Introduction: Five Country European Adventure

Welcome to my next trip report series, covering our trip to five countries in Europe back in July 2021 (this was separate from our trip to Greece in May). I apologize, as I’m obviously a bit late with this trip report, though on the plus side this is the last series I’m behind on, so my reviews should be close to “live” going forward.

The basics of our trip to Europe

We ended up spending most of July in Europe, and while it wasn’t planned this way initially, we ended up visiting five countries. To give a general overview of how we split our time:

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• We started our trip in Stockholm, Sweden, where we spent four nights; Ford has a close friend there he wanted to visit, and I do love visiting Northern Europe in summer, when there’s endless daylight
• From there we flew to Nice, France, where we spent three nights; this was primarily to check out a hotel that had been on our radar
• From there we flew to Frankfurt, Germany, where we spent 12 nights; my mom and her partner met us there, so that we could visit family in the area
• From there we drove to Amsterdam, Netherlands, where we spent three nights; what’s not to love about Amsterdam?
• From there we flew to Athens, Greece, where we spent four nights

Hopefully that’s a useful basic outline of our trip, so let’s get into a summary of the flight and hotel reviews you can expect from this trip.

The flights I’ll be reviewing

Here are the flights we took on this trip:

• We flew from Chicago to Amsterdam to Stockholm on KLM in business class, with the first flight on the Boeing 787-10, and the second flight on the Boeing 737-800; I redeemed Air France-KLM Flying Blue miles for these tickets
• We flew from Stockholm to Nice on SAS in the “Plus” cabin, on an Airbus A320neo; I booked tickets with cash, as there was no award availability
• We flew from Nice to Frankfurt in Lufthansa business class, on an Airbus A320neo; I redeemed Air Canada Aeroplan miles for these tickets
• We flew from Amsterdam to Athens in Aegean business class, on an Airbus A321; I redeemed Air Canada Aeroplan miles for these tickets
• We flew from Athens to Newark in Emirates business class, on a Boeing 777-300ER; I redeemed Emirates Skywards miles for these tickets

I’ll be reviewing all of the flights, with the exception of the Lufthansa flight from Nice to Frankfurt, since I’ve reviewed Lufthansa business class so often.

The hotels I’ll be reviewing

Here are the hotels we stayed at on this trip:

• In Stockholm we stayed at Bank Hotel, which is a Small Luxury Hotels of the World property that partners with Hyatt; I booked this using World of Hyatt points
• In the South of France we stayed at the Four Seasons Grand-Hotel du Cap-Ferrat
• In Germany we stayed at the Hyatt Regency Dusseldorf; I booked this using World of Hyatt points
• In Germany we also stayed at the Hyatt Regency Mainz; I just paid cash, and booked a Hyatt Privé rate
• In Germany we also stayed at a small independent guest house near where my aunt lives
• In Amsterdam we stayed at the Waldorf Astoria; I booked this using Hilton Honors points
• In Athens we stayed at the Grand Hyatt; I just paid cash, since paid rates here are quite reasonable

I’ll be reviewing all the hotels except the Hyatt Regency Dusseldorf, since I reviewed that property in late 2020, and nothing had really changed.

Bottom line

We had a great trip to Europe in July. The highlight was being able to spend time with my mom and our family in Germany, though we also had some nice side trips from there, which we enjoyed.

I’m excited to publish these reviews, because some of the flights (including the Emirates 777 in business class) and hotels (including the Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam and Grand Hyatt Athens) left me with rather strong feelings…

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!