Golf Hotel Whiskey

Day trips to Amsterdam

I have flown to Amsterdam twice in the last six weeks. Schiphol is pretty much the largest and busiest airport a private pilot can visit in a single engine aircraft. Try landing at Heathrow and see what happens! It’s not cheap (about 250 Euros) but worth it for the experience. You can fly in VFR and I did this a couple of years ago. But these trips involved the full IFR arrival and radar vectored ILSs.

The planning feels a bit daunting – you need to book handling with KLM JetCenter and make sure you have the necessary slot booked. Then you need to read the pages and pages of Jeppesen notes for the airfield as well as the usual IFR stuff like GARs, flight plans and so on. Although it has loads of runways, once you know which one you’re going to (and they told me when I was half way across the North Sea) it was just like an ILS approach anywhere. Nothing to be daunted by.

When I went in March, they vectored me for an ILS on runway 36R and then I broke right at a few hundred feet to land on 04 which runs up to the GA parking area. Yesterday, they told me to expect 18R (which is a couple of miles taxi from the GA terminal) and then changed it to 22. They brought me in on a four mile final and I had to drop down from FL70 in short order. I still managed to put it down on the numbers and make the first exit right into the GA parking area. Great fun, especially with a 12 knot gusting crosswind.

In March I went with my Dutch teacher to practice my Dutch. We went to the Anne Frank house, a pancake restaurant and then she had me visiting various shops trying (in very broken Dutch) to find and buy different things. Yesterday, I went with a couple of friends to visit the Rijksmuseum and we had lunch at Hans and Grietje, a cafe nearby.

P1020755 The main museum is closed for rebuilding but there’s a newly-refurbished wing open around the corner. It’s much less indigestible than the main museum used to be. With so little space, only the best work makes the cut. Every object and painting is the best of the best. There are four Vermeers and more more Rembrandts than you can shake a stick at. Including the famous Night Watch. It took a couple of hours to visit and every moment was thoroughly enjoyable.

The light of Holland favours paintings even when it is grey and overcast but yesterday it was sunny and warm. It is hard to imagine a more pleasant place to be on such a day than Amsterdam.

Chewton Glen (Near Bournemouth)

I flew my wife down to Bournemouth last week for lunch at Chewton Glen. It is my second visit there. The first, a couple of years ago, was marred by absent-minded service. Luckily this visit put that ghost to rest.

We flew through low cloud and light rain the whole way, with intermittent IMC becoming solid as we approached the south coast. I had expected to do an instrument approach and so all the plates were ready. However, there was another aircraft on frequency trying to find the airport visually. When this failed he had to prepare for an ILS in the air and it was obviously causing a fair amount of work – you could hear the stress over the radio.

It made me very grateful for the equipment in the Cirrus and all the IR training and practice I’ve had. I called up the approach plates on the MDF (I also had printed copies). I could see where the Class D airspace was and avoided it while I waited to get my call in to Bournemouth. Setting everything up while flying on autopilot and then hand flying the ILS were unstressful, even enjoyable. Such a difference from my first ILS years ago when I was doing my IMC training. I’m not claiming to be a super-pilot (it was hardly challenging) but it’s very satisfying to see the combination of equipment, plane and training turn a stressful situation into a routine one.

Anyhow, back to lunch. I had a Double Baked Emmenthal Soufflé to start and it was decadent and splendid. Aileen had cream of leek and potato soup from the good-value Prix Fixe menu. I had a pasta dish which was tasty but not memorable while Aileen had a delicate portion of fish and chips. No pudding – too full.

The most charming thing about Chewton Glen is the setting. It has lovely gardens and the restaurant looks out onto greenery. The food is pretty good and, thanks to the lunchtime prix fixe menu, good value. It’s easy to get to from Bournemouth by taxi. It took 20m and cost £15-20 each way. The route through the New Forest is more scenic than the faster urban route.

