Europe Information

Like many travelers visiting Europe, they like to visit different places. Some do it by bus, some by train or by air if you want to go farther. But if you want flexibility the best way is still to rent a car.

Car rental is affordable and provide you with the liberty to go anywhere you want and anytime you like. Many don’t rent a car because they don’t plan to go back to their point of origin to return the car because they will backtrack on their route and lose precious vacations time.

But it’s possible to rent a car at one place and return it to another place, its call one-way rental. In Europe you can even return it to a different country. This last option usually comes with a huge premium unless you use this trick.  It’s to bring back car for the rental company. Rental Company like Hertz or Avis does a lot of cross border one-way rental and need to ferry their car back to the origin country. It’s usually done by truck but it’s expensive for them. Hertz provide travelers the option to do it for them and rewarding them with very low rental price.

On this website you can see hertz cross border inventory.

http://www.hertz-transfer.eu/

Choose country of origin and destination and they will show you the car that is available for you. Just select a car and give hertz a call on the number on the website to get a very good deal on your rental.

I recently tired Air France Premium Economy. It’s been around for almost a year and it’s progressively being deployed of every Air France Route.

First thing you notice is that the seat is a hard shell, which means the passenger in front of you doesn’t recline in your space. The biggest drawback of that design is that you seat don’t actually recline, it just slide down within the shell, and you find yourself not in a seating position but an awkward reclined “plank” where it’s still too horizontal to be confortable. If you think the AF angle flat business class is bad, this is terrible position to be in. Like every Air France seat, they lack proper padding so after a 3 hour you can feel the seating taking a toll on your body.  On more problem with the seat is the seatbelt, it’s been modified to keep you restrain while you are recline, is huge and very uncomfortable in any position.

Food, not much to say here you can the same choice as every other economy class passenger it’s disappointing.  For entertainment you have the same system as the rest of the plane with a slightly bigger screen than economy.  They also give you the Business Class amenity kit.

Other perk include priority checking and boarding, and the possibility to use the lounge if you pay 35 euro.

Depending on your route price might be interesting like a 25 % increase the economy fare, but some other route price is twice the price of Economy fare. Before trying it I was unsure is the Premium Economy was worth it but now I know it’s a waste of money for an uncomfortable experience.  Premium Economy is typical Air France who likes to dictate to their customer what they want instead of asking them. They should learn from Lufthansa who do intensive research with their top customer before introducing a new product.

Au cours des dernières années, Barcelone est devenu un point de départ pour beaucoup de compagnie de Croisière, notamment Norwegian Cruise line pour leur croisière en méditerranée. Beaucoup de passage arrive a Barcelone par avion de l’étranger mais certaine Français et Espagnole préférer venir en voiture du à leur proximité.
Pour de ce qui est du stationnement, la meilleure option est le stationnement intérieur au World Trade Center de Barcelone. Il est situé juste a coté du terminal à croisière. Il  y  a un tarif spécial de 87 Euro par semaine pour les gens qui partent en croisière. Pour bénéficier de ce tarif vous devez vous rendre au comptoir voir une personne physique et non d’utiliser les bornes automatique.

Pour se rendre au bateau il faut prendre le Bus Bleu, il y a un arrêt sur la route principale devant le World Trade Center. Le cout y est de 2 Euro par personnes.
Si vous avez beaucoup de bagages je vous conseil de vous rendre directement au bateau en voiture pour les déposer, ensuite un de vous pourra venir garer la voiture au parking du WTC et revenir au bateau avec le bus bleu.

In the recent years, Barcelona became a departure point for many cruises lines, like Norwegian Cruise line (NCL), on their Mediterranean cruise. A lot of passengers come by air from abroad but some, who lives nearby, like in Spain or France prefer to come by car.
The best parking option is the interior parking at Barcelona World trade Center.  It’s located right next to the cruise ship terminal. They have a special rate of 87 Euro per week for Cruiser.
To get in on the special rate you have to stop at the manned booth before you leave the parking because the automatic machines don’t offer this rate.
To reach the ship to take the Blue Bus, that has a stop on the main road right in front of the World Trade Center.  The blue bus cost 2 Euro.

One trick if you have a lot of luggage is to drop your partner directly at the ship and then come back to park at the WTC, and get to the ship with the Blue Bus. Save a lot of luggage handling on the bus.

Here is some more information regarding Air France luggage rules

Economy Class (Voyager) passenger to certain destination can bright 2 x 23 kg free.

