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Index
INTRODUCTION
The last couple of months have been full of ups and downs. I'll not go into details here, but life throws you all kinds of surprises, whether related to work, home or family. Support from family and friends really makes a difference. During times like these, any opportunity to spend time together with loved ones should be cherished.
One such opportunity for family time came up last month: a confluence of events made it possible for me to plan a snap vacation with Mrs yflyer and Miss yflyer no.2. Everything was planned in February, just a few weeks in advance of the trip in March.
After exploring many flight and destination options, we eventually decided on a trip to northern Spain: Basque Country, Asturias, and Galicia. On this trip, we would check off a couple of restaurants on Mrs yflyer's bucket list (She has a very long list), and by carefully choosing my flights, I would also get to cross off a couple of aircraft types on my to-fly list. Miss yflyer no.2 would also get a well deserved break after completing her current course of study.
We would start off with a flight to Frankfurt on LH779, operated by Lufthansa's 747-8. Thanks, fellow SQTalker Caravelle, for posting that LH would be operating this equipment on the SIN-FRA sector, otherwise I might never have known!
Our basic airfare was an inexpensive economy (Y) ticket with SIN-FRA-BCN on Lufthansa, and MAD-ZRH-SIN operated by Swiss. However, there were attractive paid upgrades / bid upgrades available for all our long haul sectors, and we took full advantage of this.
We flew 747-8 Business Class on the SIN-FRA sector, with my seat on the upper deck, and Mrs yflyer and Miss yflyer no.2 seated together on the lower deck.
Our starting point in Spain was Barcelona, where Miss yflyer no.2 visited the Sagrada Familia for the first time. Mrs yflyer and I had been to Barcelona before, but we revisited our favourite places. We also took the opportunity to check out Paradiso, a cocktail bar ranked No.1 on the World's Best Bars list in 2022.
It was then a train ride to San Sebastián, where we dined at Arzak, helmed by chef Elena Arzak and her father, the legendary Juan Mari Arzak. In fact, it was only after we had secured our restaurant reservation for Arzak did we make a final "go" decision on our trip, and book our air tickets.
After several days in San Sebastián we headed to Bilbao, where we visited the Guggenheim Museum and other local attractions.
We then headed to Axpe, to dine at Asador Etxebarri, where we sampled delights from the wood-fired grills of chef Bittor (Victor) Arguinzoniz. If anything this reservation was even tougher to secure than Arzak...
It was not all about food and planes. There was also stunning scenery.
Apart from my runs, we did several short hikes/walks. Of course, short is relative. One of our hikes was to Gaztelugatxe, a stunning islet off the coast of Biscay in northern Spain. The hike to this spot, which featured in the HBO series Game of Thrones, was only 2.5km round trip, but the steep climbs up and down meant that we were all soaked in perspiration by the end of it.
This was not just a food pilgrimage. We also spent time in Santiago de Compostela, the endpoint of the religious pilgrimage route known as the Camino. Although we didn't walk the Camino on this occasion, it was quite an experience to soak in the atmosphere in this very spiritual place.
Our last stop was Madrid, a city which was so lively and buzzing when we were there, not to mention packed with tourists. Apart from seeing the sights and enjoying the food in Madrid, we also spent a lot of time in their museums, the Reina Sofia and the Prado. Both were incredible places, with masterpieces from Picasso, Dali, Goya and many other old masters.
For us in Singapore and Asia, there are currently very few opportunities to fly the Airbus A220, previously known as the Bombardier CSeries. It was no coincidence that our flight out of Madrid was on a Swiss A220.
I was very keen to check out this clean-sheet design, and find out why the A220 had been getting such positive reviews from passengers.
Landing in Zurich after our A220 flight from Madrid, we only had a 40 minute connection to catch our ride home on LX176 ZRH-SIN.
I am normally quite paranoid about missed connections, and usually pad my connection times very generously, but in this case, it was a single ticket MAD-ZRH-SIN. If the connection was missed, it was LX's responsibility to get us back to Singapore. Worst case we would get our vacation extended by a day in Zurich. But true to the Swiss's reputation for punctuality and reliability, our connection went without a hitch.
Our flight home was on LX 777 Business Class, which was a paid upgrade (i.e a confirmed paid upgrade, as opposed to an upgrade bid on our LH SIN-FRA sector)...
Overall, a very memorable trip, that we all enjoyed immensely. Interested? Read on!
