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Pietro Place Travel Blog Aqua Taxi Post

Aqua Taxi (The Uber Debate)

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Pietro Place Travel Blog Aqua Taxi Post

Aqua Taxi

All of the talk, wherever I go, seems to be whether Uber is ethical.

Let’s rewind and remember that Uber started essentially as a high-end, low-cost limo service with smart drivers and GPS. Imagine, these were the first guys in the taxi service that discovered GPS! Like any brand, it started to take off. There was no cash, no tip, no conversation needed, and less than the price of a taxi, all on an app that was highly reliable and told you exactly when and who was going to show up. They then diversified into Uber X which was a lot less than a taxi but the cars were not as nice. Yet it still had GPS relied on credit cards and no tip.

Then the protests began. The basic premise of the protest was unfair competition, no liability, and safety.

If taxis want to compete with Uber, then they should do so on Uber’s terms. Take my city, Boston. Taxi service here is terrible; they are owned by two or three large companies that simply don’t seem to care. The drivers earn a pittance, the taxis are dirty, there is no way of knowing if your taxi is going to show up and, if you don’t tip, they look at you as if there is no tomorrow. So, who is kidding who here? Uber found a gap in the market place – simple as that.

The other night, I took a water taxi from one end of Boston to the other.  I had this vague fantasy of an Uber vaparetto – imagine that!

Bravo Toronto – The False Promises of Olympic Delirium

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TorontoSo now its Toronto saying thanks but no thanks to hosting the Olympics. Boston first paved the way with  a resounding thumbs down and it sure looks like cities are wising up to the false promises of Olympic delirium. Costs and tourist magnets are simply not adding up to an equation that is palatable for anyone except greedy developers who will grab permits and subsidies and take the benefits to their own house.

Lets face it. It’s not a draw. Tourists avoid these things like the plague and Boston was never short of tourists to begin with. In addition, these cities are actually cities that people live in!

Leave it to the Freeway cities like Los Angeles. Smaller cities can draw zero benefits and end up with mega bills that taxpayers have to carry. Bravo Toronto.

Basement Bargains Abroad

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There is good news out there for international travel. The RyanAir, Southwest airline, Easy Jet model has moved into long haul. You get food of course, but instead of departing from a major hub like Boston, you fly from Providence and the price difference on a transatlantic flight to Germany can be over $1000.

No way! Yes!

And here’s the deal. If you think airlines you’ve never heard of, like Condor, are going to force British Airways or Lufthansa to change their fare structure, think again. The big guys are figuring that you don’t want to fly from an airport that’s 30 miles from where you originally wanted to fly to, even for bargain travel. And the chances are that you didn’t check the routing thoroughly enough on Expedia. If you want to fly from Boston to Frankfurt, that’s what you’re going to get, prices from Boston to Frankfurt. So you’ve got to be smart and outsmart the technology, which is going to auto-populate and drive you to the bigger hubs.

Furthermore, business class is cheap on these airlines; baggage fees are waived and the booze is still free. So drink up, enjoy the Euro and look for Condor expanding beyond Seattle, Las Vegas, Ft. Lauderdale and Baltimore. And in case you’re looking for nonstop from New York, Chicago or LA on second-tier airlines – good luck, you’re not going to find them. Happy Travels! Oh, and guess what, the secret’s out Condor is actually owned by Lufthansa.

How desirable is where you live, from an airline point of view?

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There are hubs, and spokes, and then there are places that used to be hubs, but now are back waters. It’s not that where you live is not a desirable place but, from an airlines point of view, it’s a not a desirable place. Take Key West, for example; that seems pretty desirable. Who wouldn’t want to live there? Catch the sunsets, drink the tequila, and sit on the white sand while, in the distance, Cuba beckons. But 43% of Key West flights have been removed – disappeared, gone forever, along with Cleveland, Milwaukee, and La Crosse, Wisconsin.

The other day I was trying to fly from Boston to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Practically impossible. Not just difficult to get to, involving multiple stops, but over $600 round trip, compared to $300 round trip to Philadelphia. What’s happening?! Are airline executives angry about your bucolic country style living and just want to punish you? It’s all about shrinking flight schedules, boosting prices, consolidation. And none of it is good for us.

