We had the house cleaned. We had used up the last of the fruit, meat and vegetables and were well organised for our travel tomorrow. I went to the pool and had a lovely relaxing last swim. While I floated and swam about, I thought back over the last few weeks. The temperatures had reduced to a nice managable heat and we had seen three different towns east of Malaga. We had eaten and walked in Rincon de Victoria, Benajarafe and Torre del Mar.
The south of Spain is very different to western Turkey. In Spain there is a huge amount of high rise buildings. Where you don't have high rise, the buildings are very close together. Most of the detached houses have high walls surrounding the whole site. You have to travel inland to see houses with big gardens. The cities do have big parks so this gives the residents a change of scene without having to travel very far away from their homes.
In Turkey, where we live on the Bodrum peninsula, we are used to seeing large villas on large sites all with big gardens. We can walk to the sea in six minutes! I brought my thoughts back to the present and did one last lap of the pool. I said "Adios" before strolling back up to the house.
On entering, I was greeted by Mr. D who said "Our flights to Frankfurt have been cancelled!" I thought he must be joking and waited a few seconds to see if he would start laughing, but he didn't and added "they just sent a text". I checked my emails immediately and yes they had confirmed it. We could get a refund or book another flight with them but we still had the problem of missing our connecting flight from Frankfurt to Bodrum. I then checked the options for connecting flights from Frankfurt to Bodrum which was the rout we were booked on for the following evening! Wo and behold! No flights with that airline to Bodrum until a week later! I checked another airline but their prices were 700 Euro each and felt this would be far too expensive. After searching alternative options, I felt it was better to stay with the same airlines as maybe our insurance would not cover more expensive alternative airlines. So I rebooked both flights. The Ryanair one for the Thursday, 6 days later because I was afraid they might cancel again, and the connecting flight to Bodrum for the following Friday at a cost of almost 300 euro just to change our date! As it happened the flight was half empty! We would have to pay the trains and hotel in Frankfurt for one night. I spent most of the day online trying to find out from Ryanair which flights they would be cancelling for the rest of that week. At this point they said they were going to cancel fights every day for 6 weeks but did not tell us which ones. I asked people on the Ryanair facebook page to please ask for a LIST, this would help passengers to make changes to their plans and reduce the disruption. It took about three or four days but they eventually published the list. Up until then, we didn't know if our rebooked fight would again be cancelled..... We were very lucky we happened to be staying in our friends house and that we could stay another 6 days.
View from terrace towards the sea.
On the following Thursday, we eventually set off at 6.45am to catch the early morning bus. I was anxious as usual thinking we would sleep it out, eventhough, we never sleep it out! I woke every hour and got up at 6am. I still managed to forget the lovely salad sandwiches which I made up to have on the flight. Instead we had to pay 17 euro for cheese and ham criossants and 2 teas!!
We arrived in a cooler but pleasantly sunny Frankfurt. We navigated our way through the large airport from terminal 2 to terminal 1 and from under this terminal we took the train to the city centre. We decided the best thing to do first was take a tour of the city. We waited outside the train station for about 45 minutes. There are no seats and standing around is not the best for our already tender backs! We were relieved to see a blue hop on hop off bus approaching our stop. We promptly bought tickets on boarding the bus and for about 50 minutes we got to see enought to let us know where we should return to on the next morning.
We then found ourselves a hotel where we were able to freshen up and leave our cases before taking an evening walk of the streets nearby.
We found a lovely German restaurant where I had my most delicious ever vegetarian meal. It consisted of a Tofu burger with salad and chips. Sorry I didn't take a photo, my back at this stage was aching and I was so hungry, I couldn't wait to sit down. Mr. D enjoyed his meal too, a 100% pure beef burger with plenty of salad and a nice selection of chips. We were quite pleased with our choice of restaurant.
By the time we finished dinner it was dark and we noticed the coolness of the night air when we stepped outside. We strolled and admired the different shop windows and made our way back to the hotel. Tomorrow was only a day away!
After breakfast on Friday morning we left our cases at the hotel. "The old town is only about 10 minutes walk" said the hotel receptionist as he bid us a cheery smile. It took us about 20 minutes but it was worth it. It was beautiful!
The south of Spain is very different to western Turkey. In Spain there is a huge amount of high rise buildings. Where you don't have high rise, the buildings are very close together. Most of the detached houses have high walls surrounding the whole site. You have to travel inland to see houses with big gardens. The cities do have big parks so this gives the residents a change of scene without having to travel very far away from their homes.
In Turkey, where we live on the Bodrum peninsula, we are used to seeing large villas on large sites all with big gardens. We can walk to the sea in six minutes! I brought my thoughts back to the present and did one last lap of the pool. I said "Adios" before strolling back up to the house.
On entering, I was greeted by Mr. D who said "Our flights to Frankfurt have been cancelled!" I thought he must be joking and waited a few seconds to see if he would start laughing, but he didn't and added "they just sent a text". I checked my emails immediately and yes they had confirmed it. We could get a refund or book another flight with them but we still had the problem of missing our connecting flight from Frankfurt to Bodrum. I then checked the options for connecting flights from Frankfurt to Bodrum which was the rout we were booked on for the following evening! Wo and behold! No flights with that airline to Bodrum until a week later! I checked another airline but their prices were 700 Euro each and felt this would be far too expensive. After searching alternative options, I felt it was better to stay with the same airlines as maybe our insurance would not cover more expensive alternative airlines. So I rebooked both flights. The Ryanair one for the Thursday, 6 days later because I was afraid they might cancel again, and the connecting flight to Bodrum for the following Friday at a cost of almost 300 euro just to change our date! As it happened the flight was half empty! We would have to pay the trains and hotel in Frankfurt for one night. I spent most of the day online trying to find out from Ryanair which flights they would be cancelling for the rest of that week. At this point they said they were going to cancel fights every day for 6 weeks but did not tell us which ones. I asked people on the Ryanair facebook page to please ask for a LIST, this would help passengers to make changes to their plans and reduce the disruption. It took about three or four days but they eventually published the list. Up until then, we didn't know if our rebooked fight would again be cancelled..... We were very lucky we happened to be staying in our friends house and that we could stay another 6 days.
View from terrace towards the sea.
On the following Thursday, we eventually set off at 6.45am to catch the early morning bus. I was anxious as usual thinking we would sleep it out, eventhough, we never sleep it out! I woke every hour and got up at 6am. I still managed to forget the lovely salad sandwiches which I made up to have on the flight. Instead we had to pay 17 euro for cheese and ham criossants and 2 teas!!
We arrived in a cooler but pleasantly sunny Frankfurt. We navigated our way through the large airport from terminal 2 to terminal 1 and from under this terminal we took the train to the city centre. We decided the best thing to do first was take a tour of the city. We waited outside the train station for about 45 minutes. There are no seats and standing around is not the best for our already tender backs! We were relieved to see a blue hop on hop off bus approaching our stop. We promptly bought tickets on boarding the bus and for about 50 minutes we got to see enought to let us know where we should return to on the next morning.
By the time we finished dinner it was dark and we noticed the coolness of the night air when we stepped outside. We strolled and admired the different shop windows and made our way back to the hotel. Tomorrow was only a day away!
After breakfast on Friday morning we left our cases at the hotel. "The old town is only about 10 minutes walk" said the hotel receptionist as he bid us a cheery smile. It took us about 20 minutes but it was worth it. It was beautiful!
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