Day 7 started off with another mediocre breakfast at the Intercontinental De La Ville.

Our first appointment for the day was at the US Embassy in Rome. We met with Thomas Moore, the Counselor for Commercial Affairs. He brought in several of his colleagues to speak to us about U.S and Italy relations, economic and US business prospects in Italy. It was interesting to learn about how many American companies are doing business in Italy and some of the challenges and rewards of the business landscape.

In afternoon, we met with the CEO of Bvlgari, Francesco Trapani. Francesco has overseen an enormous expansion of the Bvlgari brand.

The amazing thing about Bvlgari is there attention to detail and their upper echelon line of jewelry. They have begun to branch out into handbags, perfumes, and even hotels. In 2001, they created the Bulgari Hotels and Resorts in a join venture with Marriott with locations in Bali, Milan, and Tokyo.

Has anyone stayed at these properties? I’d be interesting in knowing how they are.

During his presentation, he showed us some of their very high end pieces including a watch that sells for over 600,000 Euro.

After the presentation, we walked to Via Condotti to view their two retail stores. It is simply amazing the prices that they can command for the higher end items. They have certainly done an excellent job in brand management.

Later that night I went to Trevi Fountain and walking on the way back, discovered a pizza vending machine. This was the weirdest most disgusting idea I can imagine. Why in the world would anybody purchase a hot pizza slice from a vending machine?

If you happen to be going to Rome and are looking for authentic Gelato, I would recommend Blue Ice. You will see that there are dozens of gelato shops everywhere in Rome. Having sampled just about every single one of them as the extra 10 pounds on my frame can attest, I can recommend Blue Ice as the best tasting, most authentic Gelato.

One thing that I forgot to post on my writeup of our trip to Budapest was a list of restaurants and places to see in Budapest.

I compiled this list with help from a friend who lives in Budapest.

Restaurants

Sir Lancelot – medieval restaurant meaning no utensils just bare hands. It is a show of it’s own.

Trofea – all you can eat restaurant with a pretty wide variety of food. Great place to get stuffed.

Malackert – – “Piggy Garden” – the name says it all – it is about 15-20 miles out of town though

Nancsi neni – traditional Hungarian place. Very famous in Budapest and very good food.

Fatal – another traditional Hungarian place. Very good.

Fat Mo’s Very nice “speak easy” restaurant in a basement. Very large selection of adult beverages. Open 5 PM – 1 AM.

Alabardos – – super expensive place in the middle of the castle district. Across from Matthias Church. The Castle there is awesome. This place or any of the places in the castle area were high recommended as good quality.

Apostolok – established 1902, great place, on the expensive side.

You can find an enormous collection of Budapest Restaurants here: they are sorted by districts.

When you are considering prices you can use 200 as the exchange – so a meal for 4000 HUF is roughly 20 USD.

Places to see

· Parlament (3rd largest Parlament building in the world) 60 min, 3200 HUF (16 USD) including English tour guideing, must have same day booking via e-mail

· Basilica 40-50 min – it is about a 10 min walk from the Parlament, free to visit the church part, 500 HUF (2.50 USD) to visit the dome – this later one is must if you have nice weather. There is no better spot to take great overview pictures of the whole city – lots of climbing though

· Synagoge – this is about 15 min walk from the Basilika – I have not checked the entrance fee – 30 min

· Castle area – this is across the river, you can walk, but it takes a while. A cable car goes up to it from the Buda side of Chainbridge – the castle area is pretty huge with tons of attactions (Fisherman’s Bastion, Mathias Church (not much inside, but nice from the outside), tons of 14th century residential buildings etc. You can take very attractive shots of the opposite side of the river with the Parlament building and the river bank at night from the castle.

· Gellert hill – Statue of Liberty – great vantage point too

· Heroes square – very touristy location with statues of all the Hungarian kings

· House of Terror – – this is my MUST SEE of Budapest. It costs about 6000 HUF (30 USD) with IR guidence in English and it take for about 4-5 hours to go through, but it provides the most authentic tase of life under hardcore communism in Hungary. Very professionally arranged 5 story museum in the heart of town.