The truth is, it’s good for the airlines and the rental car companies. Smaller hubs have taken big hits and the smaller aircraft have been removed from the fleet. If you want to fly from Harrisburg to Boston, be prepared to pay top dollar and be inconvenienced with terrible connections. It can even be cheaper to take an Uber! It even encouraged me to drive the 6 hours, because by the time I rented the car from Philadelphia, it really provided me with no great benefit. This is the world of giant airlines; 8 have merged into 4. And smaller hubs have been removed or reduced down to practically nothing. The good news is that if you live in Seattle there are 25% more flights than there used to be. Westward ho!

The new world could mean a move back to cars (and trains if you’re lucky). Or just simply uprooting your entire hippy family from Key West, Florida and moving to midland Odessa, Texas, where there is a 20% increase in flights. That’s gonna be a great fit for you!

It’s not all doom and gloom, of course. Practically every hub in Hawaii has increased service, which brings me back to Key West, Florida. It’s just simply too close to Miami for anybody but the rich and famous. And Orlando, as a megahub, shows increases across the board. Disney just beat out the sunsets.

Image credited to: http://www.barnabu.co.uk/

Visiting Reykjavik

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2015-07-18 18.04.23 Visiting Reykjavik

Arrival in Reykjavik is a bit of an eye-opener. A major international airport hub, the airport facility is in a constant state of expansion. The old days of a shed, a passport control, and a place for weary travelers to rest their legs before continuing on is long gone. You could practically live in this airport. It’s a short distance to the center of town and if you rent a car, which is recommendable but ridiculously expensive, you’ll find driving around safe and easy. Let’s face it, once you’ve gotten past the per day price tag, anything is going to seem within reach.

There is of course the very touristy but essential Blue Lagoon – it’s 15 minutes from the airport and it seems like half the traffic going there is simply on an airport stopover en route to somewhere else. It wasn’t as tacky as I imagined. It’s highly organized and I slightly hate to say it…but I sort of liked it. Not to mention an inside visit to a dormant volcano – essential that the volcano is dormant! Erupting ones can be problematic (pro-tip). With a geyser (that’s where we get the name from), the most powerful waterfall in all the world, and throw in the only visible above-sea meeting of the tectonic plates between the continents of North America and Europe and you have a fairly spectacular sightseeing tour.  All of this while peering out into the distance at ice-capped volcanoes situated in fields of volcanic black rock. And that’s the day trip from Reyjkavik!

Reykjavik is a fun town, a party town: lots of hub and spoke activities, lots of colorful houses all encased in corrugated iron to withstand potential fallout from erupting volcanos – seriously. The great thing about the sun never setting is that you can start your day at 9am and never have to worry about getting back before dark. It never gets dark here in the summer! If winter is your thing it barely gets light, but there’s always the Aurora Borealis to keep you occupied in between visits to the bars.  I stayed at the Hotel Borg http://en.hotelborg.is/ – the room was basic and the hotel looked pretty run down. The breakfasts were average and I got the feeling this hotel was resting on a once glorious past that had sadly expired. Location is just about the best you can find, but beyond that it was a highly forgettable experience. If I return to Iceland I would certainly experiment with another hotel – perhaps venturing out to the Ice hotel (http://www.icehotel.com/) to take a look. Though I personally wouldn’t stay there – igloos are not my thing!

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Iceland Ironically not Icy

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Iceland_kirkjufellmountain

Iceland Ironically not Icy

Iceland’s northwestern tip sits just on the edge of the Arctic Circle. Its summer days are endless and much of its coastline on the western shore reminded me of Norway. So the story goes that Iceland is called Iceland because Icelanders don’t want too many people to know that it’s not icy at all, but actually quite green and should be called Greenland. And Greenland is called Greenland because Greenlanders are rather desperate for people to visit their very icy land, which should be called Iceland.  At least that’s what my Danish friend told me.

