Problems with Plastic Abroad

The Washington Post's "Coming and Going" column reported that some US travelers are having problems using their credit cards in Europe. While major American credit cards have a magnetic strip and are swiped through a reader, Europe has switched cards with embedded microchips. The cardholder must then enter a PIN for the transaction to be processed. According to the Post, "MasterCard, Visa and American Express representatives say every business that accepts their cards must agree to accept 'swipe and sign' as well as 'chip and PIN.'"

I just returned from three weeks in England, the Isle of Man, Portugal and Spain and never had a problem. Hotel cashiers, restaurants, shops and gas stations all knew that they had to manually input the number of my "swipe and sign" cards. No big deal anywhere.

The Post also quoted Mark Ashley, editor of a blog called Upgrade: Travel Better "that occasionally buzzes with complaints from frustrated card users. His advice: Ask to speak to a manager. That usually works. Also, beware of self-service machines, particularly at train and gas stations. Plan ahead; buy train tickets when stations are staffed, and don't wait until your gas tank is empty to look for a place that takes your card or cash."

Happy Birthday, Travel-Babel

Actually, I'm a few days late in acknowledging the first birthday (or would you call it an anniversary?) of this travel blog. I was motivated to start it at the 2006 Society of American Travel Writers convention in Santiago, Chile. I already my food/culinary blog going, and decided that, as a travel writer, I ought to write about travel too -- both about places I have been, travel news news and my comments about the current travel scene. I wrote my first post on October 21, 2006, as the meeting-and-speechifying part of the convention was ending, and we started traveling to farflung parts of the country. I was excited to share it with anyone who might search for information on Chile and Easter Island, and I knew I'd been broadening its scope.

Since then, I have blogged about my own travels to Alaska, Hawaii, Quebec, New York, Switzerland, Italy, England, Spain, Portugal, Utah and right here in Colorado and tackled other travel topics. The thrill of being elsewhere has never lost its luster for me, but the pleasure and ease of getting there and getting home is constantly being diminished. And of course, with the plunge of the US dollar against just about every currency on the planet, travel is becoming more expensive too. As I travel myself and occasionally report on travel news, I try to pass along information on travel values, low-fare airlines, new airlines, public transportation or other topics that interest me -- and hopefully you too.

In October 2006, this then-new blog logged 119 visitors in its first few days of life. It broke the 1,000 monthly visit barrier in January, and now, more people check it every day than during its first month in the blogosphere. Each of the subsequent months have seen an increase in visits, which with a couple of days to go, could crack the 4,000 visitor mark this month.

I've loved writing this blog (and my two others as well). I appreciate your visits, and I welcome your comments (I don't make anyone jump through annoying hoops to post here; I simply delete the occasional spam ).

Minimalist Hotels in Europe

A few days ago, I posted an item about the ultra-modern Jeronimos 8 Hotel where I recently stayed in Lisbon. Everything in this hotel is pared-down, clean-lined and hyper-modern, even the bathrooms (right). It is part of a trend in European cities, where such hotels and restaurants are 21st-century islands of design and technology surrounded by the weight of centuries and the opulence of traditional architecture.

The Jeronimos 8 belongs to a consortium of 150 hip hotels called Design Hotels that are a reaction to the formal hotels that we associate with Europe. Spare, clean lines, sculptural furnishings, interesting and/or vibrant colors and such technological features as high-speed Internet access in each room, flat-screen televisions and bathroom faucets that sometimes require an engineering degree to operate are the hallmarks of this trendy breed of hotels. All of the Design Hotels are hi-tech wonders, but there are other such hotels that don't belong to the group.

The first such hotel I encountered was the Le Meridien in Vienna, where I stayed in 2005. Little did I know then that I would be staying in properties with similar design philosophies in two distant countries two years later. Le Meridien is an edgy but stylish haute-21st-century hotel is contained within the shells of adjacent 19th-century buildings. It displays specially commissioned art and sophisticated minimalist furnishings. All 261 rooms and 33 suites have 42-inch plasma TV, free-standing tower shower and several computer ports. The theme is Art + Tech. Opernring 13, 1010 Vienna. Phone: 1-800-543-4300 (reservations, U.S.), +43 (0) 1-588-90-0 (local).

In Madrid, I stayed at the recently opened Hotel Óscar, which belongs to the Room Mate group. There are currently eight Room Mate hotels in Spain (four in Madrid, three in Granada, two in Málaga and one in Valencia). Each bears a different first name, the implication being that he or she is your roommate when you stay there.

