What to buy in Andorra - shopping and eating tips

My family phoned from Andorra and told me: 

 .We are at the ski resort of El Pas de la Casa, skiing"'

  We just stopped for lunch."'

Food In Andorra Ski Resorts

"So I thought I'd phone. It is a typical ski resort. Everything is pizza, meat, cheese and bread. The restaurants also have fish and vegetables. They like octopus in Andorra, which is odd, as it's landlocked.

"For dessert, there's crepes, very French. With chocolate or cream, or both! 

"But nobody is fat. You are in the mountains. Outdoors. You are walking up and down. Or skiing. So everyone is fit and healthy. 

 "El Pas de la Casa is only one mile from the French border, but everything (to do with crossing the border) has shut down because of Covid (in December 2021). 

"Alcohol and tobacco are cheap. It is like England used to be ten or twenty years ago. Everything you eat and drink and smoke is unhealthy, but nobody is bothered. You can buy a pack of 1,000 cigarettes, which is enough for a year. To encourage you they stick a bottle of vodka on the side.

"We are staying in a three star hotel because over Christmas and New Year everything is expensive, but despite that it's all booked up. Pricey and full. So we picked a cheap 3 star hotel, which is well located. For Christmas and New Year we have had to eat early at 6.30 (pm).

"I went skiing. 

"While I'm skiing, she (my wife) goes shopping, looking after the baby - which is a full time job, looking for a restaurant for dinner, and eating crepes.

"Crepes are served with a layer of hot chocolate and then cream. Everything has four inches of cream.

"The first two days we stayed in the capital. 

Since I was going skiing, my wife went to the big spa for a treat. We bought her a waterproof cover for her camera. 

"It was busy, queues everywhere, to get from one zone area to the next. She tried the haman.  

"We stayed in the Panorama hotel which is a way, away, a few miles from the ski resorts. The hotel is half way up the mountain, overlooking the city It is 15 storeys high. The reception is in the middle, on what they call zero level. You go up seven floors to the rooftop pool, which is indoors. Then you go down to minus five, to street level."  

Useful Websites

https://visitandorra.com/en/visitor-information/andorra-s-tourism-offices/tourist-office-of-andorra-la-vella/

About the Author Angela Lansbury

BIOGRAPHY

Angela Lansbury B A Hons ACG ALB PM5 EH5 DL5 VC5 
The Author of several books including  Etiquette For Every Occasion. Wedding Speeches & Toasts. How to be the Best Man. Quick Quotations. Who Said What When.

Blogs travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Club Vice President Public Relations (VPPR), Previous President

Join BHA 1st Wednesday 7pm and 3rd Saturday 2 pm Singapore time 

Vice President Public Relations (VP PR) of Tampines Changkat Advanced;

Secretary of weekly online Singapore International Dynamic Toastmasters Speakers’ Club;

Member and past president of Harrovians toastmasters club, UK; Past member of HOD Toastmasters, London. Past member in Singapore of: Toastmasters Club of Singapore (TCS); Tiarel; and Senja Cashew.

More details from Toastmasters International find a club.

Regular attendee at annual Swanwick Writers’ School, England.

Regular attendee at annual Writers’ Holiday, Wales.

Contributor to poetry readings, and after tea courses on: Speaking On Radio To Promote Books; and Plots And Character.

Winner of many club and area speaking contests in the UK and Singapore.

Language advisor to Empire Toastmasters club in Indonesia.

Language and speech workshops in Singapore.

Speaker on radio and TV in England, Scotland, the USA, and Australia.

Compiler of a school course on public speaking for teachers to prepare pupils for school open days with attending ceremonies before government ministers, Singapore.

Former member of Harrow Writers’ Circle, London, and two writing groups in Singapore.

Angela is on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter. She would be delighted to link up with new friends.

 Please share links to your favourite posts.