First piece of advice, you don’t need an all-wheel drive car.  The roads are better than Boston, unless you’re planning on driving into the mouth of a Volcano (not recommended). Secondly, spend three days in Reykjavik and then head out. It’s a big island. You need a plan and the scenery is spectacular. I headed northwest to the fjords and that took up three days. Mouthwatering scenery, wild horses and a sea of wild blue lupines engulfed by snow-capped peaks reminded me of film sets:  Interstellar, Star Wars, Batman – basically if they need a place that’s barren and otherworldly – they head here. And there are more wild horses than I have ever seen before, puffins galore and whales visible from the shoreline. And incidentally, if you feel peckish, you have to also be prepared to see those three items on the menu. I passed and stuck with the arctic char!

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Beauty and the Beast – 2 Hotel Reviews

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2 Hotel Reviews: Beauty and the Beast

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Hotel Belle Juliette

One of my favorite streets in Paris is the Rue Cherche-Midi in the 6th arrondissement. The street name is actually used in a famous French expression – chercher midi à quatorze heures – to make something more complicated than it really is. The street was actually one of the main exits from Paris for the aristocracy on their hunting jaunts. And they always left no sooner than midi for a spot of light animal killing. So on this lovely street, full of cafes and interesting stores, a wonderful old working hardware store and a newspaper stand (yes, a real one), there is a delightful hotel called La Belle Juliette (http://www.hotel-belle-juliette-paris.com/en/).

I would recommend booking the superior room. Every room is different and funky with beautiful wood floors and, even though the corridors are a little dark and difficult to navigate, the rooms are wonderfully bright and the fixtures are cool and functional. Apple TVs and sophisticated lighting – suffice to say I love this place. It has a beautiful garden area with a nice lounge area. The staff was super friendly, with service living up to a location right on one of the nicest streets of all of Paris. Even the infamous Gerard Depardieu has a house opposite, but more importantly you are a 10-minute walk to the river, 5-minute walk to Montparnasse and along the street there are so many nice little restaurants. My 5-star recommendation is a 4-star hotel with 4-star prices.

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Hotel Montalmbert – Don’t Judge a Hotel by its Star Rating

I have been lost since the Hotel Lutetia closed its doors over a year ago to begin a huge renovation project. It was my go-to pad in Paris. An old-style Belle Epoque hotel in the seventh arrondisement, five minutes from my office in Paris and reasonably priced. I’ve been struggling ever since – jumping from one average hotel room to another average hotel room. So this Paris stay I split myself between two hotels, to try to find a new home for my small work stays in Paris.

First stop was the Hotel Montalembert (http://www.hotelmontalembert-paris.com/).  It promised to be a fabulous boutique hotel just off the Boulevard St. Germain. I was never more disappointed in a hotel in my life. The staff looked bored. The room was smaller than a 3-star room near the Gare du Nord. The bathroom was even smaller than I could imagine in a room like that. Picture Alice from Wonderland looking for a wafer to shrink to fit into the shower. And the television had so few channels it reminded me of England in the 60s. Not to mention that the bed was the most uncomfortable small bed I have slept on for some time.  If you’re in the hotel business, you must get that right.

It was dark and dreary with dreadful décor – the set of an indie film that I didn’t want to be in. The funny thing about that particular part of town is that all the fun and vibrancy of the Rue du Bac disappears immediately after you cross Boulevard St. Germain heading toward the river. How I longed for the Lutetia. But first I had to escape and red card it!

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Oh, Airport Where Art Thou?

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Oh Airport, where art thou?

The Automated Airport

As a frequent traveler I spend a lot of time passing through airports. I’ve noticed a trend and it’s alarming. The humans are disappearing!  In an airport there is increasingly no human contact.  Foreshadowed by the disappearance of the inbound customer service reps, airports are starting to do away with humans. Most of the time now it’s just you, the machine, a credit card or a passport; and those automatic check-in kiosks are for people who couldn’t or didn’t bother to check-in online. And forget the boarding pass. Printed boarding passes are passé.  Every airline (even budget carriers like Southwest) have a mobile boarding pass.  I still print out my boarding pass, by the way. Call me old-fashioned.

The check-in counters almost seem nostalgic now; an oasis for infrequent travelers to get reassurance that there are actual human beings running the show.  The only real reason to check-in with an actual human being is if you’re checking bags.

Baggage, we don’t need no stinkin’ baggage

Airlines seem to discourage it.  JetBlue has finally fallen and as of this month will now be charging fees to check bags.  Notably, only Southwest is remaining true to their “Bags Fly Free” mantra. Might make it worth not having assigned seat. Airfare watchdog is a great place to check to see how much it will cost you if you plan on doing something outlandish, like changing outfits during your travels.

