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Besides enjoying our nice terrace we have been by the pool every day at least once. Our nightly walks take a few hours since the waterfront is a bit far, but it’s a great way to spend the afternoon and evenings. We went out for a nice sit down dinner by the water and the portion sizes were massive. We got so much food (paella, quesadilla and Kilian’s massive ‘kids’ burger) that we had leftovers for another dinner. The walk back is always interesting against the strong winds, but Kalina doesn’t seem to mind and even fell asleep in my arms one night on the late walk back. Today Kilian and I rented a bike and explored the areas beyond walking distance. First we biked to the end of the road where we stashed our bike and then continued on foot to a hill with an incredible view. There are a couple remote beaches here that are hidden in the coves. After a break we continued along the waterfront paths with a couple playground stops of course. We took another break at a lookout where we could watch the ferries go back and forth between the islands. Since it’s a weekend we didn’t bike the entire path, it gets super busy with pedestrians and instead continued on a path towards the lighthouse. It was super windy and Kilian decided it was time
to head back just in time for lunch. We finished our day with a long walk again. Kalina is starting to move around quite a bit more so we can’t just put her down on the couch anymore. She also is interested in most of the activities Kilian is into now, so grabs and reaches for everything. Kilian is getting better at sharing with Kalina, but she is not happy when he takes the toys away from her. There is a kids club here which we did check out one morning. Kilian wasn’t allowed in the cool kids maze unfortunately since it’s only for 4 year olds and older but he did colour and puzzle for a bit. We finally had some warmer days and spent those by the pool and on walks to the beach. On our last night we decided that we wanted to stay in the Canaries for a bit longer and so we went to work on our plan. When we first arrived in Gran Canaria we did book a flight out to France (again), but we cancelled it a day before having to leave. Instead we decided to book a short flight over to the island of Lanzarote, another half an hour flight. We had enough time at the airport to have an early lunch and Kilian watched the planes land and take off for quite some time from the observation deck outside. He watched them for a bit too long as we had to run for our boarding call and were the last to board the ATR72, the same turbo prop we took to get here. We spent more time waiting for the delayed bus getting us to the airport than the actual flight. We landed shortly after and got out of the airport in less than ten minutes just in time for the bus, or so we thought. We waited and waited but the bus did not come. Eventually, half an hour later it did show up and we enjoyed the hour long drive south with the many scenic stops. The landscape is barren, Mars like one may even call it. We both liked it right away especially driving by the volcanic landscape bordering the Timanfaya National Park. When we arrived in Playa Blanca we had a good twenty minute walk ahead of us to our holiday village. There is definitely plenty of space here for new construction projects and it reminded us more of the Middle East than Europe. It took us way longer than we thought to just go around the complex, but we eventually made it and are thrilled to be staying in a larger space again. There are nearly twenty swimming pools here so plenty to keep Kilian busy if the wind will let us. There are a few splash parks and basically all other amenities one may find in a resort as well. For dinner we walked into town and checked out the two small beaches while we were there. The pathway along the coast is perfect and has many small shops and plenty of restaurants. We stopped to watch a big ferry come in from across the channel. The island Fuerteventura across is clearly visible and many boats plow the way back and forth. Kilian got his one euro, or gold coin as he calls it, to spend on any ride and picked one that lasted a good three minutes. Kalina was getting all of the attention from bystanders as she was tearing at the steering wheel of the small ride. Our walk was a little longer than anticipated since we still had to shop for some groceries. By the time we got back, the wind was howling and the sun setting. The kids went to bed while Ashleigh and I sat outside with some wine catching up from our exciting travel day. Our unit is in an inside corner so we are quite wind sheltered, and have a nice terrace to sit on. Welcome to Lanzarote, our third island of the Canaries.