· Walking street etc. Vaczy utca is the old traditional walking street, while Raday utca is a brand new one. I prefer the later one, it has very nice cafes etc.
Rudas Thermal Bath – Rudas Bath or Rudas fürdő is a thermal and medicinal bath that was first built in 1550, during the time of the Turkish occupation of Hungary. To date, it retains many of the key elements of a Turkish bath, exemplified by its Turkish dome and octagonal pool.

Margit Island

Gellert Thermal Bath One of most popular baths for tourists coming to Budapest. The medicinal spring here was already famed in the 13th century. The spa is decorated with a wealth of original Art Nouveau furnishings, artistic mosaics, stained glass windows and sculptures, although the interior of the hotel built alongside has lost many of these fittings over the years.

If you have a chance to get outside of Budapest you might want to check out these:
· Visegrad Castle
· Eger Castle – really cool place
· Balaton – largest lake in central Europe (anywhere is cool)
· Opusztaszer – quite a ways off (about 2 hours by car) – there is a national memorial park on the Huns

Earn Double SkyMiles this summer with your American Express card when you redeem at least 10,000 Skymiles from your account.

Terms and Conditions:

Double miles offer is valid from 07/01/10 to 09/30/10 (“Promotion Period”). Enrollment and qualification for this offer requires a minimum redemption of 10,000 miles through one or a combination of Delta channels from the Primary Cardmember’s SkyMiles® account. The double miles offer will be applied to the total number of dollars of eligible spend during the Promotion Period. Balance transfers, Express Cash, Cash Advances, U.S. Savings Bonds transactions, American Express® Travelers Cheques and Gift Cheques are not eligible. Please allow 6-8 weeks after the Promotion Period for the bonus miles to be posted to your SkyMiles account. Triple miles offer applies to qualifying Delta, Delta Connection carrier, and Delta Shuttle® flights taken with the purchase of a fare that is eligible for SkyMiles mileage credit. Offer applies to Delta Vacations® packages but not other all-inclusive packages. Bonus miles will post to Primary Cardmember’s SkyMiles account. Offer open only to new and existing Delta SkyMiles Credit Cardmembers from American Express. To be eligible to earn double miles, Cardmember’s account must be active and not in default at time of bonus fulfillment. Taxes and fees for Award Travel are the responsibility of the passenger and must be paid at the time the ticket is booked. Award Travel seats are limited and may not be available on all flights or in all markets. Pay with Miles program is limited to Gold and Platinum Delta SkyMiles and Delta Reserve Credit Cardmembers, as well as to Gold and Platinum Delta SkyMiles Business Credit Cardmembers and Delta Reserve for Business Credit Cardmembers. New Cardmembers and Cardmembers upgrading from another Delta SkyMiles Credit Card product with a U.S. point of sale address in their SkyMiles account are eligible to use Pay with Miles upon receipt of their new Card. Eligible only on Delta and Delta Connection® carrier flights booked at delta.com under the DL code. Flight will be marked as Pay with Miles eligible. Minimum 10,000 miles for redemption. Pay with Miles tickets are not eligible for mileage accrual, Medallion ® Complimentary Upgrades, Medallion Segment Qualification, Medallion Qualification Miles, or Best Fare Guarantee. Refundable fares paid for fully or partially with miles will be refunded in accordance with the Pay with Miles terms and conditions. Redemption requirements may differ based on fare. For terms, conditions, and restrictions, visit delta.com/paywithmiles. All redemption offers and awards are subject to change and to the terms and conditions of each individual merchant. Promotion is void if qualifying mileage redemption is re-deposited into SkyMiles account. This offer may not be combined with other offers. Offer subject to change without notice. Other restrictions may apply. All SkyMiles program rules apply. To review the rules, please visit delta.com/memberguide.

