Author Archives: Peter Jones

Positano and the Island of Capri

So if you had to choose a place in all of Italy to hang out for a few days in super-luxury, relatively car-free, and using a boat to access restaurants and islands nearby, where would you choose?

I would choose Positano in late September.

Positano is one of those rare places that you find that has just about everything with some gorgeous hotels (Le Sirenuse and Hotel Covo dei Saraceni) and some very cool restaurants that you either have to walk along the cliffs to or rent a private boat to access. Positano has a constant flow of ferry traffic as it serves all the way through the end of September as a main jumping off point for tourists from Sorrento and a jumping on point for tourists to get to the island of Capri. The beach is typical of this area – stony with plenty of stabilimenti. The water is clear although it is good to stay inside of the swimming lanes because of the boat traffic.

I had not been to Capri for more than 30 years so we rented a boat and sailed clear around the island. We landed at the Marina Grande and went to the Marina Piccola for a swim.

Capri is good for a day; no more, and maybe a bit less.

It was good to go but it was crowded and the wait on the funicular was not worth it. The cab drivers all seemed to be satiated for business. To make it worse, the water was choppy so the famous Blue Grotto was not available. One thing’s for sure, Capri is beautiful but no Greek island.

Positano is spectacular and has almost the enchantment of a Greek island.

The colorful houses as they sit along the horseshoe cliff face are like no other in the world. The smell of lemons in the lemon groves pervade this place. The fact that you can buy fresh mozzarella di bufala makes this one of the great wonderlands of Italian cuisine. It’s expensive, it’s trendy, it’s glitzy, and it’s a bit of a hassle to get to, but honestly, for three or four days at least once in your life, you should give yourself up to Positano. Tom Brady did while he was sitting out his four games for Deflategate. My only regret was that I didn’t bump into Gisele while taking my morning cappuccino. We were there at the same time!

Update on Brexit

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With all of this populist talk in the air and Trump grabbing most of the headlines through his really bad behavior, some people may have forgotten that the Prime Minister of England, Theresa May, is firmly committed to pushing the Brexit button next March.

The good news for travelers is that the British pound continues to sink, products that we buy in the UK are as cheap as chips, and sadly for my mum, the average cost of a glass of sangria in Spain just went up by around 20%. But that is not the end of it and lines have to be drawn.

Marmite has been brought into this whole ugly and distasteful mess about Brexit and the pound.

Apparently the makers of Marmite, the mega monopoly, Unilever, have decided to pull back some of the lost profitability of the falling pound and increase the price of our beloved product.

This is causing mainline supermarkets to refuse to stock the beloved brand and deny the right of all English people a taste on toast of their staple diet.

For the American tourists, there is good news of course in all of this. Americans traditionally loathe the taste of Marmite, a black, sticky, glue-like yeast extract that Brits have been brought up on since they discovered what to do with the waste from brewing beer. In Australia they call it Vegemite and it tastes the same.

For most ex-pats, Marmite is headlined with digestive biscuits, custard creams, and oxo cubes as things I dream about when I’m asleep.

It’s the stuff that we were raised on.

Now the beloved brand itself is merely a pawn in the gain of the Brexit politicians who promised a different world but in actual fact delivered a depressed currency, higher prices, more unemployment, and good news, an opportunity for Americans and Europeans to take advantage of a strong dollar and euro.

I was opposed to Brexit but I never thought that they’d touch my Marmite. Those bastards!

Image courtesy of https://twitter.com/mnchstrdesign/status/706414679686561793

Low-Cost Air: The Battle for Low-Cost Flights

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The gloves are off.

What already took place in Europe with Ryan Air and easyJet, and moved subtly across to the domestic arena in the USA with Southwest and Spirit, is now happily making an impact on the transatlantic flight.

Yes, the discount airlines are moving in big time.

While they are not impacting the big boys yet, this could be the start of a new Freddie Laker revolution. And what to do to respond to a market trend of low-cost long-haul flights? How do you retool your factory and make your product more efficient, less expensive, and less dependent upon goliath overhead drain than the big three consolidators?

What we all know is that you cannot take an airline called United and shorten it to Ted and pretend that it is just the same as having a cheaper, more efficient airline carrier.