So your first real human contact usually takes place at security. For some that means an actual pat down. Getting frisked in fluorescent lighting is never fun, so note to everybody, get TSA pre-approved.  This is like a VIP list for travelers and those on it get the luxury of keeping their shoes and belts on. Imagine that.

Once you’re through there, there’s no need for human interaction until you get on the plane, unless there’s a problem: you’re on stand-by, you’re late or you’re trying to move your seat or waiting for an upgrade. You now have to deal with…the Gate Keepers.

The Keepers of the Gate

These guys are important – they’re your only hope in most cases, and they know it. So it’s in your best interest to treat them kindly. A great article about gate attendants in WSJ really struck a chord with me the other day. It’s worth a read because it shows the behind-the-scenes of how gate agents juggle passenger requests.

People complain that the gatekeepers are hard, impersonal and tough to communicate with, but it’s not an easy gig. I have always found 100% of the time that the nicer you are, the better things turn out. These are the guys that control everything except the plane itself: the closing of the plane’s doors – you better hope you’re on the right side of it when they do! They can upgrade you, keep you where you are or frankly bump you off if the flight is oversold. Like Santa’s elves, they know who you are and they know how much you paid for your ticket.  Trying to negotiate a free upgrade on a ticket you got on Priceline is probably not going to happen. And copping an attitude with a cheap ticket and you could be left behind. In fact, you deserve to be left behind!  As we tell our kids all the time, attitude is everything.

 

Barbarians at the Gate – Museums and Madness in Berlin

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The thing about football fans is that they travel long distances to see a game that lasts an hour and a half, get to visit incredibly diverse cities all over the world, but really never get to see the cities themselves. At least that was my observation when our Italian friend who doesn’t like football insisted that we spend a cultural day in between the superficiality of a football game to visit Berlin’s three museums.

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My Italian friend rented a car because he gambled that on a soccer infused weekend no one would rent a car and parking spaces would be abundant. Well, he was right! Although frankly, in the years I’ve known him, there was a not a city he had not conquered by instrument of illegal parking. He is an Italian expert. I think and fear that sometime in the not too distant future somebody will approach him with a $200K fine in unpaid parking tickets. But that’s another story.

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We had to get to these museums to be educated and to offset the barbarian activity that we were here for and that would happen later that day. And lo and behold, in probably one of the most incredible museum cities in the world, where they have barriers erected with signs that tell you 1 hour to get to the entrance, 2 hours to get to the entrance, there was nobody. Yep. Those footie fans were not coming down for the education.  So I got to have a quiet moment with Nefertiti – wow, she is hot.

And furthermore I have a semi-complaint about the Greeks who constantly call for the return of the Parthenon marbles, aka the Elgin Marbles. What is the problem? I just walked into the Pergamon museum and they didn’t just lift a little piece of the Acropolis and take it back to the British museum, they lifted an entire city and put it in the Pergamon and it’s mind-blowing. How did they do it? This was a bigger heist than the great train robbery! These Germans had their act together. And I don’t hear anything from any country saying give me this stuff back. I mean, really, this is an entire city! So next time I go through a walk in the Acropolis museum, guess what? I’m not going to feel bad. We only took a little little bit. The Acropolis itself is still there, in Athens. If we had been Germans….it would’ve been in Berlin by now.

 

National Anthems

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I was watching a soccer match the other evening in the Copa America. I started to listen to the national anthems. They were so bad. Maybe they were deep in pre-game mental preparation, but the players didn’t seem to know the words, the music was awful and I wondered why someone hadn’t come to the rescue of this dreadful collection of patriotic songs.

I get the patriotism, and everyone likes a sing-song. But really, in this day and age of Apple and Spotify and incredible lyricists and composers, we can’t get something that sounds vaguely like you would want to sing along to and maybe even live in the country! Yep, I know most of these footballers who play for their national teams, especially in the case of the Copa America, play in other countries. They drift with the money. Who can blame them? But, how about a song that’s actually pleasant to sing, even for these guys.