We’ve been checking almost daily for when Hilton would release the 2011 reward calendar for the Condrad Maldives Rangali Island Hotel. We had almost given up checking but checked about a week ago and the calendar was posted!

We booked 9 nights in March 2011 without any problem.

We now had to book the flights to Male, Maldives trying to use Delta Skymiles which can always be problematic. We called the partner desk and attempted several different routings – all to no avail.

We contemplated getting all the way to Tokyo or Dubai and then purchasing a ticket to get to Male. However, we weren’t having a lot of luck and were about to give up and try to go to Bali instead.

Then, two days ago, my wife decided to give the partner desk one more shot. Someone on flyertalk suggested getting to Moscow and then using Aeroflot to Male. My wife talked with the partner desk for a while but there was no availability at all with Aeroflot and so my wife tried a final time with Malaysian Airlines. The fantastic agent patiently tried several different combinations and after two hours was finally able to piece together Salt Lake >> Los Angeles >> Kuala Lumpur >> Male in business class on low miles!

We were afraid that the Hilton wouldn’t have the availability for these new travel dates but I called the Diamond Desk and once again there was no problem moving the 8 days to fit exactly with our frequent flier miles. I then logged on to Priority Club and booked a free night for 15000 priority club points for the first arrival night in Male.

The agent said that the tickets that we’ve booked normally cost $11,000 a piece. We did have to pay $500 a ticket in taxes and a $20 per ticket phone charge. The Delta partner desk agent swore out loud when she saw the fees. Swapping $1000 in fees for $22,000 in tickets and having nine nights paid for is a heck of a deal in my opinion.

There were some keys to making this happen. First, having the American Express Hilton Surpass card and doing a $40,000 spend last year gave us Diamond Status through March 2012. This will entitle us to complimentary room upgrades and free breakfast on the trip.

Second, credit card churning through the American Airlines Citi card. After reading about on Frugal Travel Guy’s page, I churned at least 6 cards to amass 150,000 American Airlines miles which was converted to 300,000 Hilton points.

Third, having a lot of flexibility and patience helped with the Delta tickets. We were able to get business class the whole way for 120,000 per ticket.

I simply can not wait until this trip. I found a youtube video showing the room.

This was our travel day and unfortunately we were traveling on Malev Airlines where I have no status. We arrived at the airport extremely early and were greeted with a line that snaked around the airport.

Malev had self check in kiosks at the airport but alas – all of them were out of order. So we sat in line and waited and waited and waited. The line was so long that there was a second entrance to the airport closer and as people start arriving for this flight they naturally started to merge into this line. We decided to create a luggage Wall of China to encourage people to head to the back of the enormous line and it worked.

In Rome, we were going to be staying at the Intercontinental De La Ville. I had done some trolling on Flyertalk about the property and was able to private message a Flyertalk member who had contacted the hotel in advance of his stay and was able to secure a nice room. I have Ambassador status but was afraid that staying at a hugely discounted rate would not get me an upgrade.

I emailed this hotel employee a couple of weeks in advance asking to have an upgraded room. He responded saying that he would do his best.

When we arrived at checkin, they had our entire group’s rooms ready for checkin. I was a bit nervous. I was handed our room key and it said 2nd floor. I assumed the worst figuring that the nice rooms would be on the high floors. As I opened the door, I was pleasantly surprised that my groveling had actually worked and I was in a beautiful suite.

I threw my stuff down and headed out with some colleagues to see the sites of Rome. As it was Sunday, we headed down to the Vatican City to see if we could catch a glimpse of the Pope.

This proved to be a mistake as we arrived about 10 minutes too late and everyone was filing out. We turned around and headed to the Vatican Museum. Unfortunately, we arrived 10 minutes after they took their last visitors. A bit discouraged, we decided to get some lunch and found the most wonderful pizza place around the corner. Everything was fresh made.

After lunch for pizza, we headed down to the Coliseum. It turns out that today was a national holiday in Rome and all the museums had free entry today. The Coliseum was packed with people. It truly was a sight to see. It was an amazing piece of history to see up close.

