


The main concert hall where I had to play the Finale of the Valaisan solo brass championships

Concerto

Having reached the end of the year and Christmas Eve, I was too tired to really enjoy anything about this trip. I was just grateful to have priority security and lounge access, to make the journey a bit more bearable.


A overview of the check-in area at Geneva airport, with some Christmas decorations


Entering the SWISS Business lounge at Geneva


Economy class seating on the SWISS Airbus 320

Geneva airport was certainly busy, due to Christmas, but everything functioned efficiently and I was quickly in the lounge. The lounge was busy too, but offered a good hot breakfast of scrambled eggs, beans and tomatoes. The flight itself boarded on time and was completely full. It was a good flight with efficient service from the crew, who doled out the usual bottles of water and Christmas chocolates. It's not a bad service concept for GVA-ZRH, but I think it's meagre for longer flights. If you manage to feel comfortable during a flight that is totally full, then I think it is a very good flight and I gave this one a high rating. Deplaning from the back of the plane, where I was, took quite a bit of time and many people were nervous about missing their connecting flights.

Rating 8*
Aircraft 320
Seat 33C
Registration HB-IJL


Free inflight catering from Geneva to Zurich


A SWISS plane parked at the gate at Zurich airport - I thought it was my one, but zooming in on the registration it seems that it was another plane

Concerto

My Christmas Eve flight to Düsseldorf ended up being delayed by about 1 hour and, unusually, left front the B gates (B36). I was glad to have lounge access to while away the wait, although the Christmas lunch in the Zurich SWISS Business Lounge was pretty inedible - I wouldn't have given it to my dog (if I had a dog).


The SWISS Business and Senator lounge at Zurich airport


It's a shame the Christmas dinner was so bad, even though it looks ok here

Once boarded, the flight appeared fully booked with every seat taken. I was happy to be on a proper SWISS A320 and not on that awful AirBaltic wetlease which has dominated the Düsseldorf route recently and which has generated so many complaints. Being exhausted from tasting all the wines in the lounge, I went to sleep for part of the trip. The flight was forgettable in the usual SWISS way and I didn't bother with any of that overpriced rubbish on the BoB menu. But then, nor did anybody else. The descent to Düsseldorf was really quite turbulent, with lots of rain and wind, although the landing itself was very smooth. Not my most exciting flight, but not the worst either.

Rating 7.5*
Aircraft 320
Seat 36C
Registration HB-JLQ


Onboard the Zurich to Düsseldorf flight


Free inflight catering on the way from Zurich to Düsseldorf

Concerto

So we have come to the end of this trip report. I have been going a bit slower than I wanted to, because at the same time I have been preparing the photos for the next, much longer, TR. The biggest amount of work with these TRs, for me anyway, is working on and preparing the photos. Of course, I could just load them up without any treatment, but I also have to choose them among a huge number of photos and it's easier simply to clear most of the clutter as I'm going along. I think, in the future, I will help myself if I take less photos and try to get it right first time with one click, like back in the days when we used real film cameras.. The other thing is, I want to drastically cut down on the number of photos that I upload. I envisage loading a maximum of 4 for short posts, and 6-7 tops for more detailed posts. I feel it is worth making an exception to that improvised rule for the photos I take on flights in a private aircraft, though.

In the next trip report we have a real mix of things, including the usual hikes, visits to places known and not so well known, along with some train trips. We kick off with a visit to Mallorca in January, when everything is unbelievably cheap and the weather capricious and continue with a trip to Vietnam which was interesting and colourful. For Vietnam, I got an amazing deal in Business class with Saudia airlines, which meant I had to go to Tunis to begin the trip. A visit to Berlin came soon afterwards, with me exploring the Checkpoint Charlie area. Then I found myself on a luxury trip to St. Moritz and Silvaplana in eastern Switzerland (Graubünden), thanks to UBS MasterCard, one of their Priceless Experiences which I won! I saw more snow on that trip than I have ever seen in my life. Perhaps the highlight of all was another flight in a private aircraft from Sion airport up over the Dents du Midi, Mont Blanc Massif and over the huge sea of ice that is the Glacier du Trient. With all the doom and gloom associated with climate change, I can say that there is a massive amount of terrain that is occupied by pure ice, snow and rock. Glaciologists say that the retreat of the glaciers has been put on pause this year due to the huge volume of snow that fell across the Alps and in a few cases glaciers were actually replenished. I finished up with another hard working visit to Lucerne to play for the Swiss Solo Brass Championships.

rapidex

Great trip report. Looking forward to the next one.