Athens Grande Bretagne ~ The Butler Can Do It. . .

We declined the doorman's offer to carry our bags the short distance from the taxi into the palatial lobby. Our two bags were small - we were in Athens for a long weekend. We could manage.

Lobby - The Grande Bretagne (GB) - Athens

But when the young receptionist, who looked like a Greek Goddess reincarnate upgraded us to a junior suite and said, "Your butler will take your bags and show you to your room," who were we to refuse?

The Butler, with our bags in tow, led us to our 7th floor junior suite on the 'Butler Floor' of the undeniably posh Athens Grande Bretagne Hotel.

Less than 10 minutes into our stay we knew why this property is part of the Luxury Hotel Collection and consistently rated by travelers as one of the top hotels in Athens.

This stay was going to be memorable.

Let the Butler Do It

'The Butler' was one of several staff members assigned the responsibility of responding to the wants and needs of those of us staying on the designated butler floors. He seemed a bit bellman and concierge rolled into one.  Anything we needed 24/7, just call his number, he said as he handed us his business card.  He'd shown us about our spacious room, opening curtains, explained the wi-fi and the room-card operated electricity (common throughout Europe).  Did we need reservations? Recommendations? Help with anything. . .just call.

Problem was that when one lives their lives without a butler, it is difficult to think of something we needed 'buttled' as we referred to his services from then on.

Our suite at The GB in Athens

"Why doesn't our house look like this," asked The Scout with a big sigh as we inspected our Athenian digs. 

"Well, for starters our interior walls molded while we were gone this winter and now we have the ant problem on top of it," responded his sidekick, The Scribe, who was thinking, 'I could live in a hotel like this.'  

Suffice to say, the room itself -- had we never stepped outside its door -- would have been a treat of a getaway. 

Welcome: Liquor and chocolates by French  pastry chef Arnaud Larher 

The attention to detail was amazing. Take that down comforter on the bed in the photo below:  When made up by housekeeping the top is folded about 45 cm towards the foot of the bed then rolled back over itself to 5 cm from the edge of the fold. This, I learned from the in-room hotel magazine, lets the guest snuggle into the bed using the minimum amount of effort. My kind of bed! Housekeepers  use a 10 point checklist when inspecting the made beds.

A linen rug, slippers and chocolate at night

If Only the Walls Could Talk

The hotel stairway a metaphor of its layers of  history

The layers of history at this hotel are almost dizzying. And that was a stronger enticement for us than the luxurious accommodations. 

Ambiance is unbeatable in the GB Winter Garden

As we dined in the Winter Garden, off the lobby, we wondered how it looked in 1842 when it was built as the 90-room 'Stadtpalais' (majestic residence) of Antonis Dimitrio. His home was constructed across from the Palace of King Otto barely more than a decade after Greece achieved its independence from the Ottomans.

18th Century tapestry in Alexander's Bar at the GB

Or as we sat at the bar in Alexander's Bar, in the shadow of the hotel's treasured 18th Century tapestry of Alexander the Great entering Gaugamela, we pondered the massive effort undertaken  by Savvas Kentros, who purchased the home for 80,000 drachmas and converted it to a hotel.

Who's walked here before us?

We wished the walls could talk about the decade of the 1940's when first the hotel was evacuated in October of 1940 to be used as governmental headquarters of the King, the Armed General Staff and the Allied Forces.

Or April 1941 when the invading Germans took it for the headquarters of their Wehrmacht.

Greek flags in the morning sun from the rooftop restaurant

Then, with the liberation of Greece in 1944, it became the seat of the new interim government and British forces.

By the late 1950's the hotel was back to being a hotel, renovations and ownership changes marked the subsequent decades. Its most recent $100 million renovation in 2003 created the property as it today. 

Traveler's Tip

We often sing the praises of hotel and airline loyalty programs. We are long-time members of the Marriott Hotel's loyalty program, which has become BonVoy the loyalty program of the merged Marriott and Starwood Hotel chains. The upgraded room was part of the loyalty program benefits and an example of the benefits that can be had from such programs.  The room we booked was in the 250 euro ($280US) per night range; the junior suite on the Butler Floor we were upgraded to was about 350 euro ($393US) a night.  

