Europe a la Carte Blog

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If you’d like to read some interesting blog posts about cities all over the world, including my post about my revaluation of my birthplace of Dundee then take a look at the Special Holiday Edition of the Carnival of Cities.

I’ll be hosting the next Carnival of Cities on the theme of “off the beaten track” cities on 7 January 2008 so please submit any posts here.

Let’s get the New Year off to a great start with the first Travel Blog Carnival. The organiser, Darren of Travel Rants, wants to showcase posts about travel that are inspiring, interesting and informational. Bearing this in mind I was also influenced by my desire to highlight the benefits of getting off the beaten track to get a more authentic experience during your travels and taking time to properly see fewer things, as opposed to a quick whizz around loads of places.

Ely, MN - Pristine Wilderness on the YourDailyVacation blog is about the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness with its 1500 miles of canoe routes. My husband would love to paddle along there. Logging and mining and most vehicular traffic is banned as the area is home to moose and bear. The author Nate wants to give a daily dose of a travel destination to assuage the desire to travel curtailed by time and money constraints.

Dusseldorf: Museum Kunst Palast on High Culture on a Low Budget describes the Kunst and its current exhibition of the best from Russian Museums in St Petersburg and Moscow. I don’t think most people appreciate how much there is to see and do in Germany and probably never even consider a trip there. In her blog the author Olivia Giovetti gives tips on how to save on the standard admission fee of 10 euros, in keeping with her aim of highlighting that you can have your fill of culture without spending a fortune.

4 Ways to be a Traveller not a Tourist on the Vagabondish blog advises on how to ditch your worst tourist traits and don the mantle of the more acceptable traveller.  My solution is to become a touraveller.  I wholeheartedly agree with tip 2: not being in a continual rush and taking time to soak up the local atmosphere. This approach is described by travel writer Jan Morris: “The best way to find out about a place is wander around. Wander around, alone, with all your antennae out thinking about what’s happening and what you see and what you feel.” Vagabondish is a multi author blog with features about offbeat backpacking, and news, advice, tips and tales about travel.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my selection of posts and are in training to become cultured, off the beaten track, value seeking, unhurried travellers seeking an authentic experience during your subsequent trips.

If you’d like to take part in the Travel Blog Carnival you can submit any travel related posts which you’ve written in the last 7 days to travelblog.carnival(at)gmail.com.

I’ve gone into blog carnival overdrive and will be hosting the Carnival of Cities on Monday 7 January 2008. My theme is “off the beaten track” cities, less well known cities that still have a lot to offer but are overlooked in favour of the tourist magnets. So if you’d like to let us know about some hidden gem please submit your posts here.

However you if there’s some other aspect of a city that you’d like to write about, please feel free to make a submission.

Travelodge launch their lowest ever room rate of £9 per night today. You do have to book at least 6 months in advance, by 31 January 2008, on the non refundable rate but I still think it’s a great deal considering their rooms can sleep up to 2 adults and 2 kids.

Not all Travelodges are at motorway service stations in the middle of nowhere several are in, or close to, city centres such as Edinburgh Central and Edinburgh Haymarket.

So as a cheap base for a short break or a low cost touring holiday in UK during the Summer, you should check out the Travelodge site. The site can be very busy and you may not be able to access on your first attempt but it’s worth a little perseverance to bag a room for £9 a night.

Have Airtours been looking at the Europe a la Carte website and decided to follow my line of offering their customers the opportunity to “get a more authentic travel experience during their visit to Europe”?  Airtours are now offering “Local Flavours” holidays so you can have an authentic package holiday. There is emphasis on strong local character, with many of the featured hotels being family run. You’ll be able to taste local cuisine and shop alongside the locals at the market.

I read about Meeting the French  and thought that arranging contact between local residents and visitors sounded such a good way to make a visit to Paris more authentic that I wanted to find out more. So here’s the background to Meeting the French in founder Laurence Monclard’s own words.