Been there, done there. That…did not work.

The emergence of the low-cost flights–long-haul flights–has come at a time when oil is cheap. Airlines are starting to make money by pairing down the size of their fleets, using more fuel efficient planes, and charging higher prices to get us from A to B. So who is trying to break up this party?

A recently purchased Norwegian Air ticket from Copenhagen to Boston costs $180 one-way. Other carriers like Canada’s WestJet Airlines and Iceland’s WOW Air are offering prices that are half of what the competitors charge. Furthermore, they are providing a business class option at a tenth of the price of the rip-off business class ticket that you are charged with the top transatlantic airlines. Norwegian operates on 26 routes and on those routes, its share is a staggering 13%. JetBlue is starting to feel that they can make a move in this market too and Southwest is also making noises.

The bottom line is that low-cost long-haul carriers will become a growing threat to transatlantic profitability.

Because the USA and EU have an open skies aviation treaty, carriers can charge what they like which used to spell bad news for the consumer. However, with the low-cost guys, it is completely consumer-driven. This is a big chunk of market to grab. Put a fuel efficient Dreamliner on a route between New York and London and charge $350 roundtrip with a $650 business class option and you are likely going to get takers and more importantly converts. We have all seen how absolutely useless a bunch of points or a loyalty club can be when you really need them. If the low-cost carriers can provide comfort, good legroom, a fun experience on the plane, and all at relatively inexpensive prices, I think that this is just a growing market.

What kind of market is this and who controls what? Delta and United control about 13% of transatlantic traffic, American and British is around 10%, Lufthansa is 7%, but there is a staggering 40% that is up for grabs. The discounters have smelled the prey. The CEO of Norwegian intends to add more flights from more USA cities to more European cities. He claims that ticket prices will be less than $100 one-way. I’m putting my money right now on Norwegian – they fly nonstop, the food is as good as any of the other carriers, they fly the Dreamliner, and they provide super value in two classes of services.

This is all good news for consumers. This should be fun to watch.

The Luxembourg Gardens

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I like to stay in Paris somewhere close to Montparnasse.

Lately I have been staying at the Belle Juliette on the Rue du Cherche-Midi which interestingly enough is a fabulous French phrase that my Parisian friend, Claire, explained to me. To “chercher midi à quatorze heures” means to complicate things.

From this delightful 4-star boutique hotel with a lovely garden, it’s a short walk past antique stores and tiny cafes to the Luxembourg Gardens.

The Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, apart from the obvious reasons of sightseeing, the splendid palace, and the history attached to it, is simply one of the great outdoor gymnasiums.

A run around the perimeter inside of the gardens is just under two miles. The surface is pleasant, the people watching is amazing, the flora and the fauna is over the top and you can barely believe you are smack in the center of the Latin Quarter.

The gardens are jammed between the Boulevard Saint-Michel and Sorbonne area, the Odéon and the Saint-Sulpice, and the longest road in Paris, the Rue du Vaugirard. In the center of the gardens, there are beautiful clay tennis courts that are not terribly busy, donkey rides, petanque games, and a scattering of benches that are used for exercise. In between all of this there is a beautiful pond where children can rent miniature sail boats. There is a kids swimming pool that is sometimes taken over by adults that should know better. There is a plethora of olive green chairs scattered everywhere for people to sit, read, and enjoy what has been there for centuries. There are apple trees, oleander trees, and a miniature model of the Statue of Liberty. Ironically in the Luxembourg Gardens there is not a lot of grass and most grass is protected by signs telling you to stay off of it.

This is one of the greatest parks in all of the world for a jog, walk, or quiet moment relaxing in one of the chairs.

Paris takes your breath away again.

Back to School: New England Edition

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Summer is over. From my point of view, it finished around the middle of August when I couldn’t get a Sam Adams Summer Ale and the guy told me that they were only selling Sam Adams Octoberfest. Are you kidding me? I thought summer was defined through the summer solstice and the beginning of the school year, not the sale cycle of summer ales and availability in bars

Boston at this time of the year transforms from a cosmopolitan, small city into a mega studentopolis.

