Reason to move #238. The Rhondda and the rain.

January is a strange time. The Christmas celebrations seem like a distant memory, whilst the return to work feels like a nightmare that you can't wake up from. In Wales, the weather is inevitably nasty and it's difficult to motivate yourself to almost anything. However, in our part of what is affectionately called 'God's own acre', there's a horror that quite frankly, I could do without. The Rhondda on a cold, wet night. 

From the film of 'how green was my valley' to the song 'if I could see the Rhondda one more time.' This valley is perhaps the poster child for valley's life in general. Happy coal miners and salt of the earth folk fill the descriptions of Wales and it's valley's. It's all a lie. Today the valley may be green, but it sure isn't idyllic. Indeed, the gentleman from the song above may wish he'd died before he got to see the Rhondda on a cold, soggy January day.

In fairness the Rhondda is full of lovely people and great scenic views if you drive out of the valley to the mountains. But the towns like Treorchy, Porth and Maerdy are all in decline. Just yesterday, Treorchy and Porth lost their HSBC branches, leaving people from the tops of the valley's to travel down to Pontypridd to do their main banking. It's a trip of around an hour or more for some. There's no heavy industry left here and with an aging population, little money in the local economy to keep the plethora of small businesses afloat. Currently the most common new business started here is that of the Tattoo parlours, often staffed by people like the self proclaimed 'legendary' Lee Tattoo. It's a sad story. 

Treorchy on a January evening. 

In the winter, even getting to the Rhondda from home is a tricky prospect. There are just 4 main ways into the valley itself. Three of which involve mountain roads. Two of those mountain roads are accessible to us, with the closest taking us into the main Rhondda Fawr valley. The mountain road is treacherous in winter. If it snows, the road can be closed, and quickly. But while the snow can make things slippery on the top, in the wind and the rain, the road becomes incredibly tricky to navigate. Having worked in the Rhondda for almost 10 years, I know the road like the back of my hand, which really helps when the cloud comes low over the mountain and you can't see more than a few meters ahead. It's best not to think about the sheer drops climbing out of the rhondda that sit just to the left, nor to consider the massive drop as you crest the peak before heading down to home. 

Somehow, I think that had this road been in Austria, they would have tunnelled through the mountain, creating quick access to the valley and providing a road that's open all year. 

So for that reason alone, I can't wait to move. After 10 years of driving over the mountains, I'm ready to leave it all behind and let the trams take the strain. 

Happy New Year, prepare for action!

It's a new year and with the memory of the Christmas turkey already fading into background, it's time to take action. This is it people. This is not a drill. The move is on.

Over the last 18 months, things have had a habit of going wrong. It seemed everytime we announced a date to move, something would happen to throw that plan to the wind. From an original date of May 2015, the move continued to slip as one thing or another came up to spoil the party. In the end, the whole move was almost called off. 2015 proved to be a very trying year and one I personally will be glad to see the back of. 2016 offers a fresh start and finally a date set in stone. 

Date and time um, time. 

With all that was said above, I've been a little reticent to announce a new date having seen so many fall by the wayside. The time has come though to let you all in on the secret. Why is this date different? Put simply, as readers of previous post will know, things have been booked. The van is ready to go, the eurotunnel crossing is sorted as are the hotels needed along the route. Finally, the flight I need to take to get back to Vienna is bought and paid for, so we're committed, and the fun starts on July 30th! 

Yup Saturday July the 30th we pick up the van, load it up and head off to Folkestone to stay overnight, before setting off for Frankfurt on the 31st before arriving in Vienna on August the 1st 2016. Then I get a day off on the 2nd before jumping in the van and driving it back to the UK and finally catching my flight back on the 5th. It's six days, 2200 miles and a lot of food on the go. I expect it to be exhausting, exhilarating and it'll take a toll, but so worth it. 

Pre move madness. 

With the date and time set, we've now started the process of moving. We have just about 7 months and although it sounds like a lot, it really isn't. In that time we need to sell of the stuff we're not taking, pack up the stuff we're not using right now, but taking with us, and try to work out what just needs to go in the bin. Then we have to visit Vienna about six weeks before we arrive to try and get an apartment, for which we have our own estate agent, a lovely guy called Wolfgang, who will take us to viewings and hopefully we can agree a lease. And all this has to be done whilst still working and saving. The next seven months is going to be tough. For now, it's New Year's Day, and I'm going to enjoy the New Year's Day from Vienna. And as a parting picture, here's what we're working for. 