I already knew that Bora Bora has been my absolute favorite vacation spot that I’ve ever been – but even Swedish royalty has discovered it as well.

The Swedish Princess Victoria and her new husband Daniel Westling recently were married. Victoria is the oldest daughter of the current king and queen of Sweden.

Link

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Register, then book a flight and fly by September 30, 2010. We’re making it an exciting time to explore the United States-and an even easier time getting there.

Day 5 was a free day and so I enjoyed the delicious full breakfast. I never tire of the European breakfast that includes fresh bread and cheeses.

I headed off to one of my favorite thermal baths, Gellert. Gellert is certainly one of the most popular baths as can be attested by the large crowds that come. It has a beautiful interior and exterior bath. The exterior bath was still a bit cold to get in, but the exterior hot pools were plenty warm.

It’s quite easy to get to Gellert by simply taking the street cards.

By this time, my American colleagues had about had it with Hungarian food. I recommended a place that I had been to prior, called Fat Mo’s Music Club. Fat Mo’s is a nice mix of Hungarian and American food with about as big of a range of adult beverages that you could ask for. It is easy walking distance from all of the major hotels. They had a live band playing and it was a truly enjoyable experience with good food, friends, and music.

One word of caution to anyone going to Budapest – the girls walking up and down the street that try and talk to you are not interested in you. I try and do extensive research before going to any city and I have read about the “trap” that the local girls set. If you are approached by two girl’s that want you to go to the disco / club with them – don’t go. I’ve read that they will take you to the club and order a 1000 Euro bottle of wine. When you protest, the huge muscle bound Hungarian bouncer will approach the table to make sure that you have purchased your wine.

I used to just sit on a bench and watch the poor, unexpecting American businessman fall into the trap time after time. As they walked away arm in arm with the two temptresses, part of me wanted to yell out “Nooooooo – don’t do it. It’s a scam”. The other part of me was thoroughly entertained as to how they were going to explain a 1000 Euro charge on their credit card to their unsuspecting boss / spouse.

Or as Elaine said to George Costanza “You’re very careful with money.” My frugality does not only apply to traveling. It also applies to everyday purchasing as well.

Two months ago when Toy Story 1 and Toy Story 2 came out on Blu Ray, Toys R Us was selling the combo pack for $15.00. The combo pack came with two coupons for free tickets ($8.50 a piece) to Toy Story 3.

On top of that, Kellogg’s was running a promotion where you could buy Frosted Flakes and receive points towards free concessions. We found Kellogg’s on sale for $1.70 a box and bought 5 boxes.

So – today we bought 4 matinee tickets at $5.50 a piece for $22.00. We used the two free ticket vouchers of $8.50 a piece which bought the price down to $6.

For concessions, we used our 2 – $5 concession coupons and ended up paying $.75 for a large popcorn and drink.

Total bill – $6.75.

I’m pretty proud of my stinginess!

On Day 4, we headed out to meet the CEO of Pannon, Anders Jensen. Pannon is Hungary’s leading telecomm operator and is owned by Telenor.

Pannon has a very unique corporate headquarter in that there are no cubicles in the entire building. No one has a desk. They have lockers where they put their belongings each day. Every employee is issued a laptop and a mobile phone and therefore is expected to go meet with people face to face throughout rather than send emails back and forth. It is a very interesting concept and seems to have served Pannon very well.

Anders told us of Pannon’s creed. “Growth comes from truly understanding the needs of people to drive relevant change.”

That night we headed out to one of the famous Budapest thermal baths, Rudas. Rudas was built around 1550 and has two large exterior pools and several interior pools of varying degrees. There were a lot of old Hungarian men playing chess at the outside pools.

The interior pools had steam rooms, and warm and cold pools. The cold pools almost made my blood freeze it was so cold. I can only imagine how cold it must be for the Finns who participate in the sauna in the dead of winter.

Dinner involved goulash, of course.