Books by Angela Lansbury
How to be the best man. (Ward Lock / Cassell.)
Wedding Speeches and Toasts.(Ward Lock / Cassell.)
Unforgettable British Weekends.
Poetry Workshop Workbook.
The Tailor and the Spy. (Lulu.)
Larry The Talking Labrador. (Lulu.)
Writing Poetry for fun.

Quick Quotations

Who Said What When

 

Ski Centres and Sights in Andorra, near Spain and France

Map of Andorra, sandwiched between Spain to the South and France to the North.

You can take a one day guided tour to Andorra from Barcelona, or drive there for a longer stay. My family drove all the way from near Gibraltar in the far south of Spain in December 2021 in order to go skiing.

As you can see, it is quite small. The capital and largest city is Andorra La Vella, slightly nearer Spain in the south by road. En route you pass Sant Julia de Loria, and Santa Coloma, on the CG-1 road, which runs along the river.

Continuing on north to the east on the CG-2 road, you pass les Bons Encamp, Canillo, Soldeu and Pas de la Case.

Flag of Andorra. Blue, yellow and red. With a lozenge in the middle containing stripes and two animals.

Compare with the flags of Spain and France. Spain also has a motif in the middle. The French flag is red, white and blue.

Flag of France.

Flag of Spain.

Flag of Portugal.

Flag of Catalonia, Spain.

Now let's take a quick look at each place.

1 Santa Julia (accent on the a) de Loria

On the Valera river.

Sant Julià de Lòria

Museum of Tobacco

L'església de Sant Ivo d'Auvinyà ha estat beneïda per l'Arquebisbe d'Urgell i Copríncep d'Andorra Mons. Joan Enric Vives i Sicília el 10 de desembre de 2011

Fer55 - Own work

Andorrako Auvinyà herriko etxe sorta bat

Koldo Biguri - Own work

Tobotronc

Amusement park cum nature trail. Longest ride in the world.

Gran Valira, the largest river in Andorra, flowing through Sant Julià de Lòria in the south.

2 Santa Coloma

Just south of the capital is Santa Coloma.

Notice how high the mountains are above the city.

From Santa Coloma you are only about 2 kilometres from the major city.

3 Andorra La Vella

The capital and largest city.

Sites include

La Casa de la Val

Historic old house and government building.

See 1 monuments in the garden, sculptures and a tower dovecote, the Criminal Court with carved wood panel walls and carved ceiling, the wooden doors of the cupboard of the seven keys, the modern auditorium upstairs.

River Gran Valira flowing under the triangular Pont de Paris in the capital of Andorra, Andorra la Vella.

Skiing

Ski resorts

Most of these resorts were once small mountain villages which have grown due to skiing. The resorts have joined together so that your ski pass covers neighbouring areas. As a result there are now two large alpine skiing areas known as Vallnord and Grandvalira.

Vallnord covers Arcalis and the Arinsal-Pal ski area. Arcalis is quite distant away from Arinsal-Pal but the latter have been joined up by a cable car connecting the two ski areas. The Arisnal-Pal ski area is directly accessible from La Massana right from the middle of the town. 93 km (58 mi) of trails.

Grandvalira covers Soldeu and Pas de la Casa. 

The Soldeu ski area is also accessible from Encamp and Canillo. It has 193 km of ski slopes between 1710–2640 m. The surface of grandvalira is about 1.926 H, and it's divided into 6 different areas:

• Pas de la Casa — skiing resort right on the French border, north east of the capital.
• 
  
  
  Pas de la Case ski resort on the French border in the north of Andorra. Notice the white snow on the left. The buildings are colourful, black, brown, white, orange, yellow, pink, green and blue, beige. The green hotel on the front, far right, is the Hotel Kandahar.

• Soldeu—skiing resort
• Arcalis—ski area at the head of the valley from El Serrat
• Arinsal—skiing resort part of the Arinsal Pal ski area. Also known as Vallnord which means Valley North in English
• Pal—skiing resort part of the Arinsal Pal ski area.