Staying in a small and quiet village has some benefits, there is little to do but to relax. Our place was on the edge of town and spacious enough for us to feel a sense of home, a break from single rooms one may say. We went on daily walks to different parks and playgrounds and cooked all of our meals, and it wasn’t just pizza. The kids got plenty of attention playing. Kalina was sick for a couple days so it was nice to have our own space so she could recover. After a few days we decided to move back into a hotel room, and were ready for the bustle of the mass tourist places in the south. We took a bus down toward the southern tip and got off at San Agustín, a town with some resorts but mostly smaller vacation homes. We are staying at a nice hotel that is built in front of the hills with an incredible view of the Atlantic. Our room is on the top floor so we have been spending time on our balcony whenever we can. There is a small mall nearby which has some children’s arcade games and small rides. Kilian has been asking to go every day and picks a new kiddie ride every time. Kalina also loves them as they bounce around. Our highlight so far was a visit to the Dunas de Maspalomas, a very surprising set of dunes at the tip of the island. It is a large enough area that the hiking is plentiful. We picked a route that went through the centre and walked as far as the kids could tolerate, before taking a break in some shade under a group of trees. Kilian ran out of steam so we had to carry him the couple kilometres back, a great workout for us. After lunch we walked around some more in the very resort packed Maspalomas area before heading back by bus to our place. The pool, while advertised as heated is still way too cold for us, even Kilian who doesn’t seem to mind swimming in it, comes out shivering after ten minutes. There is a very nice splash park with a few slides here as well, and to our surprise Kilian went down a big slide without hesitating. We did go with half board here so breakfast and dinners are covered at the buffet. There really is all kinds of food here so our meals have been super random. We have explored the grounds in less than half an hour since everything is much more compact. Even the loungers by the pools are stacked, side by side. The place is pretty packed, mostly with German package tourists, one could only imagine how bumping it gets here when summer arrives. While we still have a few more nights at the resort we are starting to think of our next move and are constantly chatting through our options. Kilian is of course included since he determines what colour plane we are flying next.
The main reason we came up North was to check out the highly advertised Loro Park. Basically every garbage can and every town has some sort of advertisement for it. I’m sure one isn’t allowed to leave Tenerife without visiting this incredible animal park. We left first thing in the morning and walked to the plaza where the free mini train to the park departed from. We didn’t tell Kilian where we were going so he was thrilled when he saw the train. It’s a short journey that zig zags through town and then onwards to the park entrance. Our first stop was the sea lion show and we got front row seats! Kilian was so excited that he was squealing the whole time and quite literally peed his pants a little. It was a very entertaining show and my favourite. There are so many parrots and other birds in the park that kept the kids staring up. We had a bit of time before the dolphin show, so we visited the penguins and then had a snack. The dolphin show was also great and while their spin on education and wildlife preservation is understandable, we would have liked to see a few more tricks. After the dolphins we ran up the hill to grab seats for the main event, the orca show! It was definitely incredible to see these large animals up close and Ashleigh was happy of course since they are her favourite. The kids were getting tired at this point so once the shows were done we spent the next few hours just walking around the park admiring the many other animals. It was an eventful day that ended with a late nap for Kilian. At night we walked around town and had some dinner at one of the nice restaurants. The weather is still not great, but we are moving on hoping for perhaps less wind at our next stop.
The following morning we only had time for a quick breakfast at the rooftop restaurant before catching the bus to the airport. Checkin at the airport was quick and the lounge was quiet. We boarded our turbo prop plane, which Kilian was very excited for and then ascended above the clouds to a perfect inversion over Tenerife with the volcano popping out to say goodbye. The flight, while less than half an hour was pretty bumpy to Ashleigh’s dislike, but we landed pretty quickly on the neighbouring island of Gran Canaria, our home for the next week! The bus system is so easy that we had no issues getting to our first stop, a small town down the coast. We were supposed to meet the Airbnb host at the stop, but we never found her, so we started the twenty minute walk uphill with stroller and gear. I managed to find wifi to let her know we were waiting by the place and it all worked out ultimately. While the temperature does feel warmer it is incredibly windy yet again! Here is to hoping for less windy days, if they exist, over the next week. Just like that and five nights had passed by. We really enjoyed our place in Porís and don’t have a lot to report. The weather wasn’t great overall. It was either too windy or apparently the air quality so poor that it was recommended to stay inside. We did have one perfect day which we spent by the pool. Otherwise we went for many walks exploring the narrow streets and outside of town, the beautiful coast. On Sunday after Kilian found all his Easter treats we went to the farmers market to get some fresh produce. Overall we got exactly what we hoped for, a few days of quiet time and lots of family time. Kalina is starting to show off her skills, knows how to wave and clap and is pushing herself up to sit. Just like Kilian as a baby, she isn’t a crawler either and much rather prefers to stand up against something. Kilian had fun playing on our patio with shells and the big water pails. He still doesn’t share his toys with his sister but does enjoy screaming battles with her, which they both find hilarious. Since it was so windy we were thankful for our sheltered patio which we used a ton. I even managed to read half a book! After the Easter weekend we said goodbye to our place and started our short trip to the north side of the island. Since the bus system is great, even with our large collection of bags, it was an easy journey. We switched buses in The big city of Santa Cruz and then continued on to Puerto de la Cruz. The drive was incredibly scenic following the coastline most of the time with dramatic drops towards the ocean. Puerto de la Cruz is a smaller city with lots of restaurants and plazas. We liked it immediately and spent a couple hours walking around the centre, shopping and stopping at the playground of course