So happy new year, hopefully it'll be as interesting as ours. :)

Frohe Weihnachten! Christmas in Vienna.

With the festive period fast approaching, last week we found ourselves enjoying a taste of next year in a very cold Vienna. For various reasons, we had to finish off the year with one last holiday, and Vienna seemed a natural choice. (Well it would I suppose!). So on a very foggy Sunday, we arrived, friend in tow, at Vienna for a little Christmas break. 

It's often said that the Americans know how to 'do Christmas' and there's a lot of truth to that. The Austrians however, really go to town for Christmas and it wasn't to long until we found ourselves enjoying a Christmas market. In recent years, German style Christmas markets have been all the rage in the UK. So much so that two years ago, there was a lot of concern in Germany that they didn't have enough stall holders to fill their markets as most were heading to the UK. In Vienna however, there are markets everywhere. Food and drink go hand in hand with traditional gifts, Christmas decorations and plenty of music to boot. 

Christmas punch is the first thing you'll find and every market has a stall that will offer you a hot cup of punch, Glühwein or just a hot chocolate (with optional rum of course). These stalls litter Vienna and you'll find many of them run by the Rotary club or other charitable foundations. You buy your drink of choice, which comes in a lovely Christmas mug that you can keep, or return for your deposit back. 

From drink to food, or more correctly, sugar. Sweet treats are everywhere and delicious. From Giant gingerbread hearts with iced slogans to the deliciously deadly 'Krapfen' or giant doughnut, or even the huge shortbread delights, giant pretzels and slabs of strudel, if you like sugar, come and get it. For something more savoury, try the various Wursts in bread or my favourite, some gulash soup, served in a whole hollowed out loaf of bread. 

If food and drink aren't your thing , then you'lol enjoy the various gifts and things on offer. Here though, it depends on what 'type' of market you visit. The first Christmas market we visited was set around St. Stephan's cathedral in the centre of Vienna. It was filled with tradional style gifts, like wooden toys, hand made leather bound journals (I small fetish of mine), beautiful Christmas decorations from Salzburg, Vienna and the Tirol and so much more. 

In contrast, the huge market at the Rathaus was very commercial, with everything from perfumes to watches, music to skiing holidays in sale. Somehow the first market felt so much better.  

The trip also featured a few visits to some new sights, like the beautiful State hall library and the revolving restaurant near the United Nations, the Danube tower. The trip was only spoiled slightly when on the last day, our lift broke down, meaning we had to carry our luggage from the 6th floor (the 8th for Lynda as she hadn't managed to get in to the lift in the first place. Then the lockers at Wien Mitte were out of order, meaning we had nowhere to put our luggage and explore the city on the last day. Still the trip was worth it and it provided us an opportunity to meet an estate agent, ready for next year. More on that in the new year, for now, merry Christmas, Frohe Weihnachten, and a happy new year to everyone.

Winding down for Christmas.

It's that time of year where thoughts turn to family, food and festiveness. Following the horrific attacks in Paris, maybe this year we'll hold those loved ones a little closer than normal and perhaps be that little more thankful for what we have.

Christmas also marks a winding down for us. Lynda's work comes to a stop by the second week of December whilst I usually work over the Christmas period as magazine deadlines come early in the new year. This year however, that winding down process is a little more pronounced than normal. 

With the moving date now set in stone, a strange malaise has settled over the house. We've started 'considering' purchases. Things we'd have picked up or repaired previously suddenly become a source of much soul searching and discussion. Having that fixed date has changed everything. 

Here's a great example. In our bedroom, we have a nice candlelight style ceiling light. It takes five energy saver bulbs. At the moment, two of those bulbs have stopped working. Now normally we'd pop to IKEA, pick up a pack of two replacement bulbs and change out the broken ones. However, now we question 'whether it's worth it'. The three working bulbs still provide enough light when we need it, so why bother replacing them? The same goes for poor Harley. A rusty wheel arch now stand no chance of getting repaired. 