• I eventually found a photo of the Storm in a Teacup sculpture on the website of a UK travel company called Absolutely Travel Company.
• 
  
• Arinsal-Pal -- which is two skiing areas connected by cable car. See Arinsal and Pal. North, slightly north west of the capital city.

Church of St Climent de Pal. 11the century building with later 16th century murals.

Arinsal cable car and looking down at cable car station below.

La Rabassa is a cross-country (Nordic) skiing area in southern Andorra above the town of Sant Julia de Loria.

Websites

Historic House and government building

http://www.casadelavall.ad/en/the-consell-general

Postal Museum

https://visitandorra.com/en/culture/postal-museum/

Museum Pass

https://visitandorra.com/ca/cultura/passmuseu-d-andorra/

Holidays booked from the UK and website showing the teacup sculpture

https://www.absolutelytravel.co.uk/andorra/mountain-walks-coll-de-la-botella.aspx

More to see in Ordino, in my later post.

 About the Author Angela Lansbury

BIOGRAPHY

Angela Lansbury B A Hons ACG ALB PM5 EH5 DL5 VC5 
The Author of several books including  Etiquette For Every Occasion. Wedding Speeches & Toasts. How to be the Best Man. Quick Quotations. Who Said What When.

Blogs travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Club Vice President Public Relations (VPPR), Previous President

Join BHA 1st Wednesday 7pm and 3rd Saturday 2 pm Singapore time 

Vice President Public Relations (VP PR) of Tampines Changkat Advanced;

Secretary of weekly online Singapore International Dynamic Toastmasters Speakers’ Club;

Member and past president of Harrovians toastmasters club, UK; Past member of HOD Toastmasters, London. Past member in Singapore of: Toastmasters Club of Singapore (TCS); Tiarel; and Senja Cashew.

More details from Toastmasters International find a club.

Regular attendee at annual Swanwick Writers’ School, England.

Regular attendee at annual Writers’ Holiday, Wales.

Contributor to poetry readings, and after tea courses on: Speaking On Radio To Promote Books; and Plots And Character.

Winner of many club and area speaking contests in the UK and Singapore.

Language advisor to Empire Toastmasters club in Indonesia.

Language and speech workshops in Singapore.

Speaker on radio and TV in England, Scotland, the USA, and Australia.

Compiler of a school course on public speaking for teachers to prepare pupils for school open days with attending ceremonies before government ministers, Singapore.

Former member of Harrow Writers’ Circle, London, and two writing groups in Singapore.

Angela is on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter. She would be delighted to link up with new friends.

 Please share links to your favourite posts.

Books by Angela Lansbury
How to be the best man. (Ward Lock / Cassell.)
Wedding Speeches and Toasts.(Ward Lock / Cassell.)
Unforgettable British Weekends.
Poetry Workshop Workbook.
The Tailor and the Spy. (Lulu.)
Larry The Talking Labrador. (Lulu.)
Writing Poetry for fun.

Quick Quotations

Who Said What When

 

How to be funny in English and other languages

How to be funny - especially in a foreign language.

SPEECH
If your attempt to speak a foreign language makes them laugh - try opening or ending with a couple of words which make them smile.
Try counting to ten in each language.



New Zealand flag.

New Zealander's say six like sex.



Offer Chinese speakers a choice of pointing to six or a sexy girl.

Sing a song. Or a nursery rhyme.
Mix the languages. Six Ten Green Bottles hanging on the wall. 



In German. You start with ten, then, nine, which is nein. do a double act with a German.

MIME
Use mime.

GESTURE
Exaggerated gesture. Horror eg
Planes takes off as you drink coffee.
Ferry bounces as you try to eat soup.

Use Exaggeration.
Limp in.
Do you ski well?
I ski like a rocket. I did that on day one, in my first lesson. I'k
d never skiied before and I broke my ankle. The man in the ambulance could not believe I survived. I was heading for the top of the cliff and the instructor came racing after me so fast we don't know how he survived. After he went over the cliff. We were both insured. The difficulty was phasing the claims.
Alternatively:
Skiing? I was so afraid I padlocked myself to the locker in the changing room.

