Michael O’Leary famously quipped ‘if I’d known being nice to passengers would be so good for business I’d have done it years ago’ and that goes too to his staff, and Ryanair’s new friendly face.
Today, of course, was the big roll-out of Ryanair going fully digi with passengers’ boarding passes.
And for those fearful that they would be strong-armed by ground crew, such as Mrs Bandanaman who on being chivvied along called the woman at the gate a fascist, bravely under her breath.
Green for go
Ya dancer: Ryanair staff happy to meet you
The evidence at Dublin Airport was completely to the contrary.
My old travel pack colleague from Ireland, the award-winning Conor Power, reported in the Irish Times of a seemless transition.
With Michael O’Leary seemingly putting out the directive to his staff to be patient with customers… he must be getting soft in his old age.
And the company has said it will accommodate the paper generation.
And that ‘if you have already checked in online and you lose your smartphone or tablet [or it dies or gets left behind].’
‘Your details are already on our system and you will be assisted at the gate’.
While for those who turned up without digital boarding passes staff were there.
To show travellers where it could be found on your phone.
And they were only too happy to direct stressed-out holidaymakers to the Visa check desks for further assistance.
At your assistance
Plane flying: And we made it
All of which we welcome as airport travel grows increasingly more stressful.
And it doesn’t matter how seasoned you are because it seems the more you know about what can go wrong the more anxious you become.
Thankfully, of course, some of those mishaps are behind me.
Such as not reading the small print on the paper boarding pass on the Olympic Air ticket.
And realising I’m at the wrong terminal.
And putting on my naughty schoolboy face to Greta at the Lufthansa desk and taking the telling-off.
To ensure I get put on the next flight from Munich to Athens on my Greek Odyssey without a charge.
Maybe then these digi check-ins and boarding passes are the answer.
Two everyman defy gravity with one scaling a facade and another the Louis XVI column.
With the statue of Le Roi vanishing through a mirrored illusion that reflects the sky.
Prompting reflection on the presence of monarchic power in public space.
Not sure we quite understand what’s going on but we’re all for the intention behind it.
Best seen for yourself, as is the architecture for which Nantes is probably best known.
Flying Machines
Light up: The Carousel
Les Machines de l’ile is the western French city’s calling card.
This completely original artistic project sits at the crossroads of Jules Verne’s imagined universes, Leonardo da Vinci’s mechanical world and Nantes’ industrial history.
All on the site of the city’s former shipyards.
In the Galeries des Machines you’ll see a two-tonne Spider, a Heron with an eight-metre wingspan, a Giant Hummingbird , a Sloth, Lovebirds, a Chameleon and a Butterfly Warm all coming to life.
Then there’s the Great Elephant.
A 12 metre-tall mechanical pachyderm (no, us neither) connecting the Galerie des Machines to the Marine Worlds’ Carousel.
Which is a 360 degrees theatre and mechanical aquarium across three levels.
From the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sea.
Green for go
Sideway glance: The gravity-defying Antipodos
Now to enjoy the full city experience, and we’re noticing here too that it gives you access to the Nantes Vineyard Museum and all in its 50-site package, sign up for the Pass Nantes.
The Green Line is a 12-mile trail which can be accessed a pied, or on foot, by tramway and by bus and river ferry.
Le Voyage a Nantes runs until August 31 and Ryanair flies there from Manchester, Bournemouth and London from £14.99.
And, of course, Dublin from €50.
Bon Voyage et c’est vrai mais oui Nantes is looking up.
Now we have skin in this game with the Son and Heir planning to decamp to Chongqing next month for a year.
So I dragged myself out of my scratcher, and in the dark of a November Scottish morning, for the Chinese Tourism Market Recovery at World Travel Market Virtual.
Wall, what is it good for?
Now every country has its own different approach and the Chinese meeting was more like what I would imagine the National Congress might be.
In short, China leads the world in tourism recovery (I read that off a slide) but judging by the scenes of people enjoying themselves now.
And their projection that the back end of next year will be when we will see a bounce back for international travellers.
They were also optimistic for small group travel which our friend Wendy Wu knows already.
Everything makes sense in black and white
Wendy is running a Black November offer with free worldwide flights for travel through 2021 and 2022 saving £800pp.
Taking the Michael
Fun and air: Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary
The Chinese could certainly do with Michael O’Leary’s presentation skills.
The redoubtable Ryanair CEO waxed lyrical on the failings of politicians to deal with the pandemic.