We used accumulated loyalty points -- 60,000 a night for 180,000 total - to pay for the room. Our out-of-pocket cost was 4 euro a night for the room tax levied in Greece on hotel stays.

Acropolis from the Grand Bretagne

If you find yourself in Greece - even if you don't stay at the hotel - we'd recommend a drink or a meal at either the Grande Bretagne or its sister Luxury Collection Hotel, the King George, next door. Both are across the street from Syntagma Square.

That's it for this week.  We are back at our Stone House on the Hill in the midst of springtime projects. We are keeping busy and that is good because we can't leave Greece.  No joke. And not our idea.  But that's a topic to tell you about next week. Hope to see you back then and bring a friend or two as well.

Safe travels to you and yours. 

Linking with:

Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday

 

One ‘Suite’ Stay in Cairo

We didn’t sleep in tents. Nor did we burn camel dung to stay warm at night.

Camels are a reason to visit the Middle East and North Africa

Yet, when we talk of our desires to return to Cairo, Egypt, we often get the furrowed-brow, less-than-enthused response, 'You really liked it there?'  The kind that we know was prompted by images of us sitting in a tent with sand blowing about. . .roughing it in a barren landscape a la Lawrence of Arabia.

While I hate to burst the worry-bubble of well-meaning friends, let me just say, ‘Au contraire. . .’

Hotel chandelier - Cairo, Egypt

The reality is that we’ve had a rather ‘suite’ time in Cairo on both of our visits to the city. As result of their drop in tourism in recent years, very nice hotels come at very nice prices.

Athens is but a short flight from Cairo

Those of you regulars here know that since we’ve begun ‘commuting’ between Seattle and Athens, we have found that flying from that side of the Atlantic is much less expensive than starting in Seattle. That means 'Somewhere-Seattle-Somewhere' is cheaper than 'Seattle-Somewhere-Seattle'.  And one of the best departure cities we’ve found is Cairo, because it is inexpensive, its exciting and it is only a short flight away from Athens. Even with that short flight, we’ve saved big bucks by using Cairo as a hub city.

Morning traffic Cairo en route to our hotel there

But Cairo, with a population of more than 9 million, is so large a city that you want to stay near the airport if you have an early morning flight. (Or set out for the airport at 3 a.m.)

A welcome on our room's television screen in Cairo (it was promoting Kuwait City)

That’s why we’ve spent our night-before-the-flight from Cairo at the five-star J. W. Marriott, near the airport. The cost for a night there isn’t much more than we are paying this summer at the decidedly more basic Fairfield Inn and Suites here in Washington State.

J.W. Marriott - Cairo, Egypt

A plus of the J.W. is its free shuttle to and from the airport. A hotel representative met us in baggage claim and ushered us through the immigration/visa checkpoints.  A most welcome service after 20+ hours of flights and layovers.

While the entry and hotel exterior is rather plain looking, it is what awaits inside that makes for the treat! It simply feels like entering a palace.

Lobby J.W. Marriott - December 2015

In fairness, I must mention hotel security. Many of the large hotels we’ve stayed at on the other side of the Atlantic (not just in Cairo) do have strict security measures in place.

Often before the taxi or shuttle pulls onto the hotel grounds armed guards check the vehicle with the assistance of bomb-sniffing dogs. They open trunks and look under the vehicle. 

They also have x-ray machines for hand carry bags at the lobby entry.  At the J.W. Cairo our large suitcases were run through a separate x-ray machine. 

Early on in our travels, I’ll admit I found it a bit unnerving, but now – especially now -- I see it as rather comforting and mention it only because it is part of the reality of today’s travel, no matter how luxurious the hotel might be.

The Suite Life

Our 'suite' J.W. Marriott - Cairo, Egypt - December 2015

We booked ‘a room with a king bed’ on each of our stays. In December we arrived at our room and found we'd be staying in a suite with a bathroom alone as big as a hotel room!