Do the opposite of what is expected.
At a ski resort in the evening, they suggest doing swimming in the spa.
So grin and get out a bikini and a pair of ski boots.

Useful Websites
https://www.toastmasters.org/magazine/magazine-issues/2018/dec2018/20-humor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

How Your Views Of Hotels Can Change - My Hotel Review of Rila Hotel in Borovets, Bulgaria

I am glad I did not write a review of our hotel on the first night because by day two my impressions of the hotel had completely changed.

Borovets is a ski resort south of Sofia, Bulgaria's capital. From the city you can see the mountains, the Balkans, the Rila mountains. Borovets means pine (tree forest) in Bulgarian. The hotel is the Rila hotel.

Both the Rila hotel, named after the mountain it backs onto, and its neighbour, the Samokovo hotel, named after the nearby town, were built in the same era, the 1980s, according to the friendly and helpful man, Antonio, in the Rila hotel spa.

My first impression of the hotel was not brilliant. The lifts were out of sight of the reception. At the end of the corridor.

Lifts?
To get from reception to the restaurant you climb a spiral staircase. This is a ski resport. Heaven help you if you brought granny to babysit (there is a childrens playroom so they expect kids. Or a skier could have a sports injury and want to go upstairs without hobbling back and forward from the lifts to reception and the restaurant. When we checking out, I discovered they have lifts in the hall but these were being renovated. If I had seen a sign explaining that the lifts were being refurbished, I would have understood and been understanding.

Views?
 I did not like the room beside the noisy service room nor the small bacony and view over the car park, so I popped across to the room opposite and phoned down to ask reception if I could switch rooms. They said the charged another 10 leva (Bulgarian coins) a day for the better view.

We gladly paid to switch to the better view. The big balcony had two chairs - one of which we used so that both of us could sit at the desk typing on the internet.

After switching rooms, we were a lot happier. The room was too hot, and unaccountably the air con did not work because we were told the whole hotel oeprates the air con which is turned off if they deem fit. However, the balcony room door when opened cooled down the room.

Once settled in to a better room with a good view, I was in a better mood to appreciate the colourful red carpet and the knee high shower attachment beside the toilet which turns the toilet into a bidet, the same style as in Singapore and Malaysia.

Downstairs, we met up with our group. Another member of the group had also changed rooms to get away from a room next to the noisy service room.

No - Not Nuggets!
Supper the first evening was a buffet which included only rice, no potatoes, except dried up fries. The meat was dried up beef and dry chicken nuggets.

However, on night two the buffet included super saute potatoes and moist chicken in gravy.

Health Insurance, Dentists, USA and UK

Problem
The British ask: Why are Americans against 'free' health care. Isn't the NHS a good thing, and free for all at point of demand or delivery?

Answers
UK/British Health care became an issue in WWI and WWII when it was discovered that only about one person in four was fit enough to be a foot soldier. Another factor was that those who could not afford health care or did not care when they were young and healthy got ill and infected everybody else so you got epidemics. Bringing in free vaccinations and preventive measures as well as universal health care benefitted everybody. In the same way as making car insurance compulsory protects others on the road. Even those who could afford it won't pay unless compelled to do so.

Stories
In the USA I went to a dentist. I was surprised at the low cost of the health care. But the dentist only looked at the one tooth which I thought was the problem.

In the UK a dentist checks your entire mouth, including the teeth alongside, the one biting against the one which has the problem.

Tips
Check your health care before travelling. If you travel frequently, it may be cheaper to take out an annual policy. Check any exclusion clauses. This is important especially if you are likely to go skiing or snowboarding on a winter or Easter time holiday. When you travel down under to Australia the seasons are reversed. (And vice versa, if you are based in Australia and travelling up to Europe or North America.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my books on Amazon and lulu.com

Flying from cold to hot or hot to cold - weather, whether or not

Problems
Your flight goes from a hot country to a cold country and back? What do you pack and wear on the plane there and the plane home?

