Europe A La Carte Blog

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I always use the Airport Parking Shop price comparison site to find the cheapest UK airport parking charges. We’re flying from Edinburgh to Pisa at the end of May. Although we could take the train from Berwick upon Tweed to Edinburgh on the outward trip we arrive back at Edinburgh at 20:30 too late to be sure of catching the last train to Berwick.

by ladybugbkt

The Airport Parking Shop cheapest rate was £25 for 8 days airport parking very close to Edinburgh airport which I thought was a reasonable price.

There’s an increase of visitors from European countries where the Euro is the currency as sterling drops in value against the Euro. While I suspect that London may receive a high proportion of the visitors, I’d urge would be bargain hunters to look at other less obvious destinations. Not only will you see more of the “real” Britain, if you venture, even slightly, off the beaten track, you’ll find that accommodation is generally cheaper than in the tourist hot spots. However if you prefer to stay near the popular attractions and plenty of shops, you could still enjoy some great day trips.

You could enjoy the river walks and seaside at Berwick upon Tweed in North Northumberland and be in Edinburgh or Newcastle in 45 minutes by train on the main East Coast Line.

Berwick upon Tweed

If you stay in the small city of Stirling in central Scotland there is a pretty good shopping centre and a beautiful castle and you can be in Edinburgh or Glasgow is under an hour by train.

Valley Cemetery, Scotland

From Edinburgh it’s easy to reach North Berwick or Dunbar in East Lothian for a day out by the sea,

North Berwick Beach, East Lothian, Scotland

Travel Rants has been award Best UK Travel Blog in the Travolution Awards 2008. It’s a well deserved accolade for Travel Rants editor, Darren Cronian. Travel Rants is the UK’s only independent travel consumer blog. There are a multitude of concerns for UK travel consumers with recent posts about airlines thinking of charging extra for window and aisle seats, the hazards of travelling without adequate insurance and road testing of travel booking websites. Darren has intervened to assist some consumers by contacting the holiday companies concerned on behalf of the consumer.

Congratulations Darren and keep up the good work.

I really enjoyed my visit to the Wilton Lodge Park and Museum in Hawick in the Scottish Borders yesterday. Wilton Lodge, set in 107 acres of grounds was built by the Pringle family in 1859. The Lodge become the home of Hawick Museum in 1910.

The War Memorial at the side of Wilton Lodge

Motor cycle enthusiasts will enjoy the Museum exhibition about Jimmie Guthrie the 1930s Scottish motor cycling champion who was born in Hawick but died in an accident at the German Grand Prix in 1937. The Museum hosts various temporary exhibitions, at present a photo diary of St Cuthberts Way from Melrose to Holy Island and a collection of vivid oil rural landscapes.

The parkland surrounding Wilton Lodge offers lovely walks along the banks of the River Teviot. i thought that the waterfall was beautiful.

The Waterfall, Winton Lodge Park, Hawick

There a cafe in the park, a childrens play area and a walled garden with free parking nearby although disabled drivers can park outside Wilton Lodge.

I think it’s a great venue for a family day out, with no admission charges and there are plenty of benches for a picnic.

Good - Low price of £25 for a room which sleeps up to three adults. Ability to get low rate even with late booking. Convenient location, just off M9 with plenty free parking.

Bad - Dirty shared bathroom facilities and no tea and coffee making facilities in room. Room very basic with very thin mattress and small double bed. A 6 digit pin code rather than key to access room.

Rating out of 10 - 5

I started my search for accommodation in the Falkirk area on my favourite hotel price comparison site, HotelsCombined where the Metro Inn in Falkirk came up at £30 a night for room only on the Laterooms site. However following my own advice on how to find the lowest rate I checked out that Metro Inns site and the found the room for £24.50.

I stayed at the Metro Inn in Falkirk for one night in April 2008. The hotel used to be branded Formule 1 part of the Accor hotel group but five of the Formule 1 hotels, Falkirk, Newcastle, Teeside, Doncaster and Peterborough were sold to Metro Inns a couple of years ago.

Metro Inns have shared bathroom facilities. There are separate plastic moulded wc and shower units which are designed to be self cleaning but I’m don’t think that the cleaning was taking place. I had two problems with the shared bathrooms, the first that the bathrooms were not clean. The other than you don’t receive a key but a six digit pin code to access your room. If you need to go to the bathroom during the night you need to remember to take the slip of paper with your pin code or you’ll end up locked out of your room and it’s much easier to lock and unlock a door with key than punch in six digits when you are half asleep. I dropped my slip of paper on the wet floor in the shower room and could hardly read the pin.