We had a rainy day, so we spent most of our time in the cozy hotel lounge area playing Pac-Man and reading books. Kilian also coloured a bit. We managed to catch a break in the weather to go out for dinner before packing up for our next journey. We randomly found a very good direct flight with Air France to one of the Canary islands so we booked it right away. Even with paying for luggage it’s a good deal. Since we stayed for four nights the hotel provided us with a free shuttle to the airport. Once in the shuttle the driver explained since it’s a shuttle he only drops off at terminal 2C and we needed to be at terminal 2F. There wasn’t anybody else with us so he reluctantly agreed to just take us to our terminal. We will not miss some of those rather rude interactions. But it has been mixed with some super friendly people and then the ones that are indifferent and blunt. There wasn’t a lounge in this terminal we could use so we waited a while at the gate just to find out our flight was delayed. The delays kept getting extended and by the time we left it was well past an hour of original departure time. The kids were hungry and tired and so were we. Traveling around Easter time is always the worst and we could tell by how busy the airport was and how hard it was to find a decent flight deal and place for the weekend. Since all the hotspots were pretty booked we found an Airbnb at a more quiet location on the east coast, exactly what we wanted for the next few days and to get us past Easter. After we all ate, the kids both fall asleep for a couple hours while the other kids around us kept us awake. We arrived to some strong winds at the south airport in Tenerife with amazing views of the massive volcano Mount Teide as we were approaching. We took a short bus ride up the sparsely populated east coast to a small village on the ocean. Our hosts welcomed us to our amazing place overlooking the Atlantic and small town below. They even left us a bunch of cold beers in the fridge which was a welcome gift we appreciated after the four hour flight. We ate an early dinner before heading into town to find a supermarket and stock up on essentials. The town has a couple supermarkets and less than a handful of restaurants. Our place has plenty of space so everyone isn’t so cooped up anymore.
We needed a recovery day after the exciting flight with Qatar Airways, so we didn’t stir far from our area for a day. We did find everything we needed though, a nice park with a playground, a mini market and most importantly the bakery. We had croissants for brunch and then ventured out again after we all napped. Spring is definitely here, and it seems we timed it perfectly for some decent weather. For dinner we went to a pizza place. The next day we started our journey into the city. We are only a short bus ride away from the airport so it was easy to catch the train into Paris from there. We managed to hit the morning commute time so it was pretty busy on the trains. The opposite was the case at most of the sights though. We started at the Notre Dame and walked around it reading up on the details of the fire and restoration in progress. After a snack by the Seine, we started our long walk towards the Eiffel Tower. Kilian did walk a lot by himself! We made a stop at the empty Louvre entrance where there wasn’t a single person in line. We did not go inside of course as the thought of dragging Kilian through an art museum was not very appealing. Instead we continued our walk on the other side of the river and then crossed back over once more. We veered through some smaller streets until we found a store to get some essentials for our picnic lunch. The walk to the tower was a bit longer than we anticipated and we didn’t get there until everyone was starving and tired from walking. We managed to find a shady spot with a view of the Eiffel Tower and then enjoyed our picnic lunch. Kilian’s timing of having to go to the bathroom was not great and it took a good half hour looking for a public toilet until I gave up and just walked into a side street hotel. Luckily the receptionist was friendly and let Kilian use their washroom. Now that Kilian was good to go, we walked the long way back to the park to rejoin Ash and Kalina to finish up our picnic. Before heading back to the train, we circled around the Eiffel Tower, since they are doing some construction the path underneath was not open. Both kids were tired and Kilian fell asleep in the stroller on the train ride back. It was a great walk through Paris today and the kids were out cold much earlier than usual.
Staying at the Ritz was exactly how we pictured it. It is luxury at its finest. We were lucky that besides having an awesome room with views of the marina and never ending planes landing or taking off, we also got free breakfast. This definitely made a big difference as everything is closed in the morning and the cost is, well at Ritz prices. We went on a bunch of walks in the area first thing in the mornings while it was cool. Most of them took a while as every two minutes Kilian had to stop to watch the planes overhead. The kids pool has a slide which kept us busy as well and overall the place is empty. We were the only ones at the pool after the weekend. They have a covid tracing app here that tracks your every movement, but we didn’t set it up correctly so one of our downs was when we showed up at the mall but not being able to enter. There was no arguing, we didn’t set it up right and so we walked all the way back to the hotel without having seen the mall.