1 What is the aim of your business?

We want to open the doors of a more personal experience of France. Most of us are frequent or regular travellers in various countries of the world, and we feel that it becomes harder and harder to be surprised, touched or amazed by solely the places we visit. The major monuments in the world are architectural or historical must-see masterpieces, but are usually very impersonal and overcrowded. We sometimes feel better in small places where you get a personal contact with a host.  We are tracking the typical elements of the French culture that are not enhanced yet by travel agents, and we add a host, as a dinner at home with French people, or the visit of a bakery.

2 What prompted you to start your own business?

I got up one day with the idea of organizing dinners between international tourists in Paris and French residents. I suddenly realized that both would like to meet, make friends, and spend a good time together. Everybody likes to have friends abroad, don’t we ? Friends to give you a quick access to some parts of the culture that are not easily accessible in books, and to welcome you when you are alone in a foreign country.

3 What has been the hardest aspect of having your own business?

The hardest part is not starting but developing it : get known, and balance your offers with the demand.

4 What is the funniest thing that has happened to you running your own
business?

There are often anecdotes related to the life or wishes of our customers orpartners. A customer asked for a gourmet tour - one of our best off - but a very special one, focused on dog food. She was a dog Chef. Another anecdoteregards the visit we hold every week in a bakery. Our dear baker partner usually keeps some dough, already risen and shaped in baguettes, to be decorated and baked during the visit. That day, he was very excited as, for the first time, we were waiting for a major French TV to come and shoot a
report about our visits. He was very happy and proud to show how he initiates many visitors to bakery. Then he suddenly realized with horror that everything was baked. He had totally forgotten to leave some dough. Then, believe me, he totally adapted the bread recipe - especially the proportion of yeast - in order to get some baguettes ready for baking in 1 hour instead of the regular 4 hours. They were fine for the images though,
and you could not guess from the screen that the taste was… a bit strange.

5 Is there anything you would do differently with the benefit of
hindsight?

I would just be quicker in finding the best partners that I am happy to work
with now!

My comments - I couldn’t stop laughing at the thought of a dog food chef coming to Paris on a top of the range gourmet tour. It certainly outdid a film I watched yesterday when the home delivery pizza was for the dog. You are so right, Laurence, about how crucial it is to find the right partners with which to work. I’ve had some problems with suppliers who haven’t answered queries quickly resulting in clients going elsewhere.

Kango have launched a travel blog search widget to make it easier to find and search  travel blogs. If there are any travel blogs that you’d like to see added to the search engine you can make suggestions.

Travel Search

The Kango site aims to become the ultimate travel information search engine, which works in a simple and intuitive manner. You can search for trip recommendations based on you specific theme criteria, e.g. romantic, family, pet friendly. The results will then come up with recommendations, based on your priorities, gleaned for a multitude of sources, avoiding the need for you to search through several different sites. However you won’t be able to compare price or book directly through Kango.

At present the site is in beta and only covers Hawaii and California.

Direct Line Cruises offer discounted rates on cruises with major cruise lines such as Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line and Carnival Cruises.

Direct Line Cruises has grown to be a leading cruise line specialist agency from humble beginnings in 1995. The company was started in 1995 as a part time home business by an American lady who had fallen in love with cruising after her first voyage. Now the company handles bookings for over 25,000 US residents per annum from its headquarters in New York.

I decided the review the site by searching for a European cruise in the Spring. There are departures from several European ports such as Harwich and Dover in the UK, Barcelona in Spain and Citavecchia (Rome) in Italy. If you book before 31 December 2007 you can choose between free bonuses such as paying no initial deposit or a free wine selection. Travel insurance is included at no additional cost if your trip lasts for more than four nights.

I carried on through the enquiry process with a 12 night Mediterranean cruise for two travellers, which was available for only $1099 (US dollars) per person, in the cheapest inside cabin. There are many options available if you wish to have more luxurious accommodation in a suite or stateroom. I liked the fact that you could choose a specific cabin at this stage and see a photo of that grade of cabin. However I did get a nasty surprise when another $280 was added to the total price for taxes and fees. I’d prefer the total price to be displayed from the start. Once I’d completed the passenger details I had 11 minutes in which to make the booking.

