Saturday 10 November 2012

Andalusia

Preamble

How hard can it be to arrange flights to the south of Spain? Harder than I thought if you want to travel outside the main tourist season, which as far as the airlines are concerned ends on 31st October! This trip needed to take place during the Autumn half-term break, which in 2012 included the first few days of November. In the end the best solution turned out to be to take a one-way flight into Malaga and another one-way flight out of Madrid. Actually it was to a little more complicated than that, while Lynn would indeed fly into Malaga and we would both fly out of Madrid, I would be arriving in Spain by surface transport from Morocco.

The plan was that we would meet at Hotel Las Americas, chosen for its location in the centre of Malaga very close to both the train and bus stations.

The plan for us to meet in Malaga works out perfectly, the journey from Morocco went fine with just a small wrinkle, I mistakenly got the ferry from Tangier to Tarifa instead of to Algeciras. I still managed to arrive in time to meet Lynn at the airport only for her plane to be an hour late. We didn't get to checkin at our Hotel until nearly midnight. Nick, my travel companion from Morocco, joined Lynn and I for a snack and a drink before we parted ways. Nick and I had left Chefchaouen before 07:00WET and the clocks in Malaga were changing as we drank so when you called it a night at about 02:00CET I had not the slightest idea how long we'd been on the go! Goodbye to Nick and back to our hotel.

We've joined up and it is now time to set off for the sights of Andalusia!


View Spain 2012 in a larger map

Afterword

We travelled ~350km (~220miles) by bus and about the same distance by train. The terrain and scenery was attractive and both forms of transport were comfortable, on time and resonably priced. I supect that one day we will return to Andalusia and visit Seville, Toledo and some other places that were not considered for this trip.

The Good

I found this trip to be very enjoyable. It was unhurried and the public transport meant that even the travelling was relaxing. I liked the city of Granada, not too many tourists and plenty of places to eat that were frequented by local people working and living in the city. I am glad that we opted for Cordoba in preference to Seville, the Mezquita de Cordoba exceeded my expectations.

The Bad

Nothing particularly bad comes to mind though the Alhambra and Generlife of Granada did not quite live up to expectations. Don't get me wrong, it was magnificent and I do not regret visiting but my expectations were high.

Thursday 22 March 2012

Customer Service - Good


My experience in recent years of customer service when dealing with product defects has been, at best, mediocre. The last memorable experience was in 2009 but I recently had cause to be delighted by another organisation, this time it was Kitchen Craft.

I phoned Kitchen Craft to ask if I could buy a small part for one of their products since it had come loose in the dishwasher and "disappeared". I was told that they had no items in stock at present but that they would send me the part when they had deliveries at the end of the month. So far, so good.

Two days later a package arrived with a part! Now it turned out to be the wrong part but I could see how my description had misled them as to the problem. I'm beginning to be pleased with them and when I phone them to explain that the part is not the one I wanted they reiterated that they would send me the part at the end of the month. A few weeks pass and I get a parcel delivery, it turns out to be a complete replacement product and a letter telling me that enclosed is the "replacement part"!

No fuss, no drama, just good customer service. You can be sure that I will look for their products in future.

Thanks Zoe!