Category Archives: Trip Reports

Exploring Athens (Part 2)

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Ancient Agora of Athens

Our first day in Athens was spent exploring the Acropolis, the New Acropolis Museum, and the Monastiraki area. Dinner at Oineas was excellent, and our hotel was tough to beat, with the amazing complimentary breakfast and fantastic location.

Directly across the street from the Hotel Amalia Athens is the National Gardens, a huge tranquil garden right in the middle of the city. After breakfast, we packed up our suitcases and left them at the front desk, since we’d be flying from Athens to Santorini that evening, and then we spent an hour or two wandering around the gardens, which are beautiful. Spanning 38 acres, the gardens are free and open to the public from sunrise to sunset Continue reading Exploring Athens (Part 2)→

Hotel Amalia Athens and Exploring Athens (Part 1)

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Parthenon

We landed in Athens around 12:40 am on Saturday night (technically early Sunday morning), after spending an exciting day in Istanbul. Athens does have a metro that extends to the airport, but the last train leaves the airport at 11:30 pm. There are a few buses that run 24 hours a day to and from the airport, so we knew that we’d need to take the X95 bus into the city. We had checked one bag, which was tagged with a bright orange priority label, so it was the very first bag on the belt. There didn’t appear to be any other flights arriving when our flight did, as there was no line at all to pass through immigration. Continue reading Hotel Amalia Athens and Exploring Athens (Part 1)→

Aegean Airlines Business Class Istanbul to Athens

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Turkish Airlines CIP Lounge Istanbul

As a bit of a refresher, we left from Greensboro on Friday morning, spent a few hours in Toronto, then flew overnight from Toronto to Istanbul, and spent a full day in Istanbul. After our day in Istanbul, we made our way back to the Istanbul airport, and took some much needed showers in the amazing Turkish Airlines lounge.

The lounge just opened about a year ago, so it’s in excellent condition, and is huge!

The lounge has 2 floors, with video games, a miniature remote control race track, a golf practice simulator (which unfortunately was closed while we were there), a kids’ play area, and a small movie theater Continue reading Aegean Airlines Business Class Istanbul to Athens→

14 Hours in Istanbul

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When I was originally planning our trip to Greece, I wanted to schedule our flights to be as comfortable as possible. When flying in Coach, flights over 6 or 7 hours get to be pretty rough, so sometimes it’s nice to pick a shorter overnight flight to break things up a bit. When flying in Business or First Class, however, I take the opposite approach. For flights to Europe, I generally look for the longest overnight flight I possibly can find. Why? When you have a flat bed to sleep on, a 6 or 7 hour flight is really too short to get decent sleep, with meal service on both ends of the flight. About 2 years ago, we flew to Ireland in Aer Lingus Business Class (using only 50,000 British Airways Avios Points roundtrip), which was a fantastic deal, but given that the flight to Ireland is barely 5 and a half hours, factoring in eating dinner and breakfast, you’re lucky to get 3 hours of sleep, which isn’t much different than being in Coach. Continue reading 14 Hours in Istanbul→

Air Canada Executive First Suite Toronto to Istanbul

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We relaxed in the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge for about 90 minutes following our tasty Thai lunch in the Toronto suburbs. The only issue we had with the lounge was that the Wifi was very sporadic and unreliable….but at least it was better than in the Ethiopian Airlines Lounge in Addis Ababa (hooray….I guess…eh?)

Anyway, around 3:30 pm, we headed down from the lounge, which was a floor above the main terminal level. It was only a 2-3 minute walk from the lounge to Gate E76, where our flight would be departing from:.

The boarding area was a bit chaotic, as the gate next to ours, E77, was preparing to board a flight at the same time to Frankfurt.

After about 15 minutes, boarding began for our flight. We were among the first to board, and headed to our comfortable Executive First Suites, our home for the next 10 – well, make that 13 – hours: Continue reading Air Canada Executive First Suite Toronto to Istanbul→

Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge Toronto and Exploring Toronto

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Intro and Greensboro to Chicago Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge Toronto and Exploring Toronto Air Canada Executive First Suite Toronto to Istanbul 14 Hours in Istanbul Aegean Airlines Business Class Istanbul to Athens Hotel Amalia Athens and Exploring Athens (Part 1) Exploring Athens (Part 2) Athens Airport Lounges and Aegean Airlines Athens to Santorini Anamnesis Luxury Spa Hotel and Exploring Santorini (Part 1) Exploring Santorini (Part 2) Exploring Santorini (Part 3) and Aegean Airlines Santorini to Athens Holiday Inn Athens Airport and Aegean Airlines Athens to Milan UNA Hotel Cusani and Exploring Milan United Business Class Milan to Newark to Continue reading Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge Toronto and Exploring Toronto→

Χαίρετε από την Ελλάδα! (Hello from Greece!)

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Grand Bazaar

The Mrs. Guru and I are en route on our Greek adventure – we’re currently in a Lufthansa lounge at the Athens airport, waiting for our flight to Santorini.  I’ll be posting a full report on the whole trip after we get back, but wanted to post a quick update.  As you may have read, we left on Friday, flying up to Toronto (through Chicago), then from Toronto to Istanbul on Air Canada.  I had never actually been to Canada before, so since we had about a 4 1/2 hour layover, we hopped on a bus and headed into the Continue reading Χαίρετε από την Ελλάδα! (Hello from Greece!)→

We’re Off…Like a Herd of Gophers

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Air Canada Executive First Cabin

Hello from Chicago!  The Mrs. Guru and I just completed the first leg of our next adventure…earlier this morning, we flew up from Greensboro, and have a relatively short layover here.  Our next stop is Toronto, where we have about 4 hours – just enough time to head into the city for a quick lunch.  From Toronto, we continue on an overnight flight to Istanbul, Turkey.  The Toronto to Istanbul flight will be about 10 hours long, so fortunately we were able to score seats in their Executive First Cabin:

Hilton Doubletree Charleston Downtown Historic District

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Over Memorial Weekend, the Mrs. Guru and I spent a weekend at the Hilton Doubletree Charleston Downtown.  I had been holding onto 2 free weekend night certificates (which I earned from the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve Card), and needed to put them to use.  The certificates are only valid for a year, and they would be expiring in early September.  With the retail rate over $400/night, it seemed to be a good use (I think standard rates are around $250/night, but rates seemed to be higher due to the holiday weekend). I called Hilton Reservations and checked availability for using Continue reading Hilton Doubletree Charleston Downtown Historic District→