Doha was our exit point, and the reason we chose it has a bit of a disappointing outcome. The problem with the Middle East is that it has endless possibilities for an exit, one can go to East Asia, which we considered, or basically anywhere else in the world. We chose Doha because we had a bunch of points to burn with Qatar Airways and we were very keen to chose a route that has, at least based on my reading one of the best business class experiences, the famous Q Suites. These are literally individual suites with privacy doors one can enjoy and the best part is if you have four seats (or in our case close enough to 4), you are able to combine them into a bigger suite since the middle alternating seats are either forward or rear facing. It essentially becomes a very comfortable and unique little hang out area. All of that being said, we had the perfect seats selected in the first two rows and the cabin was half empty until I checked four hours before departure. To my surprise, Qatar airways swapped the aircraft to one that no longer had Q suites! It was of course disappointing and after a few attempts to potentially move our flight until tomorrow and with only a couple hours left to leave, we were unsuccessful. We got over it pretty quickly since it’s still in business class and even this other layout more than rivals that of most other airlines we have flown in biz. So we headed for the airport after the kids woke up from their early naps. Kilian has been so excited to fly a purple plane that he even went to nap two hours before his usual time. He is the absolute best and by now knows when to be a good boy. I am sure he will make a great pilot one day perhaps. We checked out and hit the traffic almost immediately. The ride took longer than we hoped so by the time we checked in through the dedicated business class side of the terminal, we only had half an hour to enjoy the very massive lounge. It was a bit too fancy for our liking anyways, but we love the Doha airport. It really is the best in the world. We walked to the gate just in time to board as always, and were able to get a great set of business class seats in the first two rows. Kilian ordered his apple juice with mixed nuts and Ashleigh and I finally were able to end our two week sober spell with champagne. The seats are great and the service is already amazing. As we were pushing back, Kilian spotted the Air Canada Dreamliner pulling in, a reminder it’s never hard getting back home. It always does spark a certain feeling when seeing the maple leaf, but we are not ready yet. Unfortunately they dimmed the lights right away so the atmosphere was a bit like flying at night. The nice part about this A350 is that the middle rows do not have any overhead bins so the ceiling height makes it feel very spacious. The business cabin is split in two by the bar in the middle which is currently closed. The mini cabin in the back is fully empty and they offered it to us if we wanted. It really is a lot of fun flying in style with the fam. As I’m writing, Kalina is hanging out on my lap munching down a mound of hummus, Ashleigh gets some quiet time in, watching a movie with wine while the five course meal keeps going and Kilian is totally in the zone with noise canceling headphones watching some minions running across the screen legs crossed, all business. These are the times I remember why traveling is an adventure and the enjoy the moments even if they don’t go to plan. In summary, the lamb was tender, the old fashioned stiff, and the flight crew chatty. We had fun! Most other travellers tried to catch an hours sleep, but we did not. We arrived in Paris to the sunset and disembarked tipsy, but excited to be back in Europe. Ashleigh managed to lose my phone on the short drive over to the hotel, but the driver dropped it off a few minutes later luckily. Welcome back to Europe. We initially had very different plans to get to Qatar, but Qatar was going to be our stop at some point. Our original route was to fly to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, but we had a hard time finding a good flight. We then changed it to Riyadh, but the airline changed our flight to an awful 1:50am time which just wasn’t cool to do with kids. Even without kids it is super inconvenient to fly for a couple hours in the middle of the night. So we scrapped our Saudi plans and a visit to Saudi will have to wait until a future time. Luckily instead of applying for a transit visa for the entire family we tried just applying for myself. While Saudi does have e-visas now we wanted to avoid it at a hefty $160 per person price tag. Either way, ultimately the much cheaper transit visa never did get processed in time so we ended up not making it work anyways plus only lost out on a few bucks. Long story short, we are heading pretty much straight to Doha. The only direct flight between Muscat and Doha we were initially considering left at 5am, again not cool. So we changed our minds and instead we will have two flights and a lunch layover in Abu Dhabi, but at least we are traveling during normal day hours. Overall the amount of time we spent changing flights has been exhausting. Besides the set route to Saudi, we had considered making a bigger jump farther east, but nothing materialized in the end. While many countries have eased restrictions there are still enough inconveniences in our way to freely move around the world.