Even Christmas isn't safe, with both Lynda and Myself asking for some types of gift not to be given, to save packing them up later in the year. It's very strange. Another great example happened just this Sunday. It was our 15th wedding anniversary and I got a cracking little gift from Lynda. A collectors figure from the Watchmen. (The 15th anniversary says its the crystal/watch anniversary.). The figure is great, but with the move coming , I'm leaving the figure in its box and it'll be packed up this week into a bigger box. 

It's not just physical things that are getting short shrift. We're under a year away from moving so no new contracts for phones or Internet or anything else being taking out. It's weird. It's almost like we've 'checked out' already. The body may be in the UK, but our heads are firmly in Vienna. 

Next year promises to be interesting. Certainly it'll be different. Keeping with our winding down theme, there's the planning of next years summer holiday. Christmas is traditionally the time when I book the summer holiday, sort out hotels and all that. Obviously, the big summer holiday isn't happening as cash and resources are diverted to van hire and crazy stuff. So like everything else, the wind down is changing everything. 

With the clock ticking down, the amount of crazy will only increase. Fortunately, we have a little break booked just before Christmas to unwind and prepare for the year ahead. And where are we going? Vienna, where else? 

Jess 

Flights of fantasy.

I love planning to travel. As I've mentioned in previous posts, logistics are my thing and travel logistics are my idea of heaven. Maybe it's because I'm a travel agents daughter, who spent many a weekend growing up, sat with her father, learning the ropes. Or maybe I'm not right in the head. Either way, this move is like Christmas and birthdays combined.  

So far, there have been bookings for hotels and bookings for vans. But there is without a doubt, one area that drives me nuts. Booking a flight. Nowhere in this entire trip can so much difference be found in something as simple as getting from A to B. Booking a flight can turn into the proverbial 'omnishambles'.

First up, Aviation is in my blood. I love it. My job revolves around it, and if I had the money, I'd be flying right now rather than typing this. Commercial aviation is my passion, that's Airliners like the 747 and the A320. So the act of booking a flight is a pure pleasure. Or it should be. 

The whole mad trip across Europe comes to an end after 6 days of travel. I return the van to Cardiff, having covered over 2000 miles. That leaves me stranded in Wales with my new home a 1000 miles away. So I need a flight. Here's where the fun begins. 

To simplify things, I'm traveling with just hand luggage, because if it didn't get in the van to Vienna in the first place, I'm sure as hell not dragging it through the airport myself. I need just a single flight, from my nearest airport to Vienna. Simple? No! 

First up, not all airlines offer single flights. More correctly, not all airlines offer single flights in the same way. Let's start at the beginning. 

I'm in Cardiff. So naturally, my closest airport it Cardiff Airport. Travel time from the van hire place to the airport, and bare in mind this is public transport since I just gave the van back and hav no car, is 48 minutes by train. Ok it could be worse, but it's just 11 miles from the van place if I drove. Hmmmm. 

Flights from Cardiff aren't exactly in abundance and several larger carriers offer small linking flights to their hub from Cardiff, where I can transfer to a Vienna bound flight. Ideally I don't want to spend more than £100 on a one way flight.  

Ok so searching for a flight on the right date produces some weird results. 

First up and cheapest is Aer Lingus. Ireland's national airline has a link service to Dublin and a flight on from there. The cost £178. Ok it's not exactly what I want to see, but it could be worse. The cost isn't the biggest issue though. The total flight time is 17h and 15 minutes! It's just a 2h 30m flight direct. Indeed Aer Lingus has me departing Cardiff at 2100, that's twelve hours after I've dropped the van off,

Spend 13h 20m in Dublin before I get to board my flight to Vienna, at 11.30 the next day! Next indeed. 

My next option gets worse. For just £220, I can leave on KLM for Amsterdam, then change onto Baltic Airlines for Riga, before changing at Riga for Vienna. Amazingly this is a shorter day than Aer Lingus at just 12 hours travel time and I get to arrive on the same day I left. But the 6.05 departure time from Cardiff is way to early. 