Approximately 250,000 students descend upon us between the end of August and the beginning of September, marking the transition from summer to fall. Back to school.

Into the twilight hours of the baseball season and the opening days of the American football season.

Did Tom really deflate his balls? I don’t think so. In fact, nobody in Boston thinks so. That is just a horrible conspiracy constructed by the rest of the world against our Tom.

So how does our city shape up and gear up for the influx of youth? Even though the drinking age in the USA is 21 years old, it does not seem to stop the invasion of students into the sports bars around the city. Let’s face it, if you are a Boston fan then there are plenty of sports to cheer about. Hockey season is not far away and basketball starts in November. For those of us who love the game of soccer, well, soccer kicks into high gear come the month of September. The English Premier League is carried live in sports bars all over America along with the Spanish league, La Liga, and Serie A. In other words, there are more sports bars and sports to watch on TV than ever before.

Where do people go in Boston?

The best sports bars in Boston have to be McGann’s Irish Pub in the downtown area near the Boston TD Garden, LIR, a great Irish bar close to the Prudential Center, Cornwall’s in Kenmore Square, one of my favorite English pubs, Jerry Remy’s in the new trendy Seaport area, and the famous Cask’n Flagon down in good old Kenmore Square right next to Fenway Park.

When I travel internationally, the first thing I do is look for an Irish bar. My favorites in Rome are the Abbey Theatre just off of the Piazza Navona on the Via del Governo Vecchio and Scholars Lounge along the Via del Plebiscito. Scholars stays open until 3:00 am and is the best place to watch American football games that start late. The funny thing is that London is not quite as hip as the other European cities. It’s either soccer or suck it in which is a drag because American sports fill the void between the end of the soccer game and 2:00 am. If the patrons are watching, they are probably drinking and someone is making money.

Here are my back to school sports predictions: Manchester United will win the Premiership, the Patriots will win the Super Bowl even without Tom for those first four games, the Red Sox will beat the Cubs in the World Series (sorry Chicago), the Golden State Warriors will win the NBA Championship back from the Cavaliers by narrowly defeating the Celtics, and the Bruins will win the Stanley Cup.

Just my perspective, no bias intended! Got to love the fall.

Flying High Over London

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I’m originally from London so I know the city pretty much back to front.

Nowadays though I tend to see it more as a tourist and probably enjoy a lot more of the sights than I ever would if I lived there. Usually when I fly transatlantic to London, the flight pattern follows the western parts of the city and picks up the Thames just around the airport area close to Windsor, Eton, and Runnymede where the Magna Carta was signed in 1215. Sometimes, if you sit in a holding pattern low enough, you get a wonderful tour of the city center before making final landing.

But the other day the flight pattern coming from another European city was decidedly different.

This time, flying over London took us full along the Thames from the eastern stretches of outer London all the way through the center.

It was a sight to behold. We passed over the mouth of the Thames where Dover sole fish farms ply their trade and eels are caught for the English delicacy of…horror upon horrors, jellied eels.

Literally we seemed to trace the old docklands which had been replaced by brand new developments around Canary Wharf, past The O2, and over the Emirates gondola before we started to get into the new city development – the skyscrapers with funky names like the Gherkin, the Shard, and the Walkie Talkie. This was the new London and we were flying above it at around 20,000 feet. The pilot seemed to be enjoying the view as much as we did and he made a couple of announcements pointing to the developments on the river below.

It was strange to see old London squeezed in between the skyscrapers and the ancient river below. There was the tiny-looking Tower of London and the omnipresent Tower Bridge, London’s iconic and still used drawbridge. Everybody in the plane, whatever side you were looking at, had a treat to behold. St. Paul’s Cathedral was on the right, the Tate Modern on the left, and the London Eye straight ahead…did I miss 12^th century Southwark Cathedral in the middle of it all? We passed Westminster, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and Lambeth Palace, just a stone’s throw from where I grew up, and still we kept on following the Thames.

As we started to run out of sights, the plane banked slightly and we caught a glimpse of Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace.

I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a better or more impressive city to fly into than London. I don’t think so.

Getting Lost in Corsica

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It’s tough to find a place in the Mediterranean that is not overrun by tourists, especially the hordes from the north who populate and destroy the character of places in Spain and Portugal.

