The Travel Thread

Just the thought of that gives me the willies.

I used to plan my January trips around GILT, but found that during the last years I rarely ever used GILT anymore. Either the shows I wanted weren't available at all or offered awful seats. Last weekend for example I had booked cheap full price ahead for Pinocchio at the National Theatre for £15 and Grinning Man at Trafalgar Studios for £35 and had planned to dayseat for Jamie. But since it was selling so well, I spontaneously booked a seat ahead after all (Dress Circle Box for £55).

I'd still recommend January though when London is less crazy with tourists and christmas shopping hype. I was surprised how "empty" the West End felt last weekend, I could even easily get a seat at Five Guys in Covent Garden which is usually so crowded that I started to avoid it.  The Eurostar was pretty empty too, on the way home I could move from my seat beside another lone traveller to a free double seat across the aisle for more leg room and I had got a decent deal on my hotel room, too (2 x £41).  Hotel prices for my next trip in May are already insane. 

Thanks viserys. You're right, it was crazy busy in some area's in London in December. I was wondering if there were good seats in the GILT sale because when I looked I didn't see many. I like sitting in the front stalls. I thought first week of January could be good because the Christmas decorations are still up and also the stores have sales.

Wow, what a great price you paid for your hotel! The only hotel tip I have is the Strand Palace Black Friday sale which gives 40% off for bookings from December until March. But that's only useful once a year.

chlodulf Welcome to the board. I believe we have some Tenerife experts here.

viserys I only looked at the Travelodge Covent Garden and that wasn't cheap. I don't make things easy for myself by insisting on staying in the center. It means I can visit less often because of the hotel prices. I had also looked at the St Giles but I got discouraged by some reviews on Tripadvisor.

Interesting thread!

Holidays when I was a married woman were usually on canal boats because TBH (the b*st*rd husb*nd) loved canal boats, we could take the dog and TBH used to write off *foreign* because “all you do is walk around and see stuff” ….

Although he did enjoy Vegas for my 50th – I got to see my first love (Donny Osmond); I had wanted to go to Italy, but TBH couldn’t be persuaded … we did stay at The Venetian though …

Ah, Donny … my only trip to New York when Donny played BB Kings, again for my birthday in Feb 2005. Got to see a preview performance of Spamalot (with Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce and Hank Azaria) and The Producers, but haven’t been back to New York since. I’ve also seen Donny in Belfast, Glasgow, Cardiff, Bournemouth, Brighton, Sheffield, Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle …

So now I’m free and single I’ve visited Italy three times, twice with groups over Christmas, to Venice, and a tour of Tuscany including Florence, Rome and Siena. I loved Florence so much I went back on my own (again for my birthday in 2015 – less crowds in February) and spent as much time as I wanted to at the Uffizi Art Gallery, admired David’s bum, walked through the Pitit Palace gardens, dined in little restaurants. Bliss. Of course, I didn’t realise until the night before that Tottenham were playing Florence the evening I arrived …. Bars full, lots of singing, etc.

18 months ago I travelled to Plovdiv, Bulgaria, with a few additional days in Panagyurishte. I have a Bulgarian friend, Tina, who is working on setting up tours of European cities, she’s absolutely lovely. Plovdiv was remarkable, going back in June for the Rose Festival. Amazing history in Bulgaria. I took my son Christmas 2016 to Borovets, Bulgaria with Tina – Borovets is a small and cheap as chips ski resort (he skied, I spa’d). I went to Riga, Latvia in September 2017 with Tina and a small group, great fun. This Christmas I went to Zagreb, Croatia – 3 years running the best Christmas Market in Europe. So much history there too, another group trip, mainly older women who were, on the whole, absolutely the best fun

Christmas 2018 might be Athens - friends I made in Zagreb said that was a great trip.

Tenerife was my home for 9 years and love the island. You will have a great time and the people are so friendly. Plus it's warm all year round. The south is very touristy with most of the hotels but the north is very green and picturesque. Make sure you visit Mount Teide which is the highest mountain in Spain. It's a volcano and at the moment covered in snow.

The great thing about London is that most of it is pretty well connected to the centre by public transport, so staying a bit further out is fine, plus 'a bit further out' there's usually all kinds of stuff nearby worth seeing. For example, if you stay around the Liverpool St area you're only 20 minutes from Leicester Square on the tube, 10 minutes from St Paul's, the Globe, and London Bridge on the tube, 10 minutes from Islington in the other direction, 10 minutes walk from the Barbican and Museum of London, and a few minutes' walk to Spitalfields. 

It depends what you're going to be doing, of course, but if you were planning on seeing something at the Barbican, Almeida, Globe or Bridge Theatre you'd be better off staying towards the east end than the centre.

Yes- I found this quite shocking when I visited 10 years ago - and that was from someone then living in London. It seemed to be a bigger problem in SF than other US Cities then, and I have often thought in passing how the years, economy and Government attitudes might have made it worse. Such a pity- a wonderful city, with many wonderful people. But as the article says a real stark contrast between wealth and poverty.

I personally only felt a little unsafe a couple of times-leaving concert venues late at night- and that would possibly be easily remedied by calling a cab/uber etc. and making sure one was with company- the usual. So as much as it's a very sad and unfortunate situation I'd urge everyone- even solo females like me to visit! 

 

There are quite a lot of countries I’ve visited and I’ve found many of them fascinating. Sadly some of those countries are now ‘off limits’ to some of us. Russia is one of them. Egypt another. So I’m glad I went when the world’s eyes were wider than they now seem to be.

It'll be a busy period no doubt with hotel prices being high. In many European countries Easter is a four-day-weekend with Friday and Monday off, so everyone and their dog will be travelling.

This said, prices are unpredictable and weird. I was so happy I could book the Travelodge Finsbury Park for £82 for two nights recently, now I wanted to book it again for July and it was nearly twice as much. Ended up in the Liverpool Street one at £124.

Thank you @theatremonkey! 👍