Answers
Pack and dress layers so your clothes suit all seasons. Take gloves and warm underwear and socks. They are small to carry, hard to find in a hurry in the wrong season, and give you a warm base. Carry or pack on top of suitcase or on the right so you know where it is when you need it instantly on arrival, or pack in hand luggage one or two pairs of heavy boots and a warm hat or scarf and umbrella. Similarly, for hot weather and staying in hotels overnight, I take a swimsuit, a bikini if my figure and local customs allow one in hand luggage or handbag. Then if you arrive at sunset you can dash to the pool without spending an hour unpacking.

Story From Finland
I once had to waited half an hour for my luggage from a coach party to be delivered by porters at around six. I gave up, grabbed a towel and raced down to the hotel sauna which would be closed by the time we finished our welcome dinner bound to go on later than eight pm. Instead of showering in my hotel room I showered in the swimming area, got to try the sauna. The group leader (It was a press trip to Finland) apologised that we were not able to sample a Finnish sauna (where you rest on a towel in the nude). I just smiled and retorted, "DOn't worry. I've seen it already." One person thought I was joking. Another one asked, "How did you do that?"

Story From Europe
I went to Warsaw in ankle deep snow and recently to Prague. I took two pairs of boots. My ankle boots gripped my ankles and were good for walking up and down hills. My loose Wellington type boots were for snow but were tiring for long walking. It's good to try to a short foray around the block, ostensibly to take a photograph, to try out your shoes, before committing yourself for footwear for a whole morning walk, a walking tour, or a day out.

Story From The USA
My family learned to ski at the weekend when we lived in Rockville, Maryland in the USA. We went to the snowy hills to ski at weekends in winter.

We drove up north for the autumn cool to see the Fall leaves falling from the trees along the wet and windy east coast.

We would drive south to Georgia or Florida for shoulders season Spring conferences. In high summer it was so hot that local business people left the city and hotels were cheap.

Europe
Across the ocean, jokingly called 'The Pond', in Europe, Paris is deserted in hot August when families go away on holiday and some of the best restaurants are closed just when tourists arrive expecting everything to be open.

Singapore and New Zealand
I like to go from Singapore to New Zealand to ski.

I often go out to Spain or Singapore for Christmas or the cold January to February or March months.

Tips
Book a hotel near transport such as a bus stop or train station. (In Singapore called MRT which you can remember as meaning mass railway transit or travel). In Singapore the central crossroads has the Marriott hotel and adjacent Tang's Shopping mall linked to an underground walkway which goes from Orchard MRT station adjoining IO shopping mall. From Orchard MRT walk underground along the air conditioned and free from sunlight and rain along Orchard Road under shopping malls via two basement levels of shops and restaurants and at one point an Aquarium with lots of small fish in fish tanks.
Similar underground links and above ground links connect hotels to shops for all weather walking in other countries. Some are in Canada and others in South Africa.

Author
Angela Lansbury. Please read my posts on other blogs on blogger.com, see my profile here or on Facebook and LinkedIn. I am a travel writer and photographer and author and public speaker and train speakers and teach English and languages. Like my pages and share.

Packing Cheap, Travelling Light and Buying New

The British used to admire the French for their chic clothes, and the Americans who always looked as if they were wearing new, uncreased clothes, despite travelling to the UK on long flights, often overnight. What are travellers' style secrets?

American Throwaway, and New Bulk-buy
When I first went to the USA I was astonished how cheaply you could buy t-shirts. In the south and Caribbean, stalls were offering cheap t-shirts or two for the price of one or special deals on three. I concluded that the reason why Americans looked as if they were wearing new clothes was that they were wearing new clothes.

