No, I am not traveling anywhere. I just wanted to write something so that this blog was not totally idle until I do go away again. I have already begun to look into trips for over the Easter week in April. I can not say how annoying I find it that I can get a trip to almost anywhere in Europe that I want to go for well under $1900 but that is not what I must pay. Every flight that you try to book, no matter where you book it, even with the airline, you have to pay at least $650 in taxes and fees to the airline! What is up with that? I can fly non-stop, round-trip to Paris, stay in a 4 star hotel for 6 nights and pay about $1600. A great price. But then I must pay another $650 on top of that!! This has been going on for about 4 years now and I do not know why. I can not figure out if this extra money is tax charged by the government or fees charged by the airline. It is probably a combination of both but my gut feeling tells me it is the airline doing the gouging.
Right now I am considering trips to London, Paris, Munich, Brussels, and Madrid. Lat year I was in Stuttgart, Germany and could be tempted to return again but I think I would really like to go to Paris. I have not been there since Easter week 2010. I don't know if Cindy will come with me or not but my bet is no. But I don't really care. If I do go there I will probably stay somewhere new. The last 2 times in Paris I stayed at the Mercure Paris Opera Garnier over by the Gare Lazare. It is small and very nice. The last time they upgraded me to a very large room with a big bed. It is in a non-tourist neighborhood and there are some great restaurants there. However I have found a hotel in the Marais district that looks to be of the same grade and is also well located but is slightly less in price and would put me in an area that I am not that familiar with yet.
I don't know what I will do yet but at least now I realize that I can write about the decision making process as wel as the travel itself.
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