The Kimpton DeWitt, Amsterdam

AIM: Our Trip to Amsterdam, Iceland and Munich
Iberia Business Class Between Chicago and Munich
The Kimpton DeWitt, Amsterdam
AIM: Our Time in Amsterdam
The Sheraton Amsterdam Airport Hotel and Conference Center
The Radisson Blu 1919, Reykjavik
The Center Hotel Plaza, Reykjavik
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part I
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part II
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part III
The aloft Munich
AIM: Our Time at Dachau
AIM: Our Time in Munich
The Hilton Munich Airport

Shortly before we started looking for a hotel in Amsterdam, IHG (the parent company of Holiday Inn and Intercontinental, among others) acquired Kimpton Hotels.  That worked out very well for us as the Kimpton DeWitt is in a perfect location for touristy things.  It's practically across the street, er, canal in this case, from Centraal Station and the meeting points for the hop-on/hop-off buses and various canal tours.  Behind the hotel was a long pedestrian street with loads of restaurants and shops. Despite being so close to so many things, noise was never an issue either inside or outside the hotel.

Map made with Google Maps

Iberia Business Class Between Chicago and Munich

AIM: Our Trip to Amsterdam, Iceland and Munich
Iberia Business Class Between Chicago and Munich
The Kimpton DeWitt, Amsterdam
AIM: Our Time in Amsterdam
The Sheraton Amsterdam Airport Hotel and Conference Center
The Radisson Blu 1919, Reykjavik
The Center Hotel Plaza, Reykjavik
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part I
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part II
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part III
The aloft Munich
AIM: Our Time at Dachau
AIM: Our Time in Munich
The Hilton Munich Airport

My friend C lives in the Chicago area so it makes sense to use that as our gateway city.  I bought an American Airlines ticket between Memphis and Chicago and flew up the evening before our overseas flight, just to make sure there was no rush.  As we were driving from her house to the airport I realized I'd left the charging cords for both my tablet and my phone at her house. Oh well, we'd stop and pick up one on the way.  Then I realized I'd left my tablet at her house too! At least I had my phone so we did stop to get a cord but it was not my favorite way to begin a vacation!

Outbound: Chicago to Madrid

Iberia Airlines is a oneworld partner of American so our business class tickets gained us access to the American Airlines lounge.  It's quite nice for a domestic lounge and the food actually looked pretty good.  With a 4:35 PM flight we ate dinner before heading to the airport and knew we'd be served dinner on-board so we just had a few munchies.  The lounge was fairly crowded so I didn't take photos but it was a good place to relax and enjoy free wi-fi.

Iberia 6274
ORD to MAD
Aircraft: Airbus A340-600
Scheduled: 16:35 – 07:35+1
Actual: 16:47 – 06:55+1
Airbus A340-600
Seat: 1G, aisle (Business Class)

We boarded the plane via door 2L so I crossed through the galley and walked down to the front row.  We had seats 1E and 1G so we both had aisle access yet could talk with each other.  Since it was an overnight flight and there was nothing to see out the window this worked well for us.  If you fly on this aircraft be aware that in the center section, the pairs of seats alternate with two closer together with storage on the outside of the seats followed by two seats where the storage area is between the seats and it's more difficult to speak with each other.  This second set of seats would be more useful if you're traveling solo and none of the single window seats is available.

A pillow and a blanket were waiting for us at our seats along with the inflight magazine and the safety cards.  I guess they're hoping people will actually review the safety cards if they have to move them out of the way?

AIM: Our Trip to Amsterdam, Iceland and Munich

AIM: Our Trip to Amsterdam, Iceland and Munich
Iberia Business Class Between Chicago and Munich
The Kimpton DeWitt, Amsterdam
AIM: Our Time in Amsterdam
The Sheraton Amsterdam Airport Hotel and Conference Center
The Radisson Blu 1919, Reykjavik
The Center Hotel Plaza, Reykjavik
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part I
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part II
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part III
The aloft Munich
AIM: Our Time at Dachau
AIM: Our Time in Munich
The Hilton Munich Airport

This vacation was a study in contrasts.  We had guided tours, days with a friend to guide us and days on our own.  We had days of bus travel, days of train travel and days spent walking.  We had warm, sunny days and cold, rainy days. We had days spent with larger groups and days with just a couple of us.  All in all it made for a nice variety on my annual fall vacation.

The central portion of the trip was a guided tour of Iceland that other friends were taking.  When my friend C and I started looking at that trip we realized it was only a week (Sunday-Saturday) and we typically like to take a 2-week trip each fall.  Plus, we've gotten extremely spoiled by flying business class over the oceans and we like our lie-flat seats.  Since it's such a short trip from the US to Iceland, most airlines don't have lie-flat seats.

So we decided to spend time both pre- and post-trip in Europe and just buy flights to and from Reykjavik.  We each had a stash of American Airlines miles to use so we looked for cities with award availability in Europe that also had non-stop flights on Icelandair.  In the end we flew on Iberia (a oneworld partner of American) to Madrid and connected to Amsterdam.  After spending three nights there we flew Icelandair to Reykjavik on Sunday afternoon so that we would be there waiting for the group when they arrived on Monday.  We left early the following Saturday morning and flew Icelandair to Munich where we spent another three nights before flying back to Chicago via Madrid on Iberia and I continued on to Memphis on American.

Our flights ended up looking like this:

Flights in blue were on American/Iberia while flights in yellow were on Icelandair