Laundry
For a special occasion, a celebration lunch or dinner, you can buy an inexpensive item and keep it in its packaging. Alternatively, if you've worn it on the journey, send it to the hotel laundry. If you hotel's laundry is too expensive, you might be able to find a local laundry shop by looking in the local directory in your hotel bedside table or desk, or just use your phone or the free computer terminal in the hall of the hotel.

Cleaning and Ironing
Ask hotel staff if the hotel has a washing machine or iron for guests. Some hotels hide the iron at the back of the wardrobe, have a washing machine hidden in the basement or up on the 4th floor. Ask. Alternatively, housekeeping will send you an iron and ironing board, usually supplied only to the suites but often supplied to any guest who asks.

If your hotel provides a valet service for a suite, or a club lounge, the staff may be able to advise or organise washing or pressing of an item.

Larger hotels offer a laundry service. Hostels and budget hotels often have a laundry room.

In-flight Clothes Change
A PR girl for a travel company taught me her trick for looking good on arrival off a flight. She travels with a spare lightweight outfit to wear on board. She greets her group at the airport in a tailored business suit. Immediately after boarding she changed into loose onesie for sleeping. Arriving overseas in the morning, she changed back into the business suit.

If you are a frequent flyer the airline personnel often offer to hang up your coat. This keeps it pristine and crease free. Less chance of dropping your tray dinner all over it.

If the flight is less than full, you have more chance that the crew will offer to do you favours even if you are travelling in Economy. Especially if you tell them that you are travelling to a wedding or a new job or you have a reason for wanting to look smartly dressed.

If you are buying souvenirs for family, consider buying two (or more) t-shirts, one as a gift for somebody, the other to wear on holiday, or two as gifts, or two to wear on holiday, and negotiate a price for buying more than one. The same obviously applies to other clothing, sandals. If you have a partner who has nothing to do while you are at a business meeting, sports event or conference, and they like shopping, you can occupy them by asking them to organise laundry or better still sending them to buy clothes.

Colour Co-ordination
Either co-ordinate colours with yourself, or what is available.You can pay to have a company choose your colours - known in some systems as spring, summer, autumn and winter colours. But holding colours against your skin or hair or eyes or lipstick or shoes or coat will often show you which basic colours or accessory colours suit you.
 In China red is a favourite colour. You could match your company colours, or go for your football team's colours.

Fitted Clothes
A neater look is created by wearing fitted clothes. A loose garment can be tightened by wearing a belt. You could use a long scarf as a belt. Or turn the garment inside out, create a seam up both of the sides with a couple safety pins. If you have time loosely sew the seam with the hotel sewing kit. If you don't have a sewing kit in your room, ask for one. Or if none is available, a member of the hotel staff, or another guest might be able to lend you a needle and cotton.
Make sure the garment is still loose enough to pull over your head.

French girls, on casual occasions, as tourists, or on the beach, sometimes tie the lower corners of a causal shirt into a bow, making it fit across the bust.

Matching Colours
In the UK, the 99p shop and Pound World sell slippers in colours. You can co-ordinate bedroom slippers with your night clothes or casual wear. Either one pair. Or even matching slippers for two or more pairs of pyjamas or night dresses or wraps.

Wraps For Beach and Bedroom
A long scarf doubles as a beach sarong. A light wrap around dressing gown does for both beach and hotel wear.

One one occasion I forgot to pack pyjamas, so I wore the hotel dressing gown in bed. It was warm and the bedroom was air conditioned.

I found the belt was uncomfortable. But I was glad to be dressed when I had to rush to the door on hearing knocking. I found a man delivering the early breakfast I'd ordered before my dawn flight home.

Crease-free
The three ways of having crease free clothing are:
1 Buy new at home
2 Buy new at destination
3 Send to laundry
4 DIY ironing
5 Wash garment and hang it to and drip dry in shower room steam
6 Invest in outfits of synthetic non-crease fabrics. Poly-Cotton is a compromise, cool enough, yet relatively little creasing.
7 Hang everything immediately.
8 Pack clothes on thin hangers, the sort you get from dry cleaning shops. If you don't have enough, you can buy them, or pick up spares from other people, or even shops.