The whole enquiry process went very smoothly and there is an extensive FAQ section which assists you along the way e.g advice on which type of cabin you should choose, on-board entertainment and dining and kids facilities.

I had a look around the rest of the site. I was pretty disappointed by the blog as the most recent post was from last month, it seemed like a lost opportunity to me, as I thought there should be plenty to write about on the topic of cruising. I had a look at a video to get some insight into cruising, as I’ve never been on a cruise. I didn’t like the Royal Caribbean online video I watched at all. It was like a whistle stop tour of Europe with just a few seconds of footage at each destination. You hardly had time to focus before you were onto the next destination.

I have to say that I didn’t like the design or layout of the home page. I thought it was cluttered with everything trying to catch your attention, there was animation, large coloured lettered, yet empty blue space on both margins. There was no obvious path for your eye to follow through the page.

I clicked on Contact us, as I wanted to ask if they accepted bookings from UK residents as I thought you might be able to get a good deal booking a European cruise through an American intermediary with the pound high against the dollar. However the only method of contact was through an American telephone number, there was no way to contact them by email. I would expect a company to offer this method of contact.

However the main purpose of the site is to find and book discounted cruises and I was impressed by the low price of $1250 per person, including taxes, for a 12 night European cruise and the quick, smooth booking procedure.

When I was doing research for my post about the Best UK Budget Hotel Chain, I found some great weekend offers with Ibis hotels. Prices like 120 euros on the 3 nights weekend deal in Lyon at a fairly central hotel and 95 euros in Viseu in Portugal.

Visue - Portugal by Portugese_eyes

Amazingly this is a flexible rate where you can cancel up to 19.00 on the day of arrival. This a a room only rate and there is a charge of between 5 - 9 euros per person for breakfast.

The UK budget hotel sector is forecast to grow from its current market share of 12% to 26% over the next 2o years. At present the largest 4 players are Premier Inn, Travelodge, Holiday Inn Express and Ibis hotels. I decided to look at each of these budget hotel chains to judge which is the best. Sometimes you don’t have lot of choice if you are staying in less populated location there may only be one brand located there.

I’ve never stayed at a Premier Inn because I’ve never found a cheap room with them. I checked on their website and the cheapest room was £49 a night for room only. If you’re travelling for leisure they have various “2 for !” offers at local attractions such as National Trust properties, city bus tour etc, you just print off a voucher once you’ve booked your hotel. If you’re travelling with kids, up to 2 kids, up to the age of 15, can eat breakfast free when one adult buys the full breakfast for around £8.

Travelodge have good availability of cheap rooms, sleeping up to 2 adults and 2 kids, starting from £19 a night for room only, if you book at least 3 weeks in advance. The majority of rooms in which I’ve stayed had been good or acceptable with the occasional dodgy room, usually at older Travelodges, in need of refurbishment.

Holiday Inn Express also have some good offers with family rooms starting at £39 per night including continental breakfast. I’ve stayed at several Holiday Inn Expresses over the years and always been happy with the quality of the rooms and breakfast.

I’ve never stayed at an Ibis hotel, although I’ve seen them appear on price comparison sites but never at really low prices in the UK. However when I looked at their site they had some fantastic 3 night weekend offers in other countries such as 102 Euros for 3 nights including breakfast in Oporto, Portugal. Unfortunately I didn’t find nearly such cheap prices in the UK and I tried several searches for the 3 night weekend offers in the UK and none of the hotels I tried in Scotland had any availability. I found there website pretty poor e.g. when I did a search for a specific date the first result didn’t display availability or price, I had to click again to ascertain this.

Travelodge tops my list due to the number of rooms available on its £19 and £29 Saver Rate plus they have hotels all over the UK. Holiday Inn Express is a good choice if you can find a room on the advance booking, non refundable £39 per night especially for accommodation and breakfast for a family of four. Premier Inn is also worth looking for families if you can take advantage of their 2 for 1 and free kids breakfast offers.

What’s your opinion, do you have a favourite budget hotel chain the UK?