But there are times to visit the Mediterranean and there are places during those times that remain relatively untouched by the scourge of modern tourism.

Corsica is one of them.

One hour from Paris by plane or a slow boat from Marseilles will get you to this magical island that sits just off of the coast of southern France, west of the Italian peninsula, and north of the island of Sardinia. I made the most delightful wrong turn upon arrival in the airport and what should have been a 35-minute drive to the picturesque town of Saint-Florent, turned out with my GPS to be a two-and-a-half-hour journey through the hinterland, climbing mountain tops, and going through several weather changes, on my way back to, as it turns out, the airport!

As I discovered, Google Maps has bouts of unreliability nevermore than when you need it most.

But we covered mountain passes, pig farms, delightful stone villages, and oodles of bougainvillea that acted as hedge rose.

Driving was a little dicey but with my stick shift knowledge I was able to navigate some treacherous climbs and take a few stops to grab some time to take in the scenery. The scenery in this mountainous island was spectacular. Even in June there were 8,500 foot peaks of snowcapped mountains peering down across the turquoise Mediterranean Sea.

I had been to Sardinia some 30 years ago but this landscape was altogether different.

Eventually we picked up the road that we had ought to have picked up on the drive from the airport and started all over again. As it turns out, the confusion was because the sign for Saint-Florent had been crossed out by some angry Corsican separatists which left only the sign in Corsican that looked completely different.

A combination of Corsican separatists and Google Maps had conspired to give me an incredible introduction to this magical island!

Things to Beware of When Renting a Car in Europe

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Renting a car in Europe can be not quite as easy as you think.

First of all – the insurance. Call your credit card company and make sure what you think is insured is insured. The cost of a rental car can literally double per day if you take the rental car’s suggested insurance options. Your credit card should cover you for all of the insurance that you need. But there is a catch – the credit card company is simply going to back up your own insurance if there is a problem. Thus, if you have an accident overseas, the credit card company will first go to your USA auto insurance policy and look for the coverage there. If they cannot find it, then they will back you up. But it’s not certain, it’s complicated, it’s time consuming, and as always, it is simply designed as a way for insurance companies to avoid the risk of something happening. It’s sort of like the ad, they cover for zombie invasion but an accident in a car may not be covered by your insurance! So when travelling overseas, just make sure that that is sealed tight.

Second, it also goes without saying that you should fill the tank before you drop the car off.

It’s another way for rental car companies to screw the living daylights out of you.

Lastly, and through no fault of the rental agencies, Europe is a lot hipper and sneakier than the USA in terms of speeding tickets or general fines.

To begin with, do not be fooled because you never see a cop parked in a hidden driveway or somebody staring at you with the speed gun. In Europe it is all done with cameras and as soon as the camera catches you speeding and flashes, you’re done. What that means is that there is no 10 mph forgiveness zone that most of the time is granted in the USA. If you are traveling at 66 km/h in a 60 km/h limit, the speed camera will go off. You’ve been caught on camera. Eventually that fine will make its way to the rental company and the rental company eventually will hit you with that ticket with extra surcharges because obviously it’s late in payment. Fines can be high and rental car companies do not provide information about this. Europeans are very aware of the cameras and in France, the UK, and Italy there are cameras everywhere.

Good news is that the speed cameras have lowered the average speed of drivers and have saved thousands of lives. The bad news is that it is a source of revenue for the local authorities. Same with parking tickets. What used to be easy with a rental car is not so easy anymore. The fine will eventually get back to you with late surcharges and you could end up with a bill on your credit card from the rental agencies up to one year later (which they are allowed to do). Just because the Europeans have a higher speed limit than the USA, it doesn’t mean you can speed like the old days. You will pay for it one way or another.

Image courtesy of http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/overseas/.

The BA Day Flight

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How I love that day flight.

You can work through the day on the plane, arrive looking roughly the same as when you left, and get to enjoy a great meal in London before you begin your journey. Or better still, grab a hotel night at the incredibly convenient Sofitel that is situated at Terminal 5 at Heathrow. This hotel is a dream especially if your onward connection the following day is on British Airways and therefore in Terminal 5.

