Galley Gossip: The people you meet, the places you want to go – Portugal, Greece, Hong Kong, Croatia, and Dubai

by Heather Poole on

Though I have no idea when it will actually happen, I can’t decide where to travel on my next big vacation…

  • Greece
  • Hong Kong
  • Croatia
  • Dubai

That’s been my list of dream places to go for the last few years. But now I’ve got a new place to add to the list, a list that just keeps growing.

  • Portugal

Man oh man, the people you meet, the places you want to go…

Alice, my hairdresser is from Portugal, and that’s what we talk about every time I see her, which is at least once a month. It was the morning of my Las Vegas trip, and while Alice worked her magic on my hair, I sat in front of the mirror on a swiveling chair catching up on the latest travel magazines that customers before me had left behind. Of course whenever I see Alice I can’t help but talk travel while flipping through all those amazing photographs of beautiful places all around the world.

While reading an interesting article about a little town in Croatia, Alice said, “You’ve got to go to Portugal. It’s beautiful.” She had just returned from a two week vacation that very week, which explained the dark tan and the honey colored streaks in her auburn hair.

Placing a copy of Travel and Leisure on my lap, I listened as she described Vilamoura, the village by the sea where she grew up, where she had just visited, and as she described the fresh food, seafood of course, I decided right then and there I wanted to go. Soon. If you’d been there with me you’d want to go too! When my curly hair had been straightened as straight as it could get, I went home, got on the computer, and started googling Portugal.

Alice was right. Portugal is beautiful. I do want to go. But with so many places to go, and not enough time to actually go, how does one decide which place to go – first?

Greece has been on my list for as long as I can remember. So long, in fact, I can’t even remember how or why Greece initially made the list in the first place, but there it is, right at the top, where it’s been for years and years now. There’s just something about all those stark white homes against a sea of blue that leaves me yearning for more. Of course the movie Mama Mia only made me realize I need to get there sooner than later.

Hong Kong made the list last year after the husband returned home from a business trip. Initially he didn’t want to go. Complained about having to go. But then, when he finally returned, all he could talk about was going back. “It’s amazing,” he kept saying as he described the buildings and the food and the tailor who eventually shipped him three custom made suits. Then, last month an old friend from an old job contacted me on Facebook to inform me she still worked for the same company, only she was now VP of the company in Hong Kong, ending the email with “Come visit me soon,” prompting the husband to exclaim, “What are we waiting for!”

Croatia made the list five years ago after viewing hundreds of gorgeous photos taken by a young man, a budding photographer, the son of a woman who works for my husband in New York. The photos were beautiful, particularly the ones of the people who lived there – his relatives. “You can stay at one of their houses,” he offered, “While they stay at a hotel.” It was a tempting offer. We came very close to spending our honeymoon in Croatia, but then the war broke out and after 9/11 I was a little nervous about flying too far away from home. We ended up in Mexico. Since then, each and every year, we come THIS CLOSE to going to Croatia, which is really really close, before someone or something inspires us to go elsewhere. Eventually we’ll make it there.

Dubai is the most recent place to make the list. I must admit, the thought of actually traveling for that long of time on an airplane does not sound like a vacation, not to me, not when you work on an airplane for a living. The last thing a flight attendant wants to do is go to the airport, get on an airplane, and be surrounded by passengers on a day off, for any length of time. But I keep meeting passengers who absolutely love Dubai. On my flight to Vegas, the British man sitting in the first row couldn’t stop talking about the airport – the airport! Apparently it’s pretty incredible. And that’s just the airport! And on my flight to Miami, if the passengers weren’t going to Dubai, they were coming back from Dubai, or had just recently been to Dubai. I even shared a cab with a flight attendant who worked for another airline who wanted to quit and become a flight attendant for Emirates, just so he could live in Dubai (and layover in five star hotels.) With all this talk about Dubai, it had to go on the list.

There are so many great places to travel and I can’t decide where to go. Perhaps you, dear reader, can help. Please! Have you been to Dubai, Croatia, Hong Kong, Greece, or Portugal? If so, take the poll below, and don’t forget to add a comment. Tell me why you love the place you choose, and make sure to share all your favorite things to do and see. I’m dying to know.