Contact information

New Milton

Hampshire

BH25 6QS

Tel. 44 (1425) 275341
Fax 44 (1425) 272310
Reservations Direct Line 44 (1425) 282212

US Toll Free Tel. 1 800 344 5087
US Toll Free Fax : 1 800 398 4534
Germany Toll Free Tel. 0800 1 810890

Email: reservations@chewtonglen.com

Website: www.chewtonglen.com

Important information

Opening hours: lunch 12.30-1.45, dinner 7-late
Meal for two: £100

Michelin Rating: *

Maisons de Bricourt (Near Dinard)

The Relais Gourmand Olivier Roellinger – one of the Maisons de Bricourt – is one of those special places that is both august and homely. It’s three Michelin stars, inventive spice-rich cuisine and impeccable service make it a paragon. Yet, it is a small place. It is on a friendly, human scale.

I went with two friends, landing at Dinard. The town of Cancale is a thirty minute cab ride from the airport. As usual, we were running late (time to spare, go by air) but they kept the kitchen open and we arrived at about 2pm local time.

I had a clear, lightly spiced broth over a bowl of prawns and shellfish with a few thin vegetables to start. It was clearly inspired by Vietnamese food but like everything else here it was its own creation. The spices have a local history because Cancale was the port through which much of France’s spice trade flowed. My main course was two fillets of John Dory with a sauce made of 14 (count them, 14!) spices. It was subtle and flavoursome, not at all overpowering. My favourite course, though, was the pudding. I had hibiscus jelly with fruits and a small sorbet on top. The jelly was sublime with a hint of pepper, I think.

The staff all speak fluent English and are very welcoming. The menu, however, is only available in French. I speak it a little but I don’t have any menu French. The waiters were happy to translate for us but choosing our order was a bit like throwing darts in a darboard. Mind you every throw is a bull’s eye.

I also recommend the spice shop and the Grain de Vanille tea and cake shop, both part of the same business, as post-meal shopping.

Overall, this restaurant is one of the best I have visited. Next time, I will arrive promptly and linger long.

Contact information

1, rue Duguesclin,
35260 CANCALE
Tél :02 99 89 64 76
Fax : 02 99 89 88 47
GPS : N48 38 588 W 001 52 345

Website

Important information

Check website for opening times.

Meal for two: £250 with wine

Michelin Rating: ***

Nearest airport

Dinard

Nearby towns

St. Malo

Meteox – phone and PC weather radar

I’ve been playing with Meteox and it’s pretty cool. It gives you a composite weather radar for most of Europe based on inputs from national weather authorities.

It was useful last week when there were complicated weather systems over the UK and I had to get to Cardiff and then to France. I could see where the fronts and troughs were and plan my routes and timings accordingly.

There is also a neat Windows Vista gadget and a version you can access on a PDA or smartphone.

It’s not as good as an in-plane weather radar or the satellite download weather you get in US Cirrus planes but it’s pretty useful.

Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons, near Oxford

Is it heresy to say that I didn’t enjoy my meal at Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons? Have I become totally blasé about eating multi-starred restaurants?

Don’t get me wrong. The company (old friends) was wonderful. The setting is beautiful. The service was attentive.

Two things bothered me. The first was not entirely in the restaurant’s control. A celebrity TV chef sat at the table next to ours. He spent the whole meal chatting up the staff perhaps with a view to recruiting them. He took calls on his mobile phone at the table and disturbed the whole dining room.

Okay, so the famous can get away with being bores. But when the guests at another table complained to the staff their pleas fell on deaf ears so they got up and left. Then the staff went over to Mr. TV and apologised profusely. It seems to me that the staff got their priorities wrong. In any case it could have been better handled. Just because we didn’t complain doesn’t mean that it didn’t bother us too. I guess the preferential treatment tweaked my noodles.

The other thing – more important by far – was the food itself. There were moments of brilliance: my Granny Smith sorbet which came with a soufflé, for example. It had a deep apple flavour and complemented the sorbet nicely. But on the whole, the food didn’t live up to the setting or the promise.

Let me give you two examples. I had a mushroom risotto to start. I could have made it (and I would have served it piping hot, not slightly glazed as if it had sat under heat lamps in the kitchen for five minutes). The two-star difference: truffle shavings. That’s buying a cheap present and wrapping it in expensive paper.