My next choices are London Heathrow and London Gatwick. After the nonsense of connecting flights from Cardiff, both these airports offer direct flights to Vienna. I first Check Heathrow. It's an airport I'm really familiar with. The journey time from Cardiff to the airport is around 3 hours with a change of trains at Paddington. Not the cheapest option, but not the worst. I can expect to catch a flight mid afternoon at least. 

The cheapest flights come back, and there are many of them, with British Airways surprising me. For just £92 I can get a direct flight at just before 3 in the aftenoon. I'd be home early early evening. Still,given the cost of travelling to Heathrow, I had hoped I could do better. It makes it to the maybe pile though. 

My next option was Air France that offered me the chance to spend my evening waiting at Paris for an early morning flight the next day. Eh, no. 

On to Gatwick. Gatwick is nearly 4 hours away, so I'd arrive after lunch. It avoids London city centre however with a change at Reading. Things turn weird again however when it comes to the flight. My cheapest option is just £71.56. Cheaper than Heathrow. But it relies on my taking Ukraine Airlines. The flight, of which there are three at that price could take anywhere between 10h 30m to a staggering 21h and 30m. As Lynda would say, Fluffy Fat Nope! British Airways come to the rescue again though and for just £73, I can get a direct flight with a late afternoon departure. That's definitely hitting the maybe pile. 

Return to sender

You may notice that neither Lufthansa or Austrian have made an appearance so far. There's a good reason for that. The return flight. As I mentioned earlier, not all airlines offer one way tickets in the same way. For Aunty Lufty and Austrian, the rules are a little old fashioned. Here goes. A singe flight for my choosen dates with either airline costs a whopping £450. The cheapest I found was £394 and that had a change at Frankfurt. 

Change that to a return flight however and things look way different. 

The same flight, leaving on the same day, but with a return booked for just one week later costs just £165! This is the same aircraft you'd fly on, the same route and the same seat, but you have the option of returning. There's no other word for it than nonsense. Hell with a Return booked it's actually cheaper to fly business class at £400 than it is to fly economy on a one way ticket. 

And the winner is!

In the end, the winner was in no doubt. Easyjet. Yes, that's right, the UK's number one budget airline stole the whole show. In a perfect storm, Easyjet announced brand new direct flights to Vienna from Bristol airport, starting in a few weeks. This twice weekly flight goes on the day I need to travel. 

With a journey time of just 1h 30m from Cardiff, changing at Bristol Temple Meads station for a bus, the journey is much cheaper than heading to either of the London airports. 

It was Easyjet's fares being available as one way tickets and priced at just £63.99 it was a no brainer. The flight itself departs just before 2pm and I can be home, ready to start a new life before supper. Hell, I'm even paying for a front row seat and it's still cheaper than BA. 

That ticket is far more symbolic though. It's now a fixed point. To change that booking will cost me extra money. So the date of the move is fixed. With Eurotunnel coming through with summer bookings as well, we're all set.  The dye is cast. Woo Hoo.

It's the little things that pass the time.

Logistics are my thing. It's a weird little talent that gives me a great deal of pleasure. Give me destination and I can run the numbers and find five different ways to get there, the costs, the pros and the cons of each. So planning a move across Europe is like my birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. So I know several ways to get to Vienna, the cost of each and so on.

 However, with many months to go, the main details are sorted and booked. So that leaves me twiddling my thumbs, hoping to keep busy to pass the time. Right now though, I've hit the most important job of the whole trip. Making the Playlist for the journey. With two days in a van and many, many miles to cover, music is essential. But what music? 

Playlist mania.

Obviously, if your moving home, you'll need a sense of humour. So the playlist, which needs to cover nearly 20 hours of travel, needs your favourites and should be sprinkled with a few 'themed' songs. So scattered amounsgt the Queen songs, the odd soundtracks and the just plain weird tracks, there's the 'moving' themed songs to make the journey more fun. 

Now if you're planning a playlist, the first song is important. Given the early hour, and the vast choice of songs out there, I've settled with 'The Great Escape'. It sums up the mood. At 6 in the morning, with the rest of country mostly sleeping, 'the Great Escape' is perfect to sneak away from our old home. 

So playlist 1 (I've split the list into two, one for each day.) starts with 'The great Escape'. From there it's full of upbeat moving songs to help us wipe the sleep from our eyes. Here's a few that will brighten our first day heading to Frankfurt and our Halfway point. 