And the wisdom of Ryanair keeping its planes up in the air throughout it all.
Michael also gave us hope by predicting that next year will see airline companies and hotels dangle discounts at us.
Best of all, of course, is Michael’s unparalleled Irish humour and he had me smiling from the off.
When he reflected on how he brought down the turnaround times on the runway.
And that prior to his intervention pilots needed ‘to have an hour and a half for a smoke and a shag’.
We’re going to have fun in 2021, and high up on the list is Greece’s bicentenary..
And a good day to talk about it though, in truth, every day is a good one to wax lyrical about Hellas.
As the Greeks today set up their committee for the year which marks 200 years since the end of the Greek War of Independence which saw the rebirth of the nation.
It turns out that I’m a Philhellene, which is a lover of Greece.
Which all of us know from our schooldays comes from the Greek word philos meaning love.
Corfu corker
I love Corfu obviously as the island where I honeymooned and made Herself the Happiest Woman Alive.
A Greek God: On Kythera
While I caught up with friends from the Attica region where this old relic had an odyssey of my own before eventually getting to the Parthenon.
Kythera idyll
And bagging an Attica island of my own in Kythera.
The good news is that there are plenty to go around, 6,000 (count them!)
Greece has been held up this year as an example to the rest of us about how to deal with Covid and hence were kept off the UK exempt list.
While other countries fell like dominoes.
Thessaloniki in the distance
And so many tourists discovered the joys of Greece for the first time after switching holidays at the last minute.
Thessaloniki OK
And to the mainland as well as the islands with Greece’s Second City, Thessaloniki, served by Ryanair, EasyJet and Jet2.
As a son of a second city myself, Glasgow, I know why citizens of Second Cities work harder and live harder.
And Thessaloniki is known for its friendliness, music festival scene and as the culinary capital of Greece.
Parthenon for the course
Greek cities and prefectures all will celebrate the Bicentenary next year though some like Thessaloniki arrived late to the party.
In their case 1912 as the Ottomans held onto them longer and that’s a recommendation in itself.
Greek uplift
And the world will be there to celebrate with them.
Though maybe at a more social distance than when an international group of us got stuck in an Athens restaurant lift for half an hour.
They know all about masks in Prague with every Communist schoolchild back in the day put through a daily drill of fixing on a gas one.
And woe betide anyone who didn’t do it quickly enough.
Today’s masks in these COVID days are cloth and less restrictive.
And the revellers at the long table on the King Charles Bridge at its grand reopening in July are lowering them onto their chins.
I know the management
To help them gulp down their Urquell Pilsner beer.
No country on Earth, not even Scotland, drinks as much proportionately as the Czech Republic (official).
And they even bathe in the stuff… close by in the Original Beer Spa.
Beer is everywhere in Czechland.
Monky business
Ya dumpling
Plain-clothes monks produce it and clink glasses on a night out up the hill in Prague’s Castle area.
The superannuated refresh with Pilsner after taking the waters and the treatments in the spa town of Teplice.
And the burghers of Hoptown, Zatec, notch up how many they’ve drunk on their beer mats.
In the Hope Museum next to the Beer Astronomical Clock which is better than the more visited one in Prague.
Here a skeletal figure next to the dials, and Satan himself, mock the teetotal.
They hold a Hop Festival too here in Zatec, eery year where among the competitions is a biggest belly contest.
I’m here to work on mine.
Just as soon as I get out this nuclear bunker.
Have I got nukes for you?
That’s all outside, we’re safe
Radoslav had warned us to stick together as we made our way through the myriad dark, dark passageways five stories down in the bowels of Parukarka Hill in Prague.
Where the only company is mannequins in protective suits and gas masks and the ghosts of Communist past.
Here is where 5,000 Czechs would have come to see out the end of days.
Let’s hope that they had plenty supply of Urquell then to wash down all that tinned meat.
The Czechs would, I believe, have prevailed. They are a durable lot, toughened by a lifetime of being fought over by the ‘Great Powers.’
But they’ve always had a Pilsner to pull them through.
I’m only here for the beer
Something I cobbled together
Beer is at the heart of the Czech story, believed to be the oldest in the world, dating back to 993BC at Brevnov Monastery.
For 250 years in fact only monks were allowed to brew beer.
Which you can only imagine they gave up reluctantly.
They certainly haven’t lost the habit judging by the fun they’re having.
