Waiting for my Uber
So after a LOT of planning the day had come from my holiday to start. My flight from Cape Town to Zurich was at 8:40am so in order to leave ample time at 5:50am I was standing at the edge of the road waiting for my Uber to collect me to take me to the airport, and was there in no time.
Waiting for my Uber
Always good when you see your flight on the departures screen
Waiting to check in (I had done online check in, but was only a single queue for that and bag drop)
By 6:30am I was all checked in and had gone through passport control and technically I had left South Africa.
I had chosen a seat on the left hand side of the plane (an Airbus A340-300), my thinking for that was that I could maybe see a nice sunset at the end of the day. The seat layout was 2-4-2. We took off a little late but was fine, I was in no rush. We took off in a southerly direction and flew into about the middle of False Bay area and then did a right hand u-turn and headed north. This was where my seat selection paid off big time as I could look out the window and see the whole southern suburbs and even work and almost my flat from the air. This was a nice bonus to start the holiday with a bit of "local sightseeing" from the air.
My Edelweiss plane
Flight path leaving Cape Town
UCT & Table Mountain area
City Bowl, Waterfront and Milnerton
Not long after takeoff we were offered a breakfast which was chicken and rice, quite tasty.
Breakfast
I hadn't had a long haul international flight during day time before. I managed to get a little bit of sleep but not too much. Tinkered on my phone reviewing some of the map info and documents I had saved offline for my 1st city stop and played some Two Dots (which is still the only mobile game I play). Watched a few movies on the plane's inflight entertainment system namely: A Quiet Place: Day One and 65.
At around 4pm we were served a meal (guess you could call that an early dinner). I don't recall the choices but I chose the chicken curry, which I was very happy with. Not sure why there were some oats as well (I think it was that anyway), but I never ate those as it's not my thing. They offered soft drinks, juices, waters etc. but if you wanted a beer or wine you had to pay for it.
Chicken curry meal
After dinner people were awake and "up and about" so as to speak, so come time for sunset it was easy to open the window shade. It was pretty cool I was greeted with a really nice sunset to take a load of pictures of. With scratches on the glass and the focus of the camera (pointing into the sun) not all came out and some got binned, but I did get some nice pics.
Sunset
Sunset
Sunset
Sunset
At one stage we were brought a nice choc chop cookie, I didn't eat mine, kept it for another time. A while later when I got up I went and asked if they had another (under the guises of if I only took one there would be a fight amongst kids that the other did get - LOL, ja ja you do what you have to do), kind air hostess lady raffled through the containers in the galley and handed me 3 more, bonus !!! They were absolutely delicious, had them as treats over next few days. When we left the one flight we also go give a small choccie, got an extra of those too (no made up story needed there).
Swiss choc chip cookies and mini chocolates
We got into Zurich a little late (by only about 20 minutes) so they must've made up time in the air after we left late. It was drizzling quite solidly outside, not that it made any difference to me as I wasn't going outside.
Drizzly in Zurich
Now started a long 12h layover in Zurich from call it 8pm to 8am. Argh !!! I knew this and in order to get the super good flights (price wise) I accepted that this was something I was going to live with. I looked around the airport a bit as you have to do, thought of getting something to eat at one stage but I had already had a dinner, and also seeing how many CHF (Swiss franc) things cost ... I decided against it pretty quickly. I had priced the airport hotel and it was a bit pricey so decided against that as a place to sleep thinking I would be able to find something somewhere. So the hunt began. I found some chairs first and gave it a go, nope that wasn't going to work, too uncomfortable. I then looked around a bit more and found a closed restaurant area, saw some other people had "made camp" there so I decided to do the same ... I thought "what if someone comes and says you can't be there" ... well if they did ... I'd just leave/move.
Aborted this attempt as that wasn't comfy at all
This looks like it will work
Much better, using my neck pillow on top of laptop bag (to keep it safe as well)
Later saw this ... damn - it was occupied
I think I maybe got an hour or 2 sleep max, just couldn't get settled so it was a long night/day. I took a walk round and about at odd times but always came back to my same spot for another shut eye attempt. At around 5am things started to pick up in the airport, with some places opening at 6am, so left my "bedroom" and went wandering around then.
Wasn't easy to sleep with this oke at the other end of the seats snoring away, even louder at times. Now and then he would wake himself up speaking.
Departures screen at 03:28am, my flight (at 8:45am to Ljubljana was on there but not the gate)
Empty airport escalator (taken the day before but hits home the quietness that it was overnight)
At 7:15am the gate for my flight appeared on the screen so I head off in that direction. As I got to the gate, it changed, but only from B32 to B34 so the next door one, whew !!! Could see some people get to the old gate and all worried noone was there. There wasn't much more activity at the new gate. The incoming flight arrived late so was another small delay before we could depart. Again no biggie really for me. It was a plane operated by airBaltic, the second time I've flown with them, used them when I went to Riga, Latvia in 2010.
Like with a lot of low(er) cost airlines, you maybe get something small from them onboard as a snack but anything else you need to pay for. Seeing as I had registered for a Swiss Airlines Travel ID they sent me a complimentary 5CHF voucher I could use on this specific flight. A coffee was 4.20CHF so perfect, I had that.
Plane similar to the one I went on
Flight
Coffee
After the very short flight I was pleased to eventually be in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It was also raining and bleak there, which I expected from the weather forecast. Was happier when I was reunited with my suitcase which had been checked all the way through from Cape Town. Connected to my mobile data (using DENT again, had backup plans too) which worked flawlessly throughout my travels. Found the bus stop pretty easily based on my research and waited for the bus with loads of other people. The bus came along pretty quick as did a second so got on that one as was less people. Only cost €3.30 to get into town, I did a good deed and helped a British couple out and gave them 10c ... yes not a lot but they were short by that much ... the bus ONLY took cash, which was contrary to my research. Other people were scrabbling for cash and making a dash to the ATM back in the terminal building.
As I found out later this is a "bus thing" in Slovenia, they work with cash only.
Ljubljana Airport
On the bus into Ljubljana, rain is chucking it down
Got into Ljubljana Bus Station just before midday and then made my way to my accommodation, I was only able to check in after 1pm so just got lunch and took some pics on the way there.
Ljubljana Bus Station