Similarly, my wife had sea bass with langoustine-flavoured sauce. Nicely cooked and well-presented but a fish. The two-star difference: a scrawny langoustine on top. More trouble to eat than its worth but fancy-looking. It’s good food with frills and furbelows. Great food doesn’t need them.

There were also a couple of hiccups in the service. Three trays of tasty little appetisers appeared while we were in the lounge before the meal. But there were four of us and one tray was non-dairy and one was vegetarian so two non-fussy eaters were forced to share the remaining tray. It sounds trivial but you don’t want to spend the first ten minutes of your meal negotiating with your guests: “no, you have the foie gras.” “No, YOU have it, I’ll have the tuna tartare.” The other hiccup: my wife asked for a selection of sorbets but received a selection of ice creams. Not what she wanted but very tasty (I know, I sampled them all!).

To their credit, sorbet/ice cream confusion aside, the restaurant was very attentive to our various food hang ups. They produced a complete complete vegetarian menu for me – a delightful surprise – and dairy-free options for my friend’s wife.

Am I quibbling over triffles and soufflés? Perhaps. Probably. But for £150 a head and two Michelin stars, I think it is reasonable to expect service that makes no distinction for fame and food that dazzles.

Contact information

Church Road, Great Milton, Oxford, UK
Tel: 01844278881

www.manoir.com

Important information

Opening hours: Lunch: 12.15 pm to 2.30 pm, Dinner: 7.15 pm to 9.30 pm, Monday-Sunday

Meal for two: £250 with wine

Michelin Rating: **

Nearest airport

Oxford Kidlington, EGTK, 15 miles by car

Nearby towns

Oxford

Ten essential websites for pilots

Homebriefing. www.homebriefing.com. This English-language site from AustroControl lets you file flightplans online and get confirmation, slot status etc. via your mobile phone. It’s simple to use and costs 36 euros. I tend to file a flight plan via Homebriefing and then fax a courtesy copy to my departure airport and let them know it’s already been filed.
Avbrief. www.avbrief.com. A comprehensive online weather briefing service for GA pilots. There is a basic free service but it’s worth getting the full service to get a one-stop shop for weather and notams. It costs £59.22 a year.
Avbrief (for mobile phones). www.avbrief.com/pda/opmet.html. This is a free TAF/METAR lookup service that you can use on any phone with a web browser. It’s very, very quick and easy to use. Perfect for a quick check of the weather before departure or keeping an eye on the weather during a lunch break.
YouTube. www.youtube.com. It’s not just for watching stupid comedy videos. There are loads of free, helpful flying videos such as this one from UND Aerospace showing how to fly Eights On Pylons. I found YouTube easier and cheaper than the King School CPL Flight Test DVD.
The UK Aeronautical Information Service. www.ais.org.uk. This provides approach plates and airfield information for nearly all the airports in the UK. Free. I still use Jeppesen but this is a very useful resource for the occasional IMC pilot for example. I haven’t tried them myself, but you can buy individual airport plates from gCAP for 54p each on an as-needed basis.
List of overseas AIS sites. http://www.sia.aviation-civile.gouv.fr/asp/ais.asp?idl=uk. Provides links to pretty much every national AIS which in turn should provide approach plates and aeronautical information. Of course, the format varies from country to country (which is why I use Jeppesen). But you can’t beat the price.
CAA. List of CAA publications. You can download the latest LASORS guide, CAP 413 Radiotelepony Manual, CAP 694 UK Flight Planning Guide and all the GASIL safety booklets. Free. Get them quick before the CAA starts charging for this service too.
azworldairports.com. http://azworldairports.com. This free site provides basic airport information and contact details for thousands of airports around the world. I find it very useful if I want to get the website or handling agent for a foreign airport.
Les aéroports français. www.aeroport.fr. Very helpful for tracking down information about French airports, such as opening hours and customs facilities. Of course, they’ll be at lunch when you get there.
Sunrise and sunset calculator. goFLYING [Update 16.9.12 Site closed]. Very handy and easy to use.