Hello friends,
It’s been a long time since I last wrote something here. Unfortunately Corona has also changed all my travel plans.

Except for a small weekend trip in July, there was no summer trip, no autumn vacations, and this year we will probably be at home for Christmas instead on the beaches of the pearl of the Caribbean, in Cuba, as every year.

Well, at least we have stayed healthy so far. However, in August a terrible event suddenly took the life of the father of my human daddy. We were not at all prepared for it, as my “human grandpa” seemed to be in the bloom of his life. And before some people ask the (justified) question, no, it was not Corona. After this event, it took some time until things started to take their usual course again in my home.

As I said, the second wave of the Corona pandemic destroyed our last hope to escape the winter cold during the christmas holidays. But instead, we’ll just stay at home this year and celebrate in a small circle, if at least this will be possible considering the restrictions due to the pandemic.

Stay healthy and in spite of all, merry Christmas and a happy new year to all!

Hi. Since monday, I’m on a new trip to the Netherlands. My experience with the Netherlands is a bit ambivalent. There are places where dogs are lovely welcomed and others where it is nearly impossible to enter.

But one thing at a time. We spent 3 wonderful nights in 3 beautiful hotels, the Inntel Zaandam near Amsterdam, the Inntel Utrecht Centre and the Inntel Art Hotel Eindhoven. In both of the latter there was even a Jacuzzi in the room, in Utrecht even a small sauna. Unfortunately I was not allowed to go to the hotel restaurant, so I stayed in the room at meal time. But that was no problem as my master always took the leftovers of food to my room.

Zaandam is a small lovely city outside of Amsterdam close to the famous Zaanse Schans, an open air museum with windmills.
In Amsterdam we visited among other things the Hard Rock Café where I was allowed to go to the shop but not to the bar. As I was allowed to enter in all other cafés I was surprised of that restriction in the HR Café.

In the afternoon, after we paid 38€ for about 6 hours of parking in Amsterdam, we drove on to Utrecht.

Utrecht has a beautiful small city centre with many small alleys and shops, bars and cafés. Here I was also allowed to enter everywhere exept the shopping centre, where the parking garage of the hotel was located. After a longer discussion with a security officer I could finally get in, but only on the arms of my master and only because we went immediately to the car. By the way, we had to pay 30€ for more or less 19 hours.

Now we are in Eindhoven. The hotel is near the stadium of the PSV. And I was also allowed to go into the bar of the hotel.

Hello fans. Instarted the new year with a new trip to Cuba. Since january 1st I am under the warm sun of the Carrbean, although today we have rather cold temperatures here in Havana ass a cold front system is passing.

Havana has some realy nice new spots to visit, as the new Sofitel Hotel, SO/ Prada y Melecon, and the Malecon663, a boutique hotel on the famous Malecon de La Habana. The cocktails there a delicious and they also allow dogs at the roof top terrace.

Keep in touch!

During this summer, I made some very nice city trips to Heidelberg, Frankfurt, Dinant, Maastricht and Aachen.

Realy nice. Most of the time we stayed in Accor-Hotels, but in Heidelberg it was an NH-Hotel and in Aachen a Melia.

Each stay was realy nice and I was always welcome.

In Frankfurt (Sofitel), Dinant (Ibis) and Aachen (Innside by Melia) I was even allowed to stay in the restaurant/bar of the hotel. In Heidelberg, I didn’t try but maybe they would have allowed me too inside the restaurant.

Here are some photos of my trips:

Heidelberg

Frankfurt:

Dinant:

Maastricht and Aachen:

Friday 29th of June. Hello friends. Now I am already five days here in Cuba. As usual, entering Cuba was very easy. I only needed my European Pet Passport indicating my rabies vaccination dates. That’s all. I also have a paper from the cuban embassy autorizing me to travel to Cuba as a vaccinated and healthy pet. The vet on the airport never looked at it, but it is definitly better to have it.We came to Cuba from Amsterdam with KLM flight 723. My owners booked an economy comfort seat, a good choice. Enough space for me to sleep and enough leg space for my owner. The meal he got was good as I also got the chance to check it.In Cuba, I am still not allowed in hotels, but as we stay in my cuban family’s house, that’s no problem for me. If you want to come to Cuba and have no family here, it is important to know that you have to stay in a Casa Particular (private owners that rent rooms) that allows pets. As I mentionned before, hotels are still a no go. Many private restaurants allow pets. We went to the Marea Restaurant in Santa Fe in western Havana and I had no problem to go there with my owners.Taking a Taxi also is also mostly not a problem for me. Depends on the driver, but they mostly are very pet friendly (or propina (=tip) hungry).In a few days we will go to the beach at the playas del Este. And of course I will tell you about my trip to the beach. So stay tuned to get updates!Sunday 1st of July. Today we went to Old Havana making some sightseeing. We first drove with a taxi near to the cathedral, then we went to the Plaza Vieja, where we first had a good cafe, saw Spain loose against Russia in the penalty-shooting in the 1/8-Finals of the WCh2018 in Russia, and then, went upstairs to the bar «Azucar» where we had a realy good meal with some very nice drinks. A place to go!After the drinks, we went back to the cathedral, where we finaly took a taxi back home. I realy like to walk down the small paved streets of old Havana, leave some doggy-whatsapp-messages (the ones lifting one of the back legs) on the corners of the houses or the plants decorating the streets. There are a lot of stray dogs there, but most of them are like all the Cubans, nice and welcoming strangers, and realy not agressif. But you always have to watch out and be careful. Tuesday 3rd of July. So yesterday we have been to the beach at the Playas del Este, some 20km (some 12,5miles) eastern of Havana. There was no problem for me to stay on the beach. We had to pay 14CUC for two deckchairs and a parasol ⛱. I even got into the water, but was full of sand after. Fortunately, my owners anticipated this situation and they had a bottle full of water to clean me after my seabath. Having the nose full of sand is not so great. After being cleaned, I took a long nap, but well protected from the sun on a nice shady spot on the deckchair inbetween my owners legs.This was fine until my eyes cached a crab walking by. My curiosity was bigger then everything and I immediately jumped down to the sand to catch the crab. It scared me a lot when the crab suddenly stood on his back legs and opened its claws. I jumped directly back on the deckchair. After a few hours on the beach, we drove back to Havana. We went to old Havana to the paladar «Jama», where we had an excellent meal. They even gave me some chicken with boniato puree. When we arrived home my owners gave my a shower to get rid of the last sandcorns and after that I took a nap on the floor beneath the ceiling fan.

Hi folks. In just a few days I will take the plane once again to fly to Cuba. All my paperwork is already done (pet entrance application for Cuba). In the next couple of days I will go to the vet to get me checked completely and than I will be ready to go (fly)!

This time it will be with KLM in a A330-200 from Amsterdam. It’s not the first time that I will fly with KLM: I did already a couple of years ago on a flight back from New York to Amsterdam in a B747-200.

Let’s see how it will be this time.

More details to follow…

This time, we didn’t travel by plane. As Heidelberg is only a two and a half hours drive away from Luxembourg, we travelled by car. There were no specific precautions to take as Germany belongs to the EU and my passport is valid there.

So we left Luxembourg by 11am an arrived in Heidelberg at the NH Hotel Heidelberg around 2pm.

Rear view of the NH Heidelberg. The building is an ancient brewery.

In the afternoon we visited the ancient towncenter of Heidelberg. Very spectacular (I got a little bit nervous) was the train ride to the top of the Königsstuhl. The funicular that took us right to the top of the Königsstuhl climbs up to the hill at a nearly 40 degrees inclination angle. The first (small) part of the journey is done with a modern train an the second part in the ancient waggons.

On top of the hill, there are many trails. And you have a spectacular view over the city of Heidelberg.

On the way back down we stopped at the castle. Dogs can enter the castle area, they only can’t enter the castle itself.

From the castle we went back to the city center by foot (a five minutes walk).

From there we went back to the hotel, as night was already falling.

Today morning, we went back to the city center where we continued visiting the old town an the old bridge.

After a little, realy good snack at the Chambino near the Neckar-River (corner Lauerstraße, Dreikönigstraße), we went back to the car parking and got back to Luxembourg.

Hi my friends. Back from Cuba, I didn’t write anything for a little while. But don’t be afraif, nothing happened to me. I just hadn’t enough time to do so. Well. as the title already says, it is wintertime now here in Luxembourg, and guess what, it is pretty cold. The announced -15 (5 Fahrenheit) for the next nights and a macimum of -5 (23) during day. I think I will not put any paw outside with this temperatures. But it also has it good sides: many parasites will perish with these temperatures. Unfortunately we have no snow. It was pretty nice sunny weather during the days before these polar airs came down to central and western Europe from the artic circle. So now it is pretty cold but there is no snow (well, there are some leftovers from earlier snowfalls this month, but it is really not much). And I like so much to play in the snow.

This is where I live. It is in the outlying suburbs of a small town. There are many parks and green areas where you can walk around and play.

On sunday I will travel to Havana. I will keep you updated about my new travel experiences. Keep on coming to my page!!!

Day 1!

We just took of from Luxembourg Airport and will be in Paris soon. The aircraft is a Bombardier Q400 with enough space for me under the seat in front of me.

A few minutes ago we arrived at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. The ride after landing to our gate is nearly as long as the flight from Luxembourg to Paris.