Marble elevators - J.W. Marriott, Cairo, Egypt

And did I mention the interior of the hotel elevators were marble from top to bottom?

Our return leg of our round-trip ticket (Cairo-Seattle-Cairo) brought us back in March. We’d had a flight delay in Paris – one of their annoying hour-long airport strikes – which made our arrival in Cairo very late. We figured we’d be lucky to get any room and didn’t expect another ‘suite’ stay. 



Once again, that genie must have rubbed the magic lamp because this time not only did we have a suite, we had a two-story suite! (I didn’t know they even had such accommodations in hotels!) It was so late and we were so jet-lagged tired that we didn’t get a chance to luxuriate for very long. Early the next morning we were up and off to Athens.

Still, our stays there make for 'suite' memories. . .

You would sit here to get your shoes shined at the J.W. - Cairo, Egypt

As I said last week, we are in the midst of travel planning season so it is time to think about booking flights back to the States, even though we haven't yet headed back to Greece.

And I’ll bet it wouldn’t surprise you, if I said Cairo is tempting us again. . .of course, there’ll be that matter of getting there from Abu Dhabi, but I’m leaving those details up to The Scout.  I’ll just tell you about them after he figures them out!

That’s it for this week.  Hope your summer has been filled with adventures and fun travels.  Tell us about them in the comments below.  And hope to see you next week – bring some friends along! As always, thanks for joining us~we appreciate your time and hope we are inspiring you to stretch the comfort zone a bit, just as we’ve been doing.

I suppose I should add a disclaimer to this one: We pay the same prices at the hotels as you would, we are not 'comp’ed' for these stays nor are we paid for writing reviews of them. We are members of Marriott's rewards/loyalty program and therefore qualify for room upgrades if available -- a pretty 'suite' perk!

Linking this week with:
Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Photo Friday
Weekend Travel Inspiration

Three phone calls later: Singapore is Rome

Regular readers and those who know us well won’t be surprised to learn that we’ve changed travel directions again.

The winter’s “Big” cruise from Singapore is now the autumn cruise  from Rome.

All it took was a couple of phone calls.  Really, it was that simple. Proving, once again, that planning travel really isn’t that difficult.


The original plan: Frequent flier airline seats to and from Asia. A Celebrity cruise from Singapore to Sydney, a few days there (using Marriott points), then off to Bali, returning home a week later . Yikes – that put us traveling two days before Christmas! (Read that: the dreaded holiday travel.)

We were looking forward to the Asian Adventure, but. . .

While in Mexico we had plenty of daydreaming time and started discussing other destinations that we want to visit in the next couple years. . .

Then, back in Kirkland this week Joel happened upon the ‘perfect’ Celebrity cruise – beginning in Rome, ending in Venice, with stops in Montenegro, Croatia, Greece, Malta and Slovenia along the way. If only we weren’t headed to Singapore. . .
 

After a 24-hour ‘ponder-the-idea-period', Joel checked on availability of frequent flier seats, which was key to any changes, with airline prices being what they are this year. Two calls to Alaska Airlines in as many days and we had seats and a good routing to Europe.  He nabbed them after cancelling the Cathay Pacific business class seats to Singapore. We’ll  fly business class on KLM to Rome and back.

The third phone call was to CruCon Cruise Outlet (the travel agency we use for booking cruises because they’ve had the best prices and on-board goodies). They moved our $200 deposit from one cruise to the other, we’ve now got a balcony room on the Silhouette; incurring no penalties and getting the same on-board credits and other goodies as we had on the other cruise.

Then he cancelled our Marriott ‘loyalty points’ reservation in Sydney and used them to book a five night stay in a Marriott “Autograph” Hotel in Venice. (Use of those hotel points in Venice saved us approximately $1,700!)

We were excited about the Sydney experience; but we are plain crazy about this new adventure. Joel’s dug out the Lonely Planet guidebook to Slovenia to get the research started. . .I ordered a new Baggallini roller tote from a discount on-line shop.  Let the fun begin. . .