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Galley Gossip: Ask a flight attendant – Positano, Italy

by Heather Poole on

While on a flight to Stansted, England, on our way to Venice, the New York based international flight attendant working on my side of the cabin eyed the book, Frommer’s Italy 2008, in my hands as she poured a little cream into my coffee. “Are you going to Italy?”

“We are,” I said, nodding my head at the husband who was asleep beside me. When she placed the cup of coffee on my tray table, I said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. So where exactly are you going in Italy?”

“Venice, Positano and Rome. Have you been?”

The flight attendant laughed, “Have I been? Too many times to count!” Click went the break of the cart. “I’ll be back as soon as I’m done with the service.” And like that she was gone, off to the next row where she offered the passengers behind us coffee, tea, cordials and dessert.

Want to know good, yet affordable, places to go, and eat, on your next vacation? Ask a flight attendant. Flight attendants are much like cops in respect to knowing great places to visit. Yet unlike cops, flight attendants aren’t just familiar with one city, they know the ins and outs of many different cities. Don’t believe me? Just ask the flight attendant on your next trip. You’ll see.

Ten minutes later the flight attendant was back at my row, a pen in hand. She placed a piece of paper on my tray table, a customs and immigrations form, and flipped it over. On the back she wrote the word POSITANO, and then began to draw as she said, “I go to Positano two to three times a year. Here’s what you need to do…”

“What?” said the husband who was now leaning over my shoulder.

“Positano,” I said. “She’s giving us the scoop on Positano.”

“My favorite place in the whole world,” said the flight attendant.

What I didn’t know at the time was Positano would soon become my favorite place in the whole world, too. It’s that amazing. That beautiful. And the food…absolutely delish! It’s the kind of place where you can just relax, sitting on your ocean view balcony, and let Italy come to you.

“Now this is the Doma.” She placed her finger on a sketchy looking arch. Then she marked a spot with an X. “Right here is a ceramics store. You’ve got to go here. This is where I bought the most beautiful set of ceramic plates. They’re gorgeous. Brown with red in the center and white around the edge, they’re perfect for the Valentine’s day dinner I host every year at my house.”

‘We’ll have to look for those,” I told the husband, and meant it. I wanted Valentine’s day plates, too!

And look over there – we found them, the beautiful Valentine’s day plates! At the store. Just like she said. But for some reason we didn’t buy them. Now I wish we had. Next time. Trust me, there will be a next time.

Three X’s marked the spots of good places to eat. “This is where you want to get your morning coffee. It’s right on the beach.” A box was drawn. “This is the gas station where you can buy bus tickets that will take you to Ravello and the Amalfi Coast.”

“We’re definitely doing that,” I told the husband.

And we did. Though we did it by scooter, not bus. What an amazing and unforgettable ride.

More X’s and boxes were drawn, as suggestions and recommendations were made. We only had three nights in Positano, so I was starting to wonder if we’d even have time for all of the things she wanted us to do, things we just had to do! Honestly, I think she was just as excited about our trip, if not more so, than we were! And this was our honeymoon trip – five years late.

Our trip to Italy in May was fantastic, and Positano, without a doubt, was the highlight. Heavenly is the only word to describe it. I can’t wait to go back. So if you’re reading this, Miss New York international business class flight attendant, thanks for the advice. And if you, dear reader, are thinking about going to Positano, here are my suggestions to you…

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Exactly how green is your vacation? Take this quiz!

by Anna Brones on

Even if you manage to do more than a staycation this summer, vacations just aren’t what they used to be. Along with paying to check baggage and incredibly high gas prices comes a whole new level of social responsibility; seems like we can’t even take a simple American road trip without considering all the environmental costs involved.

For those of you that are concerned with just how green your summer travels are, the Sierra Club has two easy quizzes to figure out where your vacation ranks on the green scale. The How Green is My Destination quiz looks at the environmental impact of where you are going and the How Green is my Getaway quiz analyzes just how your mode of travel — bike, bus, airplane, etc. — changes the greeness of your upcoming vacay.

To take the quizzes click here.

