Europe a la Carte Blog

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In the incredibly flat plains of the Normandy coastline, Mont St Michel is stunning. This island of rock, topped by a monastery and ringed with a medieval village rises far above the landscape, visible for miles. It stands off the shore, surrounded by floodplains with nothing nearby to distract from its beauty.

Mont St Michel

The island has a history going back to the 6^th century, but the first incarnation of it as a place of worship happened in the 8^thcentury, when St Aubert received instructions (and a hole in his skull apparently) from the archangel Michael to build a church upon it. It appears in the Bayeux Tapestry, was repeatedly attacked, rebuilt, turned into a prison and received a constant stream of pilgrims over the centuries. The causeway joining the island to the mainland is a now permanent road, which has adversely affected the flooding of the area. The island is rarely fully surrounded by water these days, due to the silt build up from the causeway, but there are plans to replace this with a bridge which will bring back the island’s original isolation.

The Abbey at the top of the island can be visited for 8.50€. This includes a guided tour – highly recommended in a place with such a long history. The Abbey, balanced on the pinnacle of rock at the top of the island is built upon a series of crypts as foundations. These haven’t always been successful, and parts of it have collapsed in the past. The tour will take you through the church itself, the monk’s refectory, the crypts underneath and the hamster-wheel construction which was used to bring supplies to the top of the island.

A guard tower, as seen from the Abbey courtyard.

Below the Abbey is the town. Tiny roads, tinier buildings and now full of tourist shops and plate glass. As with most things in such a tourist destination it is an expensive place, full of tacky souvenirs and horrifically crowded in the summer months. There are several hotels in the town if you would like to stay overnight, although ones back on the mainland are significantly cheaper, as are the restaurants which accompany them at the beginning of the causeway.

You can get to Mont St Michel by rail and bus, but the easiest is by car. There is a giant car park at the end of the causeway – it costs 4€ and signposts will inform you whether your car is likely to be swept away. Mont St Michel is a perfect day trip, requiring only a few hours to see it all, although you may want to take a bit more time to enjoy the view.

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.

I don’t know much about Flybe.com so I decided to have a look at their site. I concentrated on the flights that were of most interest to me i.e flights from Edinburgh or Newcastle as I live between these 2 cities. The majority of their flights are to UK destinations, which are not of interest to me for leisure trips, as I’d prefer to either take my car for more flexibility and mobility at my destination or take the train to avoid the hassle of getting to and from the airport and all the hanging around.

Flybe do have flights to some unusual destinations in France, quite in keeping with the focus of my travel business of “getting off the beaten track” in Europe. You can fly from Edinburgh to Bergerac. There are flights from Newcastle to Limoges and Rennes.

Bergerac by el31

I ‘m not so sure about Flybe’s claim to be a low cost airline. I tried several searches, outwith peak season during May and September and the cheapest return flight I could find was around £90 and many were over £150.

There are flights once a week, on Saturday, to Limoges and Rennes. I would have liked to see more frequent flights to make these destinations feasible as short break options. Bergerac fares slightly better with twice weekly flights on Saturdays and Wednesdays.

As I’m flexible about dates I’d like to see a cheapest flights finder, as it takes far too long to enter every possible date of travel into a search.

Flybe offer a loyalty scheme but with 2 points earned for an economy return flight, you’d need to take 8 return flights to be eligible for one “free” return economy flight. However it’s only the basic flight that’s free you still have to pay all taxes and charges.

Have you flown with Flybe, how would you rate their website and flights?

Disneyland Paris is the 4th most visited theme park in the world with over 10 million visitors a year. Not bad for a a theme park that got off to a pretty shaky start on the verge of bankruptcy in 1994 before a change a name from Euro Disney to Disneyland Paris and a debt restructure heralded better times.