Case in point:  Italy, land of Opera. Their national anthem has got to be updated. It’s ridiculous! Go find the English translation:

We have been for centuries

stamped on, and laughed at,

because we are not one people,

because we are divided.

Let’s unite under

one flag, one dream;

To melt together

Already the time has come. –

Yikes. How about a Debbie Downer before the game even gets going?!

 

And the USA chose the wrong anthem. America, the beautiful, would have been better. As for the Germans? Well they had to remove the first two verses of theirs, as it sort of sounds like they might be heading to war again! And as for the rest of them – they are all so hopelessly dreadful that I realized that my country, England, had a simple anthem semi-ideal for football games in that God Save the Queen can be quickly converted to God Save the Team. Faith and Football. All in three words!  South Africa changed its anthem to celebrate a new beginning and…. it is a great song. The Welsh anthem is beautiful. Or is it just that Welsh people like singing and it sounds better. Maybe it was just South America? After all, there hasn’t been much to celebrate there for a while – and it shows!  So, someone help the national anthem problem. Most scores for Hollywood blockbusters sound better than what we hear on the pitch. Refresh the songs, the lyrics, and at the very least, make them appropriate.

Champions League Village – Can’t Buy Me Love (T-Shirts)

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Dear UEFA,

Now I know that it’s been a tough few weeks for football.  FIFA is embroiled in a scandal fit for cable television – turns out every single World Cup for the last God knows how many years, was bought. No really? It surprised me that the micro bodies that run the regional competitions like UEFA aren’t joining in the corruption. But you have absolutely nothing to do with any of that corruption stuff – so thank goodness I come to you with an idea to make money – lest you too go down the path of no return.

 

Every year I attend the Champions League Final and every year I ask myself how anybody could conceive of something so pitiful as the Champions League Village, a place where devout fans hang out (usually in the boiling sun) looking for something to do or buy and usually coming up empty-handed? I actually did want to buy a souvenir shirt and I was prepared to pay $50 for it. It’s what I call noblesse oblige marketing – holier than thou branding. The players make millions and millions, the people pay silly money to watch this amazing game – and yet they take us for granted. We’re greeted by cops with guns. We’re not allowed to drink alcohol in the stadium. There is no food in the stadium. God forbid your team wins and you stay to watch the ceremony which lasts for an hour and a half.  Then you are definitely in bad shape because by the time you get back into town, you guessed it – the crowds are everywhere and all the restaurants have closed.

 

So here’s my thing. Football is the fastest growing sport – more money moves and changes hands in this sport than in any other sport in the world. The governing body of the world sport, FIFA seems to orient itself around the religion of money and bribes, and yet I can’t buy a bloody hat or t-shirt in your showcase village that only takes place once a year? The Champions League Village is supposed to be a showcase for UEFA – the grand finale of European soccer. The two best clubs (basically in the world) compete at this event. And here I am wandering under the gate into the Champions Village, planning my souvenir shopping list, only to find that the t-shirt shop had sold out of t-shirts by mid-day. No t-shirts. No merchandise. Practically no food at all. If you’re a VIP member of UEFA, I imagine you get your prawn sandwich and your glass of champagne and a free t-shirt.

 

So is it that there’s just not enough money in selling a t-shirt? You only deal in the 100s of millions? Or is it just at the merchandising level, when it comes to this match that only happens once a year, you guys go to sleep? We are desperate to spend money, but you don’t take mastercard..oops, they are a sponsor! And we truly want to buy something with the name of the event and the teams: bags, hats, shirts, wristbands, etc… By my estimate there are about 50,000 fans who probably want to spend around $5M in merchandising and food. Now I know that $5M is not a lot. Especially when FIFA hands out $10M checks willy-nilly to regional confederations. But this is a Premier event and you guys are better than FIFA. In the end it was a smart enterprising guy outside the village that was hawking illegal shirts for 20 Euros that got my money!

 

So hey, Michel Platini, how about a thought for the people who pay your wages, spent a fortune on a ticket, and truly think, even in the most cynical moment, that this is a beautiful game? Throw us a bone! UEFA, get your act together! While you guys are all sipping champagne at your pre-event parties and eating fancy hors d’oeuvres and chatting “real football,” maybe you could give some consideration to the normal guys – aka money-paying fans. Ah, the life of a working class football fanatic.