I am courious to see if the working staff from the tax free shops still remeber me as I pass often throug Paris when flying througout the world.

Day 2 to 13:

Sorry for not having updated the story but here in Cuba Wifi is something very rare. Therefore here some news. Pets are still not allowed to stay in most hotels. Actually I don’t know anyone accepting pets. But there are some casa particulares accepting pets. You just have to ask. In restaurants, pets are often a no go, exept for restaurants with terraces, especially private restaurants. I was accepted nearly on every terrace.

Day 14 (journey back home) and some more details:

Getting out of Cuba was very simple, although we had to wait nearly 45min for the airport veterinarian to arrive to check my papers. Yes, they even check you for getting out of the country. I haven’t been getting checked at any airport in the world to get out of the specific country, exept for Cuba. Also, the paper you get from the veterinarian at the airport at the moment you arrive is only valid 14 days, if you stay longer you have to go to visit a vet in Havana City Center to give you a prolongation to your autorization to stay in the country and, more important, to get out of it. This paper has to be validated by the the veterinarian service of the ministry of agriculture, which takes one to three more days (you have to deposit it there and go and get it back a few days later). Cuban burocracie. But that’s how it is…You can’t even say that it is for making money because both the visit to the veterinarian and the legalization of the paper by the ministry of agriculture are free of charge if my memories are right as we had to to it only once in the last two years.

They say it’s for you to have no problems when you get back to Europe. I tried many times to explain them that the European authorities do not ask you to visit a vet in a foreign country if you stay less than 4 months(!) abroard and have all your papers up to date (European animal passport) but that doesn’t seem to interrest them. The only thing you need if you travel to Cuba from the EU and back is a valid blood titer test certifiying that the anti-rabies vaccination is effective. That’s all. This test, at least for the EU, is valid livelong if you repeat your anti rabies vaccination on the requested dates.

Not to forget that you have to pay 125CUC (+/- 120€) to Air France at their airport office before checking in. A good idea is that someone lines up in the queue for the checkin counter and the other one goes an pays the pet fee at the office (if you are travelling in a couple with your pet). Check in can be very long at José Martí Airport because of the luggage carpet, especially if there are many flights getting in and out at the same time. The airport seems to small for the big number of daily passangers, especially in peak holiday seasons and the augmenting number of flights to Miami. After check in, a sometimes long queue that expects the traveller is the passport control and the following security check.

In the departure hal there is wifi now. A good idea is to buy a wifi acces card before getting to the airport, maybe at checkout at the hotel, just assure yourself that it is a wificard that also works outside the hotel (some hotels have their own wifi service, like the Melia Habana or the Four Points Sheraton). Maybe the card is a bit more expensive in the hotel lobby but you do not have to make long queues as when you buy it in an Etecsa shop. These wifi acces cards work in many public spaces like parks, on the Malecon, or in other hotel lobbies. They cost normaly 2 CUC if you buy it at the hotel and I think 1 CUC in an Etecsa Shop. Etecsa is the cuban Telecom company.

Finaly here are a few pictures:

Me waiting at Paris CDG for the flight to Cuba (24.12.2017).

This was my owners meal. First a little gin tonic with smal salted crakcers as aperitif

and then the main course with chicken in a delicious sauce and some good french wine. They even served a digestif with the coffee. Generaly the service on Air France flights is realy good to nearly excellent, especially in Premium Economy, but also in Economy. In October we flew to Miami, and the meal was exactly of the same amount and quality in economy as it was now in premium economy. The entertainment system is a big touch screen and you can find nearly all the last film highlights from the past months. There are maybe 30 to 40 films you can choose from (maybe even more), tv series, sports, news, kids program, etc. That’s valid for all the different classes (economy, premium economy, buisness, etc). I think the only thing that changes is the size and handling of the screen. I can realy recommand travelling in Air France’s Premium Economy. Many say that it is quite as good as many buisness classes of other companies. And the price isn’t that much higher than economy tickets if you reserve your ticket long time before your planned holidays or during special offer periods (which are often available). The space for me under the seat in front of my owner is also more than sufficiant for both my travel bag and his legs.

Here arr some impressions from Havana:

New years dinner at the “El del Medio” (#6412, 11th avenue, inbetween 64 and 66, tel: +53 (7) 2095780)!

Here I am with my cuban “cousin” Pako:

Unfortunately it’s not the same Pako who was stolen some two years ago and who’s disappearance still makes us cry, but he is also very nice and friendly and likes a lot to be petted. My cuban family loves him at least as much as the old Pako, but if you are realy a pet lover, you’ll never realy get over the loss of one of your four legged friends.

Our beginnings where not so easy but at the end we played a lot and passed much time together.

Now we are back home and for the next months there is no greater journey in our plans (but plans can change rapidly 😉).