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Today, 18 April 2012, the theme on all Europe a la Carte social networks is travel in France. Our 25 travel tips on what to see in France will give you some ideas for your French travels.
I was given a Jaktogo large pocketed travel jacket/bag for review. The idea is to allow you to save on travel by carrying more luggage on board the plane, while avoiding the hassle and expense of hold luggage. The jacket has 14 pockets of various sizes on the exterior and interior. Most of them are secured by velcro but there are some with zips. The Jaktogo folds into a bag with handles, making it easy to carry before and after wearing it to get through the boarding gate. However I was unable to work out how to do the jacket to bag conversion from the instructions. I’d advise that you to pay careful attention to how the bag is assembled when you first unwrap the Jaktogo.
The Cozinha Velha restaurant hosted Mary Goudie of Your Lisbon Guide and me for Sunday lunch in late March 2012. The restaurant was formerly the kitchen of Queluz Palace and has a beautiful interior.
Interior of Cozinha Velha
We ate from the Executive Menu which cost 35 Euro for three courses excluding drinks. We were offered a selection of breads to start including Maderian, herb and nut varieties. My fish soup was good.
Travelling with kids is, as I’m rapidly discovering, quite a different scenario to travelling without them. But that’s not a bad thing at all, as tailoring at least some of your sightseeing plans to child-friendly activities means you get to experience new things you may not have considered – plus everyone loves being able to act like a bit of a kid, right?
This list of 25 things to do in Europe with kids showcases many of the child-friendly tourist attractions we’ve mentioned in the past along with quite a few we haven’t had a chance to write about before. You probably don’t want to let your children read this list though – they might want to go everywhere, and that could get expensive.
Germany
There is much about Germany which makes it kid-friendly, with fantastic toy shops, model train museums and lots of outdoor fun to be had. A highlight is Munich’s Toy Museum. It’s located in the Rathaus Turm (town hall tower), a tall skinny building, and spread across four floors. The toy collections on display span two centuries and have something to interest everybody.
I’ve used the Vodafone Data Traveller quite a lot over the last year. For either £2 a day or £10 a month, pay monthly customers get 25MB of data per day in most European countries. A few days before leaving for Portugal, I contacted Vodafone to request that I go on the £10 a month plan. I phoned 40062 from my mobile, the number given on the Vodafone site to opt into the £10 a month Data Traveller. A recorded message said “Great news, Vodafone Data Traveller is now included in your price plan”.
I was saddened to read about loss of 1200 bmi jobs today, due to British Airway’s takeover of bmi. I’ve flown with bmi from Edinburgh to Copenhagen twice in the last couple of years, as a standard passenger versus identified as a travel blogger, (although my ticket was paid for by third party on both occasions). I’ve been very impressed by their customer service. The bmi staff at the check-in desks and kiosks at Edinburgh Airport and the cabin crew on the Copenhagen flights were outstanding. I saw further evidence of this high level of customer service again last week, when I was checking in for the bmi Jubilee Flight from Edinburgh to London Heathrow. Staff had obviously built up relationships with regular customers and are very focused on looking after all customers.
I’ve been trying to get all the blog posts about my Portugal trip written up while it’s still relatively fresh in my mind. I’m almost finished now and I started writing up about my tour of the Algarve with Gwen McCauley of Algarve Experiences. Unfortunately it was a pretty cloudy, dull and intermittently wet day, so some of my photos weren’t that attractive. I try to avoid editing photos if they look OK, as it’s too time consuming to edit them all. I’ve heard a lot about Instagram and its photo filters but as I don’t have an iphone, I’ve never tried it. Flickr has a new editing link to Aviary; I noticed there were some effect options there, so I gave them a try. The “before effects” photos have undergone my normal editing to brigthen them up a bit. Here are three of my before and after effects photos for you to compare.
Looking toward Cabanas from the beach (after my standard editing)
I spent a week in Portugal in late March 2012. After booking my flights in early January, I tweeted about my forthcoming visit. I received a message from @VisitPortugal saying “we welcome you with open arms” and that was it. It was an individual, Mary Goudie of Your Lisbon Guide, who contacted me initially through Twitter, asking about my forthcoming trip and offering to find me complimentary accommodation, arrange restaurant reviews and show me around the area.
Convento de Cristo, Tomar, Portugal
Mary arranged for me to stay at the Janelas Verdes Hotel for three nights, set up four restaurant review meals, gave me a Lisbon tour including Queluz Palace and took me on a day trip to Tomar and Fatima.
Interior of Church of the Holy Trinity, Fatima, Portugal
Art lovers will marvel at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which has the largest collection anywhere of Van Gogh works – and apparently it’s the most visited museum in the entire Netherlands.
I stayed at the As Janelas Verdes in Lisbon for 3 nights in late March 2012, on a complimentary basis. This boutique hotel is part of the Heritage group of hotels. The hotel is located close to the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, to which Janelas Verdes guests have free entry. I was allocated a room at the back of the hotel on the second floor, which looked down on the hotel garden and had river views. The room was very quiet once the windows were shut.
I thought that my room was really characterful, although it wasn’t very large for a double. The bathroom was almost the same size as the room; it was a bit old fashioned but typically Portugese in style. I’d have preferred a shower screen to a curtain. The linens were very good; soft towels, bathrobes and pretty pillowcases. There was plenty of wardrobe and drawer space but the safe was too small for my netbook. There is free WiFi throughout the hotel, the signal in my room was almost as fast as wired connection.
I’ve used the 