Travelling Light
You can buy jackets with multiple pockets designed for photographers, sports, and people on airlines with luggage restrictions.
Alternatively add pockets to the inside of your own shirts, a jacket, even a T-shirt. Pockets can be expensive to buy. You can make pockets from old garments.

Pockets
A shirt with a frayed collar and cuffs still provides a ready-made breast pocket you can cut off, cuffs which can be seemed and reversed. A too-small child's uniform had pockets in the jacket for mother's jacket. Old trousers (USA readers - trousers are pants) and jeans also have pairs of pocket.

I invested in dressed which can be worn three or more ways. I find long skirts which pull up to make a dress with a halter neck strap work well. However, many of the wear six ways dresses require a slim figure which looks good in very tight or very folded clothing. the fabrics are often thin, flimsy and cheap and easily crease, dull or day-glow colours.

Reversible jackets
You can buy reversible clothes for men, women and children. I have a permanent search on eBay for reversible everything, reversible skirts, reversible dresses, reversible jackets, reversible scarves, reversible belts, reversible pendants, reversible bracelets, reversible stone rings.

A jacket which reversed to black seemed dull and boring on the black side. I don't wear black at night. I want to be seen when crossing the road. So I wore only the coloured side - until I arrived at a funeral. Everybody was in black, about five hundred people, an entire church full of black, only little me in bright patchwork! I 'accidentally' dropped my hymn book, removed my jacket, sat up again and replaced it, now wearing black. I found myself muttering a short prayer, 'Thank you, God, for my reversible jacket.'

Happy Travelling!

Companies offering reversibles
UK JD Williams and catalogues in the same group of companies
Asia - many Chinese jackets are reversible, lined with silk. Even if they are not sold as reversible, you can reverse them. You may wish to remove the conspicuous white inside neck label, cover it with a piece of coloured ribbon, or wear a neck scarf which hides the label.

Reversible Jackets For Men
marksandspencer.com
landsend.co.uk
jdwilliams.co.uk - I saw a festival jacket in the 2015 summer sale at £34.
Cheaper items in the USA from aliexpress.com

Pockets in jackets
Ski wear usually has lots of pockets.
ayegear.com - not cheap. £139.99. Loads of pockets.

Price Comparison
On eBay you can search and sort prices low to high, including postage.
On eBay you can put items into your cart and then compare prices before buying. On eBay if your watch list is full you can do a Collection for comparison, and fill in the price on the notes.
Several comparison sites bring up everything available in a search. These appear at the bottom of your screen when you are on eBay.
Idealprice.co.uk

Quality Checks
To get an overview of quality, you may have to search around. For example, you find something cheaper on Ebay than on Amazon, but you might find more customer feedback on Amazon or on the brand's website, or even a site which is out of stock in your size is still handy for customer reviews.

What could go wrong? A reversible dress may show the reverse below the on top colour. To me this is usual. You could put a string size ribbon or belt on the lining to hold it up.

The fabric could be too light or too heavy. Chiffon can be scratchy. Silk can range from tough to so lightweight that the seams tear. Decide if you want softly draping or robust. A plain colour might show stains. But you could cover them with muttons or patches, of flowers made from a piece of the hem.

A light-weight bag could be too light to carry heavy objects or tear easily at the seams or when sharp objects or corners project from heeled shoes or goods you place inside. Light four wheel luggage might not wheel easily over cobblestones, rough tarmac, bobbled paving at crossing supposed to help the blind but annoy anybody using wheels.

If you know this already and don't care, then the overall satisfaction rate might convince you that as you are not so fussy the item is a good buy, or good for the price, or good enough for one trip.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, author, speaker.
See my other blog posts, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook. Please like my posts and follow me.