British Airways operates day flights from New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Boston.

The flight time from Boston is 5 hours and 50 minutes and while it is not recommendable for people who are trying to save a hotel night by sleeping on an airplane seat, the difference in a healthy travel experience and a somewhat acceptable looking human being emerging from the plane is well worth it. The great news is that during the summer months you can connect all the way through to Paris (if you are a BA fan) or to more exotic places like Palma in Mallorca (I’m a big fan).

Imagine – you depart Boston at 8:10 am, do some work, watch a movie, connect through to Paris, and by midnight you can be sitting down in a restaurant on the Boulevard Saint Germain, as I did in the Café Louise.

At that point it is still only 7pm in the evening on Boston time. True confession: I am a secret addict of the day flight.

London Rome and Paris!

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London Rome Paris Pietro Place Peter Jones

London Rome and Paris, coming soon!

The Barbarian Invasion – The Dark Side of Soccer

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It’s the start of soccer mania.

The greatest game in the world is everywhere this summer. There is the Copa America in the USA, the European Nations Cup in France, and not to mention soccer at the Olympics in Brazil. This is definitely a summer for los fanáticos. Carried live on TV in the USA, there is not a day that goes by when some important game is not catching the eye of the devotees.

But there is a dark side to soccer as demonstrated recently in the beautiful port city of southern France, Marseille.

The ugly side of ultra-nationalist thugs fighting against an opposing teams’ army of thugs or tearing apart local restaurants and bars and fighting with the police. It should not be this way but soccer quite often has a dark side. This summer it has again reared its ugly head.

When we choose to travel, we travel to open our minds, embrace different cultures, take a chance on speaking a language that we are unfamiliar with, and get close to the sights and sounds of a place that is unfamiliar.

In brief, learn and enrich yourself with the tools of the trade – tolerance, openness, and kindness. With this, and a guide book or willingness to get lost, one can take a chance with a phrase or two, and get to meet people from different places with different languages, different religions, and different perspectives. When I see the dark side of soccer, I see such a misconnect between the beautiful game and what this ultra-minority of racist hooligans take from the sport.

Here’s the deal – it’s not their sport, it’s our sport. Prejudice in any form is a terrible waste of life.

I will sit back, watch the games, marvel at the moves, enjoy the backdrop of beautiful cities, and know that there is nothing wrong with supporting your nation. But that has nothing to do with being an ultra-nationalist. No wonder they banned alcohol in the cities where the hooligans are heading. What right do these guys have to paint the Russian or English fan on their drunken bodies? Shout out against all forms of racism and fanaticism. You never know, it could be happening at a place near you! See you out there somewhere.

Have They Lost Their Elgin Marbles?

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Have They Lost Their Elgin Marbles?

For the first time in ages, literally, a bit of the now infamous Elgin Marbles is on the move. Back to whence it came? No – it’s been shipped to Mother Russia as part of a temporary exhibition at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The Greeks will not be amused – and neither is the movie star lobby that is starting to bring celebrity voice to the century-old debate about the plundering of nations’ treasures. Note Monuments Men; which based on their box-office take, not many have! Too bad they couldn’t time their release better – it would’ve been a great publicity stunt.

The British museum and the British government is having none of it, however, and Greece is crying foul! Perhaps they should make a remake of Russell Brand’s movie, “Take him to the Greek!” The “scandal” of the Acropolis Museum is still a hot topic. Plaster-case replicas of the Parthenon marbles are displayed in place of the originals, which were spirited away by Lord Elgin in the 19th century and sit a thousand miles away in the British Museum. Even Lord Byron took issue and wrote a poem of protest.

It seems a shame that after so many years some kind of reconciliation can’t be achieved, but therein lies the problem with museums. The oldest public museums opened in Rome during the Renaissance, starting with the Capitoline, the oldest of them all, in 1471. A few years back I explored the Acropolis Museum, which sits in the shadow of the Parthenon. This beautiful glass museum tells the story of all museums – specifically the way collections of artifacts mysteriously end up miles from where they started, in places like London and Paris. More or less everything came from somewhere else and most of the time there was a shady deal. You could say it’s a reflection of history in general-intrigue, treason, and plot! It’s one of the many reasons I love to travel: You learn something new every time.

