While I guess for most of the tourists, taking a plane is one of the most exciting part of the travelling. I still remember my younger times where I will frequently get so excited the night before and couldn’t fall asleep, simply because I am flying to Bangkok for a family trip. In the past, my family did not have much spending power and we will just take a trip to Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur. Travelling wasn’t that much of an easy thing way back. This plane ride surely doesn’t fall in that category. Boarding my flight to Paris, and then Frankfurt signify that my time in Europe have comes to an end! What lies in wait is Trip de Americae which is coming right up after I finished this series of Trip Reports. Continuing on where I left in the last post, I was flying out of Bologna airport which have planes just part on the tarmac, meters away from the gates. It is surely a delight to witness the beauty A320 right in front of me with the gigantic engines and the gorgeous Air France livery on it.

Continue reading →

With my previous post sharing on the last city that I have visited in Chapter Wanderlust! It pretty sums up my travel in Europe this time around. 18609KM that I have travelled at the minimum, 6 countries and 22 cities over a period of 44 days. I had fun and chronicles most of my adventures here at Seeing The World In Steps. It made it kind of special that a little guy from Singapore is able to see much more over the horizon while staying in a little red dot. It is time to share some of my personal thoughts and make a little summary of this trip, Chapter Wanderlust. Hopefully it will be helpful if you are planning something similar. I shall start by sharing on the trains product in Europe. Travelling by train is one of the easiest and the advantages in travelling in Europe. I had tried products from Italy, Germany, Austria which are some of the most common ones that you will probably undertake if you are travelling around the region. So this is pretty much a summary of each of them.

Continue reading →

In comparison to train travels which we have know how effective and easy that are, bus travels serves up as a comparable option but at a better price. Bus travels have been getting more and more common these days and sometimes, they are not much longer than taking a train. Bus do also, gets you right in the heart of the city, usually the bus stops are just next to the trains stations. With the upcoming of huge bus companies with vast networks in the recent years. I would like to share how great and how good bus routes are in fact! Taking the bus around Europe have definitely gotten more easy with the prevalence of companies such as Flixbus, Regiojet and Leo Express. In fact, the set up of Regiojet, aka Student Agency is a Czech company that was started out by university students to have the ability to access cheap transportation. In fact it is now one of the largest travel companies linking up routes around Czech Republic. It even have plans to operate train routes. I used the bus for some of my travels, especially Flixbus and Regiojet and would like to do a little sharing on the offering.

Continue reading →

Italy trains system are one of the more unique ones in the region! There are technically 2 rails companies in the country for the high speed trains industry. One of them is Trenitalia which is the national rail company and the other is Italo, a private rail company set up in 2006. With only a short history it had turned up to be one of the leading companies in Europe. In fact it is also the first private operator of high speed trains in the region! I strongly encourage this in all countries since it prevents the monopoly of the industry! Not only does it let to lower priced tickets since it also kind of cut out the arrogance of national rail companies with all their stupid strikes and over powerful unions! Italo trains are a direct competitor to the Frecciarossa!

Continue reading →

Second part of my trip takes me to Italy. While I have ever been in Italy, I felt like I have to take an even deeper an even greater insight dive into Italy. Italy is full of treasures and in fact it is also the country with the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world. Even after this turn around Italy where I spend more than 20 days in all, I have yet still to complete the north and south part of Italy. Since I was coming from Germany, Frankfurt seems to be the best choice given the amount of flights that they have to Italy. Rome was the natural choice given that it is the largest entrance to mainland Italy. Although I have been to Rome, I have decided to check it out even further and it will also be a good base to have a day trip to Pompeii and Naples which I will share on later. While I usually find that there is nothing much to share on an economy flight, furthermore an intra Europe flight, I am going to share with you how I managed to score an even better seat than flying Business!

Continue reading →

I would like to share with you all the crown product of the OBB Railways. The first class cabins on the OBB Railjet. Railjet are the Austrian high speed trains that can go up to 230km/hr. They operate both international rail lines as well as internally within Austria. Some of the popular routes that they operate are Munich to Salzburg or even all the way to Vienna. In fact you can reach Salzburg from Munich in 90 mins and from Salzburg to Vienna in 2.5hr. They are comfortable and spacious. In fact train are such an efficient way to travel in Europe. No liquid limits, no need for long security lines and check in. Stations are usually right smack in town. The amount of baggage that you can bring is only limit by your strength itself. While I usually write only about my flights, I will like to differ a bit from my usual and share a little on the product since I took the first class cabin. In the future, I will also be doing a comparison on the rail products in Europe!

Continue reading →

Time Check, Holiday is finally over I can say. I am currently writing this on the first sector of my flight, SQ007 from LAX – ICN in Business Class. Not as spectacular as it sounds, so stay tuned for that flight review. I did get many post done though, between chitchatting with the crew, getting coffee, I actually managed to write about 5 to 6 post. Back to the point, I would like to share with you the ICE product of the German Deutche Bahn! ICE is also known as the high speed train of the famed German DB. It is the name for the Germans train where they could go up to 300km/hr. I had really high expectations for the European rail system but trust me, after this Chapter Wanderlust of mine, I totally reconsider my view on them. They are not as trustworthy as it seems, totally bullshit where I thought train would leave on the dot and arrive on the dot! If you are following this trip of mine, you will know why I am so disappointed with it in the end. On the bright side, the perks of taking a train in Europe would be the ease, stations located almost right in the heart of the city, no borders control and ample space, I got to point out that the various staff that I had encounter, the service of all of them, Germans, Austrian, Brussels, Italian train service personnel are pretty good. For those who have not tried it before, usually high speed train would need a seat reservation but for the ICE it is not compulsory. I almost got it the hard way where previously I almost couldn’t find a seat on the train from Cologne to Brussels.

Continue reading →