Europe a la Carte Blog

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I was certainly aware of rising prices in the last week,  Diesel had gone up another one pence a litre to £1.07 when I filled my car, I read that British Gas were increasing their prices by 15% and in the supermarket a 4 pint container of milk costing around £1 a few months ago now costs around £1.45.

The World Travel and Tourism Council is predicting that globally travel will continue to increase but probably at lower rate than in recent years. They do acknowledge that high energy prices reduce households disposable income and increase fuel costs for carriers.

I’m not sure, it could go either way in the UK.  People could think that they going to have their holidays come hell or high water, even if it means putting on the credit card and/or reducing spending in other leisure activities.  Or all the inflationary pressures plus the anticipated fall in the value of UK property could all prove too much and travel could have to be curtailed.

There are different ways to cut travel expenditure.  If you take several holidays a year, you can reduce the number of trips.  You could go for a shorter holiday or downscale your accommodation grade to cut costs. You could take more holidays in the UK or stick to Europe to trim transportation costs.

What do you think?  Are you reviewing your travel plans as part of a household budget review?

I read about one of the wackiest stabs at authentic travel experiences today, a cruise ship with a real grass lawn. Celebrity Cruises decided that having a grassy area would add to cruise passengers enjoyment and that artificial grass would not sit well with the company’s mantra of providing “authentic experiences”, so it had to be the real thing. The lawn weighs 50 metric tons and there’s an additional 50 metrics tons of fresh water to maintain the grass. Certainly not the greenest of moves.

QM2 - on the grass by planetina

Would this feature attract you? I’ve never been on a cruise but it isn’t lack of grass that has deterred me.

I now a expert on the Worldreviewer website. I read that Worldreviewer was tipped to one of the travel websites to watch in 2008 and were looking for travel experts with detailed knowledge in specific areas so I thought I’d have a closer look at the site. It’s aimed at the “lifestyle” or “experience” traveller and I thought that I could offer some expert insight into getting off the beaten track in Europe.

The site aims to be “the ultimate travel planning tool”, assisting you in making the best holiday choice and giving you the opportunity to help others find their ideal holiday based on collective knowledge. You can search by type of experience for which you are looking and/or location. You can rate and comment on the experiences and attractions, upload images and add your own reviews.

If you want to become an expert you need to demonstrate your specialist knowledge by submitting 5 - 10 experiences to the editor.

This post was featured on the Travel Blogs Carnival of 27 January 2007.

Evidently UK residents are willing to spend more time researching their holiday than their mortgage. While 36% of Brits spend more than 10 hours researching a leisure trip, only 22% would be wiling to spend this amount of time on finding the best mortgage deal.

Is this a rational use of time? I don’t think so. Finding a good mortgage deal could save you thousands of pounds a year. You may have to change mortgage every two to three years to ensure you find the most competitive product but think of all the extra holidays you could afford with the savings in interest repayments. I do appreciate that it’s probably more fun to do travel than financial research but doing thorough financial research and yes that does mean reading through the small print. is a good investment of your time.

John o’Groats, erroneously known as the most northerly point of the UK,  may be about to receive a much needed makeover.

I’ve only been to John o’Groats once, almost 30 years ago and I have to agree with Lonely Planet’s assessment that it’s “worst and most embarrassing tourist attraction in Scotland”, really just a car park, some tourist tat shops and a run down hotel. At present the average visitor only spends 10 minutes there. Let’s hope that there is investment to turn it into something worth visiting.

John o’Groats Last House by auz

If you fancy eating while suspended 5o metres above ground and have deep pockets, with rental excluding catering starting at 7900 euros, then the Belgian firm Dinner in the Sky can provide you with a unit suspended mid air by an industrial crane which seats 22 diners around a table and 3 service staff in the centre.

Dinner in the Sky in Amiens

Now I’m going to be the boring one and ask about issues such as motion sickness if it’s windy, what if it starts to rain and toilet facilities.

Budget carrier Ryanair has introduced 50 new routes for 2008. From my perspective there’s nothing of great interest at my 2 nearest airports, Newcastle and Edinburgh. No new flights from Newcastle. There are 5 new Ryanair destinations from Edinburgh but only 2 that aren’t already served by other carriers, Bremen in Germany and Marseilles in France. Pisa, Frankfurt and Alicante are the other new destinations.

Bremen, which lies south west of Hamburg does look like a possible short break destination and could be used to access Hamburg, which I’ve been told is a very beautiful city.

Bremen Marktplatz by hiro008

Bezier in south west France is a new destination from Bristol. I visited Bezier briefly a few years ago and it’s a really pretty town.

Pau is another beautiful destination in south west France now available from Bristol. I also visited it, all too briefly, whcn in that region. I hadn’t heard of Pau but was glad we visited as it is a grand old city. It was as I imagined Biarritz must be, but without the sea. There was a castle/museum and a funicular down to the lower town. I discovered that Pau was a fashionable resort in the 1870s, after a Scottish doctor, Taylor, wrote a book claiming that the fresh mountain air could improve health. However in the 1890s, Biarritz became the ‘in’ place.

Rue du Moulin, Pau by andyhowell

If l lived near Bristol I’d definetly fly to Bezier and Pau to spend more time exploring these towns.

London has been voted the best holiday destination in the world in by travel agents. There are several cities in Europe that I would rate more highly than London such as Rome and Madrid. I have to say that London was looking better than for many years when I visited last month.

The London Eye

Visit London, the London tourist promotion authority has signed a deal with TripAdvisor to include TripAdvisor user generated reviews on London accommodation and attractions from next month. Sounds like a win - win situation for both parties. Visit London gets more “authentic” content and Trip Advisor can make more money from clients who wish to advertise their products and services in London.

If you’re planning to visit London you can find the best hotel deals with the HotelsCombined price comparison site.

I read today that incidents of air rage are soaring on British flights with an annual increase from 1359 incidents to 2219. The increase may partly attributable to more stringent reporting of incidents but it’s still a cause for concern as the majority of incidents are deemed as significant. The main offenders are males in their 30s. Over consumption of alcohol, the effects of nicotine deprivation and arguments over seat allocation often triggers problems.

Air Rage Peer by Herschel Hershey

I would also blame that whole hassle factor of flying, having to get to the airport, the hanging around, long queues through security. That’s before you have to sit in a cramped seat for hours. I could feel myself becoming very tense during my recent four hour flight to and from Fuerteventura. I felt I could hardly move and that was with my husband sitting on one side, I would have been much worse sandwiched between two strangers.

I don’t know whether more people are ready to explode because our lifestyles are more stressful or it’s just become more common to let rip to vent your frustration. When I was travelling by train to London to attend the World Travel Market last month there were cancellations which meant that seat reservation were suspended. There were almost a couple of punch ups in my carriage as passengers boarded to find there prebooked seats occupied. I’ve also been the victim of road rage, when a guy tried to run me off the road when we both tried to get into a roundabout exit at the same time.

Unfortunately there seems to have been little improvement in the standard of customer service offered by online travel companies since I wrote on this topic in February 2007. According to the latest research carried out by Transversal, 60% of email queries go unanswered and when a response is given it takes an average of 58 hours to be delivered.

I suppose I should consider myself  lucky to have received an email reply from Onthebeach within 24 hours, when I didn’t know if my online booking for accommodation for our DIY holiday in Fuerteventura had been processed.

What’s been your experience?