All Room Mate Hotels are also different in design. Óscar is a tall, slim 75-room hotel with a spectacular location on a small plaza two short blocks from the Gran Via and a short walk from the metro and to all sorts of other places you might want to be. To reach my room, I walked down a dimly lit, darkly painted and carpeted corridor where lights snapped on when a room door or elevator door opened. My room was green and white, quite a contrast to the dark purple corridor. Some of the furniture was built in. One decorative wow was a floor lamp that looked like a Brobdingnagian table lamp (right), so tall that it almost reached the ceiling. Room Mate Óscar Plaza Vázquez de Mella 12, 28004; +34 (0) 91 701 11 73.

I can't say that any of these hotels give me the warm fuzzies, but I admire the creativity that went into the design. I do love having free WiFi. And I also love the tubs and showers once I figure out how to use them.

Singing the Air Travel Blues

“Some day, my ship will come in, and with my luck, I’ll be at the airport.” So says a woebegone Charlie Brown on a treasured refrigerator magnet given to me long ago by a friend. After three weeks of travel and eight flights, I think my ship is in, and it must be the size of an aircraft carrier – and my husband has a matching one. Here is a summary of his, my and our air travel delays during a just-completed transatlantic trip.

October 4-5: Denver to Manchester, UK. Our British Airways non-stop from Denver to London/Heathrow (LHR) departed one hour late. Our BA flight to Manchester was one hour late in pulling away from the gate, and then, we sat on the tarmac for an additional hour before taking off. My husband and I both got our bags, which put us way ahead of some others attending the same convention as we were.

October 10: Manchester to the Isle of Man. If the EuroManx flight was delayed, it was by so little that no one seems to have noticed.

October 12: Isle of Man to Manchester. Our EuroManx flight was canceled. We were given a £5.00 meal voucher and several hours later, boarded a flight to Liverpool, from which we were bused to Manchester Airport, arriving something like five hours later than we expected. The good news was that we and our bags made it to and from the Isle of Man on the same planes we did.

October 13: Manchester to London (me). I took a series of three trains to London Gatwick LGW), where I picked up a rental car. The first train was 25 minutes late, which backed up my train plans. Manchester-Denver (my husband). He was ticketed Manchester-LHR and then on the LHR-DEN nonstop. His first flight was so late that he missed the Denver flight. He was rerouted via Washington-Dulles, connecting to a nonstop to Denver. That flight was also so late that he missed the last flight to Denver. BA put him up at a Holiday Inn overnight. When he arrived in Denver at 1:00 p.m. on the 14th, his bag was still in London. It was delivered at 10:00 p.m. the following evening – more than 48 hours after he and it were supposed to arrive at home.

October 18: London/Gatwick to Lisbon (me). I arrived at the airport uncharacteristically early, because I was quite eager to get rid of my rental car. My 4:00 p.m. The TAP Air Portugal flight was delayed until 5:05 p.m. My bag did arrive in Lisbon.

October 22, 2007: Lisbon to Madrid (me with a small journalist group). TAP Air Portugal flight that was scheduled to depart at 11:20 a.m. actually departed at 12:15 p.m. In order to delude passengers that they might actually be closer to on time, the gate agents scanned boarding passes, peered at passports or EU identity cards and allowed us to stand in a corridor and on the jetway for half-an-hour. A group of energetic young travelers entertained each other by making a lot of noise in this hard-walled tube. I don’t mind standing for half-an-hour, but I felt sorry for people who have a hard time being on their feet. Our bags did arrive -- not on the carousel where our flight was posted, but on the next one that announced the arrival of bags from the Canary Islands. But I didn’t care, because my bag was on it.

October 25: Madrid to Denver (me). The London/Heathrow-bound Iberia flight took off 55 minutes late. In the Economy section, Iberia charges for everything, -- even water (1.50 euros for about a 12-ounce bottle). I had lots of time at Heathrow, which is a good thing, since I arrived at Terminal 1, was misdirected to Terminal 2 where I cleared immigration, had to return to Terminal 1 to reclaim my bag and recheck it, because it seems that interline baggage transfer is not possible at Heathrow (or perhaps anywhere in England) and then to Terminal 4 for my US-bound flight on British Airways. London to Denver. That nonstop took off “only” 25 minutes late. My bag did make it on both flights.