Index
INTRODUCTION
The last couple of months have been full of ups and downs. I'll not go into details here, but life throws you all kinds of surprises, whether related to work, home or family. Support from family and friends really makes a difference. During times like these, any opportunity to spend time together with loved ones should be cherished.
One such opportunity for family time came up last month: a confluence of events made it possible for me to plan a snap vacation with Mrs yflyer and Miss yflyer no.2. Everything was planned in February, just a few weeks in advance of the trip in March.
After exploring many flight and destination options, we eventually decided on a trip to northern Spain: Basque Country, Asturias, and Galicia. On this trip, we would check off a couple of restaurants on Mrs yflyer's bucket list (She has a very long list), and by carefully choosing my flights, I would also get to cross off a couple of aircraft types on my to-fly list. Miss yflyer no.2 would also get a well deserved break after completing her current course of study.
We would start off with a flight to Frankfurt on LH779, operated by Lufthansa's 747-8. Thanks, fellow SQTalker Caravelle, for posting that LH would be operating this equipment on the SIN-FRA sector, otherwise I might never have known!
Our basic airfare was an inexpensive economy (Y) ticket with SIN-FRA-BCN on Lufthansa, and MAD-ZRH-SIN operated by Swiss. However, there were attractive paid upgrades / bid upgrades available for all our long haul sectors, and we took full advantage of this.
We flew 747-8 Business Class on the SIN-FRA sector, with my seat on the upper deck, and Mrs yflyer and Miss yflyer no.2 seated together on the lower deck.
Our starting point in Spain was Barcelona, where Miss yflyer no.2 visited the Sagrada Familia for the first time. Mrs yflyer and I had been to Barcelona before, but we revisited our favourite places. We also took the opportunity to check out Paradiso, a cocktail bar ranked No.1 on the World's Best Bars list in 2022.
It was then a train ride to San Sebastián, where we dined at Arzak, helmed by chef Elena Arzak and her father, the legendary Juan Mari Arzak. In fact, it was only after we had secured our restaurant reservation for Arzak did we make a final "go" decision on our trip, and book our air tickets.
After several days in San Sebastián we headed to Bilbao, where we visited the Guggenheim Museum and other local attractions.
We then headed to Axpe, to dine at Asador Etxebarri, where we sampled delights from the wood-fired grills of chef Bittor (Victor) Arguinzoniz. If anything this reservation was even tougher to secure than Arzak...
It was not all about food and planes. There was also stunning scenery.
Apart from my runs, we did several short hikes/walks. Of course, short is relative. One of our hikes was to Gaztelugatxe, a stunning islet off the coast of Biscay in northern Spain. The hike to this spot, which featured in the HBO series Game of Thrones, was only 2.5km round trip, but the steep climbs up and down meant that we were all soaked in perspiration by the end of it.
This was not just a food pilgrimage. We also spent time in Santiago de Compostela, the endpoint of the religious pilgrimage route known as the Camino. Although we didn't walk the Camino on this occasion, it was quite an experience to soak in the atmosphere in this very spiritual place.
Our last stop was Madrid, a city which was so lively and buzzing when we were there, not to mention packed with tourists. Apart from seeing the sights and enjoying the food in Madrid, we also spent a lot of time in their museums, the Reina Sofia and the Prado. Both were incredible places, with masterpieces from Picasso, Dali, Goya and many other old masters.
For us in Singapore and Asia, there are currently very few opportunities to fly the Airbus A220, previously known as the Bombardier CSeries. It was no coincidence that our flight out of Madrid was on a Swiss A220.
I was very keen to check out this clean-sheet design, and find out why the A220 had been getting such positive reviews from passengers.
Landing in Zurich after our A220 flight from Madrid, we only had a 40 minute connection to catch our ride home on LX176 ZRH-SIN.
I am normally quite paranoid about missed connections, and usually pad my connection times very generously, but in this case, it was a single ticket MAD-ZRH-SIN. If the connection was missed, it was LX's responsibility to get us back to Singapore. Worst case we would get our vacation extended by a day in Zurich. But true to the Swiss's reputation for punctuality and reliability, our connection went without a hitch.
Our flight home was on LX 777 Business Class, which was a paid upgrade (i.e a confirmed paid upgrade, as opposed to an upgrade bid on our LH SIN-FRA sector)...
Overall, a very memorable trip, that we all enjoyed immensely. Interested? Read on!
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