So will the Elgin Marbles ever make their way back to Greece? Only time and a ton of Russian Rubles will tell.

Every year at this time, London is a sea of red. To commemorate the end of the First World War, tradition has it that poppies are sold on the streets everywhere in London.

Practically everyone wears one, and it is almost like a pledge of allegiance. Even soccer players from lands that have no history connected to WWI, for two weeks in November, wear shirts that have the poppy sewn into the team colors.

Newscasters on TV are never seen without a poppy. It’s an amazing sight. Kids pin them on their T-shirts, taxis have them on their front bumper, and trains have huge poppies mounted on the front.

In order to commemorate 100 years from the beginning of WWI, London has put up a sea of ceramic poppies around the moat in the Tower of London.

More than 4 million visitors will have seen them by the time the poppies are removed and returned to the people who bought them. My mum bought one. She even went down to the Tower the other day to see the exhibition. It’s amazing.

The exhibit is called “Blood Swept Lands And Seas Of Red” by ceramic artist Paul Cummins.

The poppies are a symbol made famous by the poem “In Flanders Fields,” written in 1915 by John McCrea, a Canadian soldier.

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

To find out more about the historic symbolism of the poppy, visit the website for the Tower of London.

The Device that Changes Flying

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So how do you really feel about being stuck in the middle seat of an economy section on a full flight with nowhere to go? Exactly – it isn’t fun.

Now there is an “anti-seat-downer” device called the Knee Defender that is being sold online and in retailers. By having the Knee Defender, you can walk onto a plane and know that the person in front of you cannot put their seat back to disrupt you. Just a few weeks ago, a flight was diverted to an alternate airport because of an argument that ensued between the person with the device and the person in front who wanted to recline their seat back.

So where do you stand? For me, I must confess that I have become a less pleasant person when somebody on a three hour or less flight decides to throw back their seat, choking off my space. This either causes me to create an inconvenience to the person behind me or have a horrible experience for the next three hours.

I have tried, I must confess, the knee trick. With my knees, I would give a nudge here, a knee kick there, and a nasty stare as I go to the bathroom. But all I really wanted was the person in front to turn around and say, “Hey, is it cool to put my seat back?” On some budget airlines, they have solved this issue by locking the seats. It’s all about reasonableness.

It is that strange thing that happens when people get on airplanes in overcrowded situations. Normal, rational people begin to inconvenience other people by grabbing any piece of real estate they can with their elbows and sometimes even sticking their bags over in your foot position. My two cents is that this is not a luxury experience. We are all in this together and if we work as a team, everybody’s life will be made less unpleasant over the two or three hours that we have to endure bad food, bad service, an overheated cabin, and a journey that, if we could take a high speed train, we most certainly would.

Am I thinking of getting a device? No. Do I have some sympathy for the people who try to defend their position? Absolutely. And the jury is out on this, incidentally. Even my brother’s girlfriend seems to think that it’s okay to throw your seat all the way back on a short flight. Not to offer a knee jerk reaction necessarily, but breathe, do yoga, or anything. Just please do not put your seat back.

Tough Connections

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Ever wondered how your life could get worse in an airport as you connect between planes? Well guess what, it just did.

American Airlines is deliberately spacing flights closer together. The reason being economics. They are loading more and more flights into their schedule. Making tough connections more common among travelers. The peaks and valleys that airlines shunned are now being embraced. Bottom line, if you fill more seats, have more flights, make more money, and create more margins, you can succeed in an industry that is plagued by non-profitability and loss.

For the poor traveler facing inevitable delays as planes are bunched up in the air, and terminal hubs become choked, it just means that you need to put your skates on to connect between flights and terminals. Will that mean that the minimal connection time will go down? You bet.

The airlines are gambling that they can fill their planes to optimal levels, and if one or two of us are left behind, no worries, there will probably be a plane six hours later! On the other hand, the airports, if all goes well, will sell less paraphernalia to us. You can bet your life that you are going to have to abandon the Starbucks coffee and the inevitable twenty minute line. So the shops will lose what the airlines might gain and passengers will just sweat a little bit more than they used to!