At the Strahov Monastery Brewery close to my opening night billet.
You’d be hard pushed though to recognise them as monks as there is barely a tonsure between them.
In the corner, two British girls on a hen night ply a local with shots and for advice on which bar to go to next and there is no shortage of options.
I am happy where I am though, with my waiter guiding me through the beer menu.
As I sup down my beer onion soup and beer goulash with dumplings.
Mild, followed by dark and finished with IPA, is the answer. But I’m not finished there as I’m given a tour of the brewery with samples at every stop.
Thankfully, it’s all downhill home to the Golden Key Hotel were I will sleep in a triple bed under a wooden ceiling with a sauna in the morning.
And wash it all down…
Roll over Beethoven
My hosts probably feel that they can’t trust me in Prague’s Beer Spa and that I’d drink all the suds.
So they take me next instead to the spa town of Lazne Teplice which is the last word in massage, saunas, bathing pools and medical practices.
But don’t just take my word for it.
Well do, but the luminaries of yore came here to take the waters.
Among them Beethoven who also sought a cure for his failing hearing…
And this is where he stayed
And you can see the horns displayed in the glass cabinets in the Hotel Beethoven corridor.
While you can also ask to be taken to the room where he stayed, although we didn’t get in.
He may very well still be in there and just not have heard the knocking.
Beethoven, the 200th anniversary of who’s birth it is this year, was clearly well looked after in Teplice.
Masked man… old Ludwig
And he would certainly have feasted on the town’s speciality chocolate cake in the titular cafe.
All of which I’ve been told I must work off next, as the Czechs themselves do, in Bohemian Switzerland.
Cerny statues
So, that’s where baby’s gone
No, I’ve not taken a wrong turning although I’ve not been myself since that first night in Prague.
Bohemian Switzerland is the park named for the two Swiss climbers who came here in the 19th century and were reminded of their own homeland.
It truly is an enchanted land and got the official stamp of approval.
Bohemian Switzerland… in Czechland
When the makers of The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe used an arch in the park and set Aslan there.
The Czech Republic is full of surprises and I spend my last night back in Prague which too has many still to reveal.
Two iron figures outside the Franz Kafka Museum, whose waists revolve and who shoot out water onto a map of the Czech Republic.
Hangin’ about: A Cerny statue
It is the work of experimental sculptor of David Cerrny and it is believed to represent what the European Union has don to their land.
The Czechs are wonderfully irreverent to their leaders.
Walk around Prague and you’ll see Cerny’s mark everywhere.
Babies in the tower
A man holding an umbrella hanging from a building a Communist Brabant car on leg and Babies Climbing a TV Tower.
You can get up close and personal to the babies in the tower cafe.
But be careful looking out the window because these weans have no nappies on.
Cerny’s statues blend seamlessly with the Medieval ions, King Charles IV, the nation’s patriarch chief among them.
St John and St Jimmy
Tourists though are urged toward the statue of St John of Nepomuk, who fell out with King Wenceslas, and, no, not the Good One.
This Wencesclas ordered Archbishop John to be thrown off the bridge when he refused to divulge Weneslas’s wife’s confession.
It’s good luck to touch his statue and make a wish and that wish will be lifted up to the heavens.
Me? I think St John of Nepomuk might just have drunk too many Urquells and fallen off the bridge that way.
Where to stay
Ooh missus! Teplice Spa
Hotel Golden Key: The Castle area of Prague from €70. Reception will help you out with maps and directions for the sprawling and tiring Castle area Also that yourself to a spa and the relaxation room. See Asten Hotels.
Stay in Teplice Spa: Beethoven hotel: Price per person per night in off peak season is €87 – including room, treatment. daily entrance to Thermalium pool and enjoy the water features, sprays, cold baths and spas. Lots of Beethoven features dotted around the walls and you can even see the room where he stayed. And full board.
Enjoy your trip
Trip to Bohemian Switzerland and see the arch from the film of CS Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. – €120.
Where to eat
Strahov Monastery Brewery in the Prague Castle area. When in Prague do like the Czechs and eat goulash with dumplings, of course. Go for a starter too – onion soup with an infusion of beer. Heck. go the full three course and dig into the apple strudel.
Flights
With Ryanair – to Prague if purchased way in advance from €40-€120.
Chic: On the French Riviera
Check out Croatia
View of Washington from Arlington
Ryanair, flyin’ air
Lady Liberty is calling
