So, here I am, sitting on a balcony overlooking a small spa town in the South Caucasus. And the water is slightly, but noticeably salty, best drunk warm. You may wonder what I’m doing here and, to some extent, I’m wondering too. But it’s been fun, and a little bit erratically journeyed.
Perhaps I ought to go back to the beginning...
When I arranged this trip, it was on the basis that Ros would be busy travelling somewhere else and, as is our habit, when Ros goes somewhere, I go somewhere that Ros might not be that interested in, or with an itinerary that wouldn’t really suit her. I had thought that this trip possibly fell into both categories, but certainly the latter.
That might be explained by the first leg of the journey, on Sunday morning, which took me to Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia, via Warsaw and Vienna, with a journey time of just over fifteen hours. There is a catch to using frequent flyer miles for your journey, and in this case, it meant either some fearsomely early starts (which I’m not good at), or arrival times in the middle of the night (which aren’t high on my preference list either).
Using the Lufthansa lounge at Heathrow’s Terminal 2 is strongly recommended - they have jelly beans and a typically Germanic breakfast (hearty) - before LOT Polish Airlines safely conveyed me to Warsaw, where I spent a happy(ish) hour walking laps of the airport - I’m doing the Society for Civil Servants walking challenge, and attempting to do 15,000 steps a day. I then found their lounge and ate their free snacks. Their onward flight to Vienna was very civilised too, on time, and with a perfectly decent inflight meal.
Into Vienna, and more airport laps - my, is Vienna Airport big? The Austrian Airlines lounge was surprisingly ordinary though, enlivened only by the sight of Sir Nicholas Soames catching up on his reading before heading home from a NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Bratislava. I didn’t disturb him, although if I had, it would have been to say how much I enjoy his Twitter feed.
Their inflight meal on the short hop to Skopje was pretty good though, with a hot, breaded chicken breast with potato salad as the highlight.
We arrived in Skopje just before midnight, and I had only one goal - to get to my hotel room and crash. I made it without drama...
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