We spent quite a bit of time in the excellent Muscat airport lounge, which has its own little playground, entertainment area and many other cool amenities. Since it is Ramadan, the bar was closed of course, but we did get to eat a lot of food. Kalina slept on the way to Abu Dhabi, while Kilian and I coloured for a bit. The plane was basically empty so we snagged the bulkhead row once again. We have been flying Etihad quite a bit and were lucky enough each time to get the bulkhead row. Kilian even stops at it as soon as we board, which is quite amusing. We arrived in Abu Dhabi and checked out the kids playground before heading back to the familiar lounge. Kilian was tired and to our surprise fell asleep on the couch for at least 45 minutes. It is a long walk from one end of terminal 1 to the other end of terminal 3, but we made it just in time for boarding. To our surprise we got the bulkhead once again without asking on the flight to Doha, even though this flight was basically full. The flight was even shorter than flying from Muscat to Abu Dhabi and we now have a collection of sandwiches that were distributed on these two short hops, enough for a big dinner since we ate at the lounges. Landing at Doha is almost always exciting as the planes circle the city and then descend right beside the massive skyscrapers. The view is incredible and the amount of unique and quirky buildings is astounding. I of course also kept my eye open for the World Cup stadiums built with sustainability in mind. The one by the airport can be fully taken down, moved and reused. The World cup and future events are a hot topic and both the Uber driver and the hotel members were talking about it with excitement. The city is in full preparation mode and is trying to catch up on the never ending construction projects. Getting out of the airport went smoothly for us, but it seemed a coin toss as many other travellers were running around between the various checks. Besides the PCR we also had to download a special app and fill out some forms that never got checked. Let’s hope we got it all right and will be able to leave Qatar! For now we are in the country and received a very warm welcome at the Ritz. Deciding on a hotel to stay was also not easy as Doha has them all. Initially we had booked one near the airport, but when we found out the pool was not open, we switched to the Ritz which is by the new city. That way we can check out a new area. Back in 2014 we saw a lot of the highlights of Doha and we remembered them very well. Of course it is now a different city, and even the waterfront by the airport which was pretty empty back then, now has a full on port and plenty more action. We enjoyed our drive through Doha and the Uber driver was super friendly. At the Ritz we got a special surprise in the room for the kids. They set up a kids teepee in the room and left a bunch of games, plus the balloons for Kilian. We also got a nice welcome gift of fruit and cupcakes which we enjoyed along with the handful of sandwiches we still had from the flights. Kilian wanted to play the scavenger game left in his tent and that kept us busy until it was his bedtime. The view from our room is overlooking the busy construction of Lusail, the new city and the marina with the many fancy yachts. We are happy to be in Doha and excited to explore the area tomorrow. The last few days went by rather quickly. We have been busy exploring the nearby area, walked to the opera house and window shopped the high end stores within, we found the best spot for watching the sunset and also found an area of restaurants. There is even a subway here so we of course had that for dinner one night. On our last night here, we did sit down at a nearby local restaurant once it was appropriate to, but they must have had a massive takeaway order, so even after an hour our food hadn’t arrived. The kids were getting pretty hangry, so we asked them to pack it up and quickly ate it in our room before putting the kids down. Other than walking around in the neighbourhood, we have just been spending time by the amazing pool and on our balcony with the sea view. Sunsets here are incredible and have not disappointed us yet. The meal portions at the hotel are American sized, so after ordering full meals the first few days, and getting so much food, we ended up switching to the kids menu. Even those portions are enough to share! Kalina has gotten used to her nap routine by the pool and likes sleeping on me, so I was able to start reading a book finally. She also finally has her first tooth, which explained her recent irritability. We are still working on her crawling. She finally rolled over today, but otherwise just spins around in circles on the floor. Kilian knows the daily drill by the pool very well, and seems to control half of the staff. They bring him drinks, a personal floatie, preferably the orange slice floatie and he is otherwise well known on his walk down to the pool. It did get a bit busier here, but is still very quiet. Today we are checking out and moving back to the airport area. It has been quite the whirlwind of trying to plan out the next portion of our trip. We have bounced flights around so often and still feel unsure on whether it will all work out until we are on the actual plane. After many changes we ended up getting a flight to Qatar, which requires a PCR test unfortunately. All of the other gulf countries have dropped the requirement. On the positive side getting a test was really easy and took us less than an hour in the afternoon. A taxi drove us to a nearby international hospital which was very organized and efficient at getting us all tested and it didn’t even cost much at all in comparison to most other places. We are now patiently waiting for the results and are hoping it all works out tomorrow. To make things more interesting, Kilian woke up with a runny nose so has us a bit worried.
The results came back negative after I had to call them, since it was past the 24 hour mark. The W said goodbye to us and gave Kilian a balloon for the ride. We are now near the airport and spent the night watching one last sunset. We can see the control tower from the room, so that kept us busy for a while as well since Kilian is fascinated by the flashing lights. Our time in Oman has been very rewarding, we enjoyed the drive around, the desert and the rugged coast. Muscat is a quiet and hot city, all of the people have been kind to us and are always curious to hear our story. We will miss our daily routine, but are excited to move on as always. |
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November 2022
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