Since l reviewed the Real Travel blog I’ve been reading their blog posts about Europe. The entry entitled, “Top 10 off the beaten track destinations in Spain” was right up my street, as the aim of my travel business, Europe a la Carte. is to help you see more of the real Europe by venturing, even slightly, off the beaten track. Could this be the start of a turf war between Real Travel and Europe a la Carte? Of course in some ways I’d rather keep the niche to myself but you’ve got to be realistic and I think it just highlights the desire of many travellers to do and see more than just whizz around the tourist traps.

Another recent entry in Real Travel blog in a similar vein was about the Chateau de Loches in France. Loches sounds like a charming walled town in the valley of the River Indre, a tributary of the Loire.

What I like about reading the Real Travel blog is that it makes me have itchy feet and want to visit the places written about in their blog. However this poses the dilemma that if too many people get off the beaten track then these “authentic” locations will soon become part of the well worn tourist trail.

I’ve started a swicki, an intelligent search engine, for cultural and activity holidays in Europe. If you’re thinking of a themed holiday in Europe, whether it be walking, cycling, painting, horseriding, language, water sports, tennis or cooking, try searching in the swicki. If you find any great companies you add them to the swicki and vote for your favourite site. Help build a great resource.

check out the European Cultural & Activity Tours swicki at eurekster.com

[tags]Swicki, Europe themed vacations[/tags]

Edinburgh will host an international wine festival next month. There is a long association between the Scottish capital and French wines with claret being imported to Leith 800 years ago.  Napoleon blockaded the English fleet but permitted the flow of wine to continue from Bordeaux to Scotland.

Photo by IJsendoorn 

Do you think that it’s a good idea for Edinburgh to initiate another festival or is Edinburgh suffering from festival fatigue?

I discovered this site recently, Free Attractions in Europe. I had a quick look at the site and here are a couple of examples. In Germany New Berliner Tours offer free walking and cycling tours of the city.  If you have some experience roller skating you can join the Friday evening three hour tour Pari Roller Tour.  There is also a Sunday afternoon session for beginners.

Don’t forget that entry to state run museums in the UK is free of charge.  When I was young museums in the UK were free to visit.  However political pressure in the 1980s lead to the introduction of entry fees at many museums. I’m glad to say that in 2001 free entry was re-instated. I think this is a great policy as it encourages people to visit museums initially and then to make repeat visits.  Do admission charges to museums put you off visiting or do you think that visitors should pay for entry rather than the taxpayer subsidising the museums?

imagine how quickly you could reach your destination by rail if you travelled on this TGV? Two supercharged locomotives pull three double decker carriages with extra large wheels along a line constructed for the sole use of high speed trains.

What a difference between here in the UK and in France! Although the trains on the West Coast Mainline, from London to Glasgow are capable of 160mph, they are limited by track and signaling inadequacies to 125 mph, no faster than trains in the 1970s.

Surely there is a strong case for more Government investment in the UK rail system? Fast reliable intercity trains could greatly reduce the number of domestic flights which would be good for the environment. I read on the Eurostar website that flying can generate up to ten times the amount of C02 emissions than travelling by rail.

According a to a survey by Travelcare, Prague is the cheapest destination for a short break in Europe. The cost of £204 was based on costs such as a stay at a four star hotel, a three course meal, museum entry fee etc. London came third at a cost of £267 with Paris the most expensive at £577. I was surprised by the fact that Dublin at £385 was slightly more expensive than Copenhagen at £380. Yet Scandinavia still has a reputation as a pricey destination.

I think that if you shop around a bit, stay perhaps slightly outside the city centre or trendy areas and don’t travel in peak season you can get a good deal in most European cities. This survey doesn’t appear to include transport costs to your destination so that could have quite an impact on the overall cost of your trip.

I decided to have a quick look at the price of hotel rooms for a weekend in April Friday 13 - Sunday 15 April. I found a superior room in 4 star hotel in Prague with Laterooms for £47 a night. The cheapest four star I came across in Paris, the Champs Elysees Friedland cost £101 a night for a standard room. It is quite a difference in price. However I don’t think I would always choose one destination over another solely by price. I haven’t been to Prague but I’ve been told it is a beautiful city. I’ve visited Paris once, thought it was a wonderful city and would like to return.