Galley Gossip: Flight attendant vacation – Venice (Cannaregio)

by Heather Poole on

You’ve thought about going to Venice. Come on, admit it. Don’t deny it. Of course you immediately talked yourself out of it, considering you absolutely detest crowds and tourist traps. Yet Venice, you must admit, does look magical, like the kind of tourist trap you should see at least once in your life. But the problem is you can’t stand crowds and tourist traps. And that’s a problem. A very big problem.

For me, too!

When a flight attendant takes a vacation, the flight attendant will do everything possible to avoid anything that resembles a layover. Layovers equate to work. Yeah, I know, work ain’t so bad when you’re laying over someplace nice, but at the same time, laying over somewhere nice usually means you’re at a chain hotel surrounded by chain restaurants, not too far from the airport. Of course, life could be worse, I know. But when you’ve been doing the layover-chain-thing for thirteen years, it doesn’t matter where you are – New York, Paris, Rome – it all starts to look the same. Which is why a flight attendant looks for something different, someplace unusual, somewhere special, when it comes to a vacation – wherever that vacation may be.

When I went to Venice in May, I stayed in Cannaregio, otherwise known as the Jewish Ghetto. You don’t have to be Jewish to stay in the ghetto. And don’t let the word “ghetto” fool you, because this ghetto, is unlike any other ghetto. It’s amazing. And quiet. And tourist free. Okay fine, as tourist free as a tourist trap can be.
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I knew Cannaregio was the place for me when I read in Frommer’s Italy 2008 the following…
“It’s outer reaches are quiet, unspoiled, and residential (What high season tourist crowds, you may wonder?) One third of Venice’s ever shrinking population of 20,000 is said to live here…”
So where, exactly, did I stay in Cannaregio? See that picture on the right? That’s where. At the hotel Ai Mori D’Oriente, a small Turkish hotel located on a quiet canal, just a fifteen minute walk from the Rialto Bridge. Where did I eat? When we weren’t enjoying the complimentary breakfast of fresh fruit and salami and ham on a crusty roll at the hotel (the husband was in heaven), or the pizza, anywhere pizza could be found, which was pretty much everywhere, we’d go wherever Guido, the concierge at the hotel, suggested.
“You want something rustic, some place not too much money, someplace I’d go?” he asked, looking at my heavy travel book with disdain.
The husband and I nodded frantically, as I placed the 2008 edition of Frommer’s Italy back in my bag. It was a big bag.
Not once did one of Guido’s recommendations let us down. Especially the night we visited Osteria Ai 40 Ladroni (right down the street/canal from the hotel) where I found myself sitting at a candlelit table under the stars, beside a quiet canal, surrounded by other tourists looking for something not-so-touristy, immersed in a small plate of heaven – gnocchi with crab smothered in a delicate tomato sauce.
Did I just use the word delicate? I did. It was delish!
I don’t need to remind you that Cannaregio is in Venice, not too far from everything you ever wanted to avoid. Yet won’t. Because even that is a must see. But then, as soon as you’ve had enough (which won’t take long), it’s back to the ghetto for you, where all of the other tourists who don’t like tourists find themselves. On your brisk walk back to the hotel, make sure to run into a loaf of crusty bread, a bottle of olive oil, a hunk of cheese, and half a pound of salami at the local grocery store, the store where you see that little yappy dog staring intensely into the window. Trust me, this will be one of the best (and cheapest) meals you’ll ever experience. In your room. Away from the crowds. Don’t worry about all those calories, you’ve already burned them off walking from San Marco Square back to the peace and quiet. And yes, you really do need to experience Venice. At least once in your lifetime. For the gnocchi alone.

French people must stop thinking about holidays, says new minister

by Iva Skoch on

I don’t think the new minister will be popular in France. And that’s even if she doesn’t marry a former supermodel.

Christine Lagarde, France’s first female minister for finance and economy, said that it is time for French people to “roll up their sleeves and stop thinking about holidays.” Five weeks of vacation guaranteed by the state, to be exact.

“Instead of thinking about their work, people were thinking about their weekend… organizing, planning and engineering time off,” she told BBC.

BBC also reports that the former international lawyer, impressed by the work ethic during her time in the US, is intent on instilling the same spirit in her countrymen and women. (The spirit of not taking time off?)

Didn’t President Sarkozy try doing the same thing before his popularity went down the drain?
The lesson? Don’t mess with the French and their vacation time.