Eastbound and Down - from smokey and the bandit. 

On the road again - Willie Nelson 

National Express - The Devine comedy 

I've been everywhere man - Jonny Cash. 

For day 2, with us feeling pretty knackered after the first day, we're starting the day with Pharnell Williams's 'Happy'.  Throw in 'Everything is awesome' from the Lego movie to lift our spirits and we'll be on our way from Frankfurt to Vienna. Obviously 'The Blue Danube' will feature, as will a little Beethoven and the 9th symphony which doubles as the European Union's national anthem and the whole thing takes up an hour of airtime. (Filling 20 hours of playlists isn't easy.). 

The whole thing has gotten me thinking though, how many great moving/traveling songs are there out there. If anyone reads this blog. (And I don't actually care if no one does, Lynda and I are having fun just writing it!) and you think of a great song or songs, leave a comment and I'll add it to the list. 

In the meantime , I'm off to find room for the table we unexpectedly bought. That's a story for another blog post though.  

Jess 

When three became one!

You have to love the way your mind works, well, the way my mind works at any rate. A fleeting encounter yesterday has changed our plans once again, and this time it's for the better. 

Ok so it's going to be huge. We're not moving earlier than expected. Nor have we come into a tonne of money. Instead, our mad cap adventure has been simplified and streamlined. 

Harley the Saab 9000, and our transport to Vienna?

So, yesterday, having dropped Lynda off for work, I happened to pass Enterprise car rental. Now many years ago, whilst working out the logistics of moving in the first place, I looked into hiring a big van and loading up everything into it. The costs at the time were high, and the thought of carrying all those heavy items (our bed for example) up several flights of stairs didn't appeal.

Since then of course, we've streamlined our plans, cut the amount we're planning to take with us and we've gotten the plan sorted on the cheap. Or so we thought. 

As much as I love Harley, my faithful Saab 9000, it's difficult to work out what you can fit into the old girl. She's not really built for it. That's where Enterprise came it. Whilst the costs of hiring a big van were expensive, what about something like a ford transit connect? It's basically nothing more than a small car type van. Well I thought I'd check out the price. The van would allow for us to carry much more than Harley, potentially swapping three trips across Europe to just two or even one. 

 Checking the price, I wasn't expecting good things. However, I was wrong. Hertz offers a small van for just £120 for the week! Checking around with a few others, the price is similar. Then things got weird. For £175, we could get a standard transit which would allow us to do the whole move in one. At this point we were starting to foam at the mouth. A quick check of the T&C's though told us the van wasn't allowed out of the country. Sigh. Europcar however does offer out for the country rentals. However, it comes with a catch. There was an extra fee on top of the rental cost. That was fine since there are extra items required to take the van on to the continent, and it wasn't a great deal on top. It was the limited mileage that really chaffed though. Adding nearly £200 extra because we'd exceed the mileage limit of 90 miles a day didn't seem fair. Hertz had unlimited mileage. So, hopeful that the website T&C's were wrong, we rang hertz. It turns out that we just had to tell hertz that we wanted to take the van out onto the continent, pay the extra fee an that was that. 

Head buzzing, we ran the numbers. With the van, eurotunnel costs and bits and pieces, the cost of the single trip would be just around £800, or the cost of two trips in the car. So it's a no brainer. The van wins. So it's booked.

There is a downside. Originally , I had around a month to relax after arriving in Vienna before I had to take Harley back to the UK to load up for the return trip. That's not going to happen now and the leisurely three day journey from home to Vienna has now become a two day trip, and that all down to us bringing the star of the show, Geri the parrot. In order to minimise his discomfort we're doing the trip In two days. I also only get one day's rest before I have to set off and get he van back to Cardiff. So I'm going to be knackered. Oh and then I have to get back to Vienna. 

The van presents us with new issues though. So far, with the three trips originally planned, we've been itemising our possessions for either the first, second or third run. This has made it easy to pack up the things we need on arrival and earmark the items we're still using to be packed up wished we started the first run. That's all gone by the by now and it'll be a case of 'pack it all'. So next year, a month before we leave, we'll be packing it all up. It's going to be manic.