Not counting my husband’s much-delayed return to Denver from Manchester via London, I calculate that my flight delays in the course of three weeks came to about 12 hours – plus the 25-minute train delay.

Flight Check-In at Madrid Subway Station

If you are flying from Madrid on Iberia, Spanair, Air Europa or Portugalia, you can check your bags in at at Nuevos the Ministerios subway station between 06:30 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. You can readh this station, which is at the end of metro line 8, metro lines 6, 8 and 10, by RENFE trains C1, C2, C7a, C7b, C8a, C8b and C10 or and EMT buses – 7, 14, 27, 40, 147, 150, 149, 122 and Circular. Trains for the 12-minute leave Nuevos Ministerios every five to six minutes. For more information call the airport atn (0034) 90 240 4704.

A website call Traveling in Spain contains information on the basics of travling on the metro. The site cautions against using the metro at crowded peak times. About.com's "Spain for Visitors" section inlcudes information on fares, but I'm not sure whether it is current.

More Airline Consolidation in the Air?

First came word that Delta Airlines might be hooking up, corporatively speaking, with Air France and KLM, that fly under their old liveries but have already combined forces. Earlier in the week, the three carriers announced a transatlantic joint venture that will add four daily flights from London's Heathrow Airport, beginning in April, and could eventually impact all of their combined services between Europe and North America. In addition to New York, service to Atlanta, Cincinnati and and Salt Lake City can be anticipated.

Now, Delta's boss Air Lines chieftain Richard Anderson told analysts that he and is people are looking at further consolidation. Northwest Airlines, for which Anderson once worked, is a likely takeover target, even though a marriage between Northwest and Continental had once been all but assured. The New York Times quoted Anderson as saying that further mergers “could make sense for Delta if it’s done thoughtfully from a position of strength." Odd to view Delta as being in "a position of strength" when it was flying under bankruptcy protection not long ago.

Whenever these consolidations occur, the airlines' spin is that it will eventually be good for travelers: economy of scale, increased service, still same smiling personnel, blah-blah-blah. But color me skeptical. Things tend to improve for business travelers flying on the company credit card, but rarely for Joe and Joan Schmo wedged back in the economy section. Plus, the more the carriers consolidate and code-share, the harder it seems to be to use frequent flyer miles any time that one actually wishes to travel.

From the 19th to the 21st Centuries

Jet travel is a wondrous thing. Just one short flight whisked me from the 1853 manor house at Brantridge Park outside of London to Lisbon's hyper-modern Jeronimos 8 Hotel, one of a new generation of so-called "design hotels." Enter a spare foyer and to the right is a dark, free-standing cube behind which the front desk clerk is stationed. The minimalist lobby area is to the left, a few steps away -- arrow-straight lines of square chairs (square seat, square back) upholstered in brown or buff-yellow leather along unadorned walls.

The rooms are also minimalist: white walls, beige wall-to-wall carpeting, thick beige drapes with slightly golden sheers over them, light brown rough-woven bedspreads, dark brown leather headboard stretching the width of the room, indirect lighting and abundant chrome. The dark wood desk has a Pleixglas insert that looks like a lightbox. I have to stand up to type. There's a flat-screen TV with something like 40 channels (including English-language Aljazeera, which is quite enlightening the morning after the horrific car bombing in Karachi) and WiFi access (hooray!). The room is an example of form over function -- so minimalist that I had to move a piece of furniture to find an outlet into which to plug my laptop. The desk is a good six inches higher than normal, but the chair is regular height.

The bathroom is equally minimalist. An opaque, frosted-glass door separates it from the hallway. You step into the tub/shower on the faucet end, with the "head end" -- should you decide to take a bath -- in kind of a cave. The toilet, bidet and two vanity-top basins are round. No overflow drain is discernable. The tub/shower enclosure, the floor and the vanity are made of marble. A small notice attached to one wall suggests, "Towels on the floor means please change them! Towels on the towel rail means I will use them again!" Problem is, there is no towel rail -- except for one at the far end of the tub. That means if you want to hang your bath towel on the rack, you have to get back into the wet tub after you've dried your feet. And in the unlikely event that you want to hang your face towel on the rack, you have to step into the bathtub to do so. And the housekeeper probably also has to step into the tub to put fresh towels on the rack that's mounted at a height of about six feet.

One quaint throwback, in an American context, to the past is a white band around the toilet seat and lid reads "Disinfected for you." In three languages.