Shared bathrooms alone is not enough to discourage me from booking accommodation, it depends on other factors too, the price of the accommodation, the ratio of bathrooms to guest bedrooms and the cleanliness of the facilities.

The room had a TV but no tea and coffee making facilities. There were several vending machines selling food and drink in the hotel lobby. There was a small double bed with a very thin mattress which had a single bunk directly above. There was a sink in the room.

The website says there is free wifi access at Metro Inns but I didn’t check this out.

I wouldn’t be keen to stay at Metro Inns again, mainly because of the dirty shared bathrooms and the very basic rooms. It is good value, especially if 3 people stay it’s as cheap as a youth hostel dorm and you have a private room. I rate Travelodge much more highly as you can get a much better standard of room, more spacious and a large comfy bed with a private bathroom, which sleeps up to 2 adults and 2 kids but you have to book at least 18 days in advance to get the non refundable Saver rate of £19.

On the day when the predicted house price crash appears to be materialising in the UK with house prices dropping 2.5% in March 2008, Channel 4 Television screens their new series of Property Ladder, along the lines “How to make a quick buck in the housing market”.

Property Ladder I thought more like Property Snake, where you could lose rather than gain your fortune. Speculating on the property market could now entail slithering down more snakes than fortuitous ascents of ladders.

by zoonie

What about second home owners who may have funded their purchase through re-mortgage of their main residence. They may be forced to sell up as their mortgage costs increase and the value of their investment falls. Cheap access to second homes abroad may disappear as flight ticket prices increase. Airlines may decide to cut routes if demand falls, making it more difficult and expensive to make frequent visits to a holiday home.

Never mind property speculators and those with a second home, all property owners and borrowers could be affected. The Daily Mail states that 60% of UK adults plan sweeping economies in the next 12 moths. The Telegraph reports that three our of four families with incomes over £30,000 per annum plan to cut back on spending this year. This is due to increases in credit, housing, fuel and food prices. Expenditure on travel is an obvious target for trimming the household budget.

So is the Property Snake poisoning your travel plans?

Travelodge will be offering 1000s of additional rooms on their £19 advance booking, non refundable Saver rate, available for booking from 06:00 tomorrow, 3 April 2008 until 7 April for stays during May.

With two Bank Holidays coming up in May, this could be an opportunity for a budget short break. Family rooms at Travelodge can sleep up to 2 adults and 2 kids.

I’m about to sign up as the new Wandalust blogger. Wandalust aims to give you the very best in travel and destination information from a UK perspective. Sounds like a pretty tall order but I’ll do my best.

My first challenge will be to master the Moveable Type blogging platform as I’m used to Wordpress. I’ll have a wider choice of topics writing for Wandalust as I’ll be able to write about any destination as I stick to Europe in this blog. I hope to start writing posts next week.

It’s been difficult for me to decide if I should write for another travel blog, rather than just concentrating on my own travel business and blog. I came to the conclusion that writing for another travel related blog would be a good way to enhance my profile and reputation and increase visitor numbers to my site and blog. Naturally this is dependent on me writing good content for the Wandalust blog.

There’s been some debate in the blogosphere about travel writers not placing enough value on their work. It really depends on your motive for travel writing. I don’t write about travel to earn money directly from selling my writing to a publisher. I write guides to less well known destinations for my website and posts for my blog in which I place contextual affiliate links to accommodation, car hire and travel insurance suppliers and have targeted Google ads in the margin.

If you’re a travel writer or write about travel what’s your opinion about this?

Snow and biting winds are forecast during the Easter Weekend. It’ll be bad news for attractions which are opening over the Easter holiday as I don’t see many visitors venturing out in these conditions. I was suprised when I read that it’s more likely to snow at Easter than Christmas. If you’re out rolling your Easter egg you could end up with a giant snowball by the time your egg reaches the bottom of the slope.

    The Cobbler by Static6

What are your plans for the holiday weekend?

Would you like to show me around the hidden gems where you live? It could be anything - street art, an urban or rural walk, a characterful pub, an interesting museum or exhibition. I’d like to highlight just how much there is to do and see in the UK once you venture, even slightly off the beaten track. I plan to travel around the UK with locals showing me around their home turf. I’ll be writing blog posts during my trip, posting photos and podcasts.

There’s been a lot of verbal support during British Tourism week for domestic tourism from high profile figures such as MPs. I’m asking them to practise what they preach and volunteer to be my guides in their local area.

I’m also looking for sponsors for the tour.