Those destination are :

Africa :

Abidjan, Abuja, Accra, Addis Abeba, Bamako, Bangui, Banjul, Bissau, Brazzaville, Bujumbura,
Cape Verde, Conakry, Cotonou, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Djibouti, Douala, Entebbe, Freetown, Harare,
Kano, Khartoum, Kigali, Kilimandjaro, Kinshasa, Lagos, Libreville, Lilongwe, Lomé, Luanda, Lusaka,
Mombasa, Monrovia, Nairobi, Niamey, Ouagadougou, Pointe Noire, Port Harcourt, Sao Tome et Principe,
Yaoundé

Caribbean, French Guiana, Indian Ocean:

Antananarivo, Cayenne, Fort-de-France, Havana, Pointe-à-Pitre, Port-au-Prince, Punta Cana,
Reunion, Saint Domingue, Saint Martin

And some other  like : Noumea,  Papeete, Quito and Guayaquil.

Customers buying and starting their travel from Brazil will be able to bring 2 x 32 kg.

Also it’s been confirm that First Class (Premiere)  passenger are under the same rules as Business Class (Affaire)

Sky Team elite plus members will be able to bright an extra piece as Flying Blue Elite.

Those new rules will also apply to KLM flight

Starting March 28th 2010 Air France will introduce new luggage rule on every destination, similar to the one currently in place between Europe and Canada/USA.

Economy (Voyageur)

1 piece of  luggage of 23 kg

2nd piece of luggage of 23 kg for 55 EUR/USD/CAD

Additional pieces of 23 kg for 200 EUR/USD/CAD each

Premium Economy (Premium Voyageur / Alizé)

2 piece of luggage of 23 kg each

Additional pieces of 23 kg for 200 EUR/USD/CAD each

Business (Affaires /Premium Affaires)

3 piece of luggage of 23 kg each

Additional pieces of 23 kg for 200 EUR/USD/CAD each

Flying Blue Silver, Gold and Platinum will get an extra piece of luggage of 23 kg for free.

This mean…

Economy (Voyageur)

2 piece of  luggage of 23 kg

Additional pieces of 23 kg for 200 EUR/USD/CAD each

Premium Economy (Premium Voyageur / Alizé)

3 piece of luggage of 23 kg each

Additional pieces of 23 kg for 200 EUR/USD/CAD each

Business (Affaires /Premium Affaires)

4 piece of luggage of 23 kg each

Additional pieces of 23 kg for 200 EUR/USD/CAD each

In every class you can “upgrade” a piece up to 32 kg for 100 EUR/USD/CAD

For some passenger this will be and upgrade from what they are used to

Economy passenger from Asia to Europe use to have unlimited piece with a total combined weight of  20kg, will now have a extra 3 kilo to work with.

But for some other like passenger from Africa to Europe use to have 2 free piece of 23 kilo each, are now stuck with only 1 free piece.

No word yet on what First Classe passanger will get but it’s fair to said it will probably be the same as business or maybe one extra piece.

Also we still don’t know how if Sky Team elite will get the free additional piece like the one Flying Blue

A lot of people Transit in Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport and usually have long layover.
If you happen to have at least a 5 hour transit time between your flight you have time to go downtown and visit the Eiffel tower.

From Terminal 2 you follow the sign to the TGV Rail Station, situated between Terminal 2C-D and 2E-F.

From Terminal 1 you take the free CDGVAl train to the TGV Rail Station.

One in the station you look for RER B

You take the RER B for around 36 min and change to RER C at the “Saint-Michel Notre-Dame” station

RER C ride should be around 11 min. You exit at “Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel” station.

From the station you make your way to the tower by foot, shouldn’t be more the 3 min.

Price for the RER is 8.50 Euro each way.

For more info for visiting the tower check out the Eiffel Tower Website : http://www.tour-eiffel.fr

IMPORTANT you should leave the tower at least 3 hours before your flight. The ride back to the airport is around 1 hour. CDG to notorious for long line at security so being at the airport 2 hour before the flight is a safe buffer.

Traveling in Paris by car, that take a lot of courage and a lot of patience. You shoud use the Paris Tube, Paris Subway or Paris Metro. It’s easy and it doesn’t cost much. Plus you will save money and time instead of spending your day in trafik. Take a look at our map, print it if you like and you will never get lost.

Se déplacer a Paris est loin d’etre un jeu d’enfant. Il faut avoir du courage et beaucoup de patience pour vouloir de déplacer en auto ou en Voiture.  Je vous sugere d’utiliser le Metro de Paris. Il est simple et ne coute pas très cher. Vous allez sauver de l’argent et du temps au lieu de passer votre journée dans les emboutillages sur le périférique. Regarder notre carte, Imprimer la, elle vous sera utile pour ne pas vous perdre.

It goes my many names, London Subway, London Metro & London Tube, but we are all talking about the same form of underground transportation when you are in London.

Here is the latest up to date map.

On le connais sous plusieurs nom : Metro de londre, le Tube de londre, mais nous parlons ici toujours du même moyen de transpors sous-terrain quand vous êtes à londre.

Voici sa carte la plus à jour.

Here is some photo I took in LH new business class lounge in Paris CDG

The lounge in located after security in the satellite 6 of Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1.