Europe a la Carte Blog

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Summer Tyne, a festival of music and art, kicks off in Newcastle upon Tyne on Friday 18th July at 22:00 when a specially constructed temporary bamboo and steel bridge over the River Tyne, is officially completed. This will be the longest bridge of this type to be built. Two riggers will traverse the bridge, lighting flames along the sides of the bridge as they progress, until they meet in the middle. This event is free.

On 19 - 20 July there is a free outdoor daytime programme with Latin and Caribbean music. Things really hot up in the evenings with Latin Dance parties on 19 and 20 July. The Americana weekend takes place 26 - 27 July.

So if you’re looking for some sizzling Summer fun, head for Newcastle.

If you book by midnight on Sunday 13 July 2008 you’ll save 20% on fares with Aer Arann between Ireland and the UK. The discount is applicable to all flights taken during 2008. Aer Arann has a good network of regional routes including Manchester to Kerry, Cardiff to Dublin, Edinburgh to Cork and Birmingham to Waterford.

Waaterford Sunset by Corey Leopold

Have you flown with Aer Arann, what your opinion of them?

You can save on admission fees to UK attractions on the Daysout.co.uk site. Many attractions are offering discounts such as Legoland Windsor, Thames City Cruises, Camelot Theme Park, Shakespeare’s House & Garden, Scone Palace, Colcester Zoo and Wookey Hole.

Wookey Hole by repairman

However you have to pay a £5 fee to download up to five discount vouchers or £10 for unlimited voucher download. You can check out each attraction on the site how much you’ll save, it varies from from around £3 to £30 depending on the attraction and the number of visitors.

But you’ll be eligible to receive 5 discount vouchers, free of charge. if you book any room online at Travelodge between 10 July - 3 August 2008, With family rooms starting from £19 a night, if you book at least 3 weeks in advance and pay upfront. you could have a great family budget break.

Back in March, Europe a la Carte proposed a blogging tour of the UK. Now the Sunday Times travel writer Chris Haslam is to undertake a 6 week coastal tour of the UK in a new VW campervan with blog updates to chart his progress. Unfortunately lacking in the clout and connections of the Sunday Times, Europe a la Carte has not been able to get the “Best of Britain off the beaten track” blogging tour off the drawing board.

Chris, AKA as Camper Van Man, is looking for ideas of places he should visit on the UK coast, so you can email your ideas to “campervanman (at) sunday-times.co.uk”. I’ve emailed to suggest that he visit my current home town of Berwick upon Tweed which lies on the Northumberland coast in the north east of England.

Spittal beach at Berwick upon Tweed

Book Travelodge rooms for only £19 a night for stays from the 27 June - 31 August 2008..  You must book before the 29 June 2008 and at least 21 days in advance to bag this bargain. You need to pay in advance and it’s non refundable. Most Travelodges have family rooms which sleep up to 2 aduls and 2 kids. So now you could have a Summer break on a budget.  This is cheaper than staying in a hostel if there are two of you and you have your own private bathroom.

I’ve stayed at Travelodges, mainly in Scotland, on many occasions and I rate them as comfortable and excellent value for money.  There is some variation in standards with the newer Travelodges being more spic and span, some of the older establishments suffer a bit from wear and tear.

Five out of the six beaches awarded the Blue Flag in Scotland are in the Fife region in eastern central Scotland.

Burntisland Beach

Aberdour, Burntisland, Elie, Leven East and St Andrews West Sands have all been judged to offer bathing facilities of the highest order and receive a Blue Flag award.

Sunset at St Andrew’s beach

One of the best ways to see all the beaches is to follow the Fife Coastal Path. You can spend 5 - 7 days walking along the 150 kms path or have a shorter walk on one of the sections.

I’ve never flown with them before I’m already hacked off by Jet2.com. We fly with Jet2.com from Edinburgh to Pisa, Italy for 7 nights tomorrow from Edinburgh. I tried to check in online and it would appear that you can’t check in online unless you pre-book your seat at a charge of £3.99 per person, plus payment card fees, per person per flight, so that would be another £16+ for 2 passengers making a return trip. I don’t think there should be a charge to check in online and it doesn’t cost anything to allocate you a seat during online check in. Surely there is a cost saving for the airline not having to pay staff to staff the check in desks?

by jennyfoo

I’d read the on my confirmation email that you are allowed to take hand luggage weighing up to 10 kgs per passenger and I thought if we both take a small suitcase as hand luggage we’d only need one bag in the hold. It costs £6.99 for a hold bag per flight. This charge was £5 in November 2007. However I read the small print which states that the maximum size of cabin package is 46×30x23 cms and both our small suitcases are a few centimetres wider than this.

In order to avoid a possible additional charge for 2 hold bags, as they charge per individual bag, if Jet2 are meticulous about cabin baggage size, I thought I’d better pre-book another hold bag as if you are charged £12 for each piece of hold baggage at the airport. On my confirmation email it states that hold baggage can weigh up to 20kgs. However today on the Jet2 site baggage rules its states that the maximum weight for hold luggage is 17kgs so it looks like Jet2 charges per hold bag have increased by £2 while the weight limit has decreased from 20 to 17 kgs in the last few months.

I flew with Easyjet from Glasgow to Berlin a couple of months ago, with only cabin luggage, and there was no weight limit on cabin luggage and the maximum size was 55×40x20 cms

I’m getting fed up with all this, it’s really confusing and so easy to get caught out and you feel that it’s all designed to trip you up and make more money out of passengers who don’t pore over the small print. Legally UK cabin baggage can measure up to 56×45x25 cm with a maximum weight of 18kgs but airlines can set their own limits.

I think that there is a real need for standardisation of cabin luggage which would set a sensible size and weight as a minimum, so that at least you could buy a suitcase that you knew you could always take on board on any airline.. Of course individual airlines could choose to increase the size and weight of hand luggage.

My advice to you is to read all the terms and conditions carefully, then you can choose either to adhere to the limits or risk the additional charges at the airport if all bags and carefully weighed and measured.

Have you been forced to pay additional charges at check in, either through ignorance of the rules or by hoping you could flout them?

by shriff14

Representatives of the Tirolean Tourism Board in Austria are whipping up the rumour that London tap water has passed through an average of eight people before you drink it to launch the promotion of pure Tirolean bottled water in London. A spokesperson from the Tirol is quoted as “Iwondering what London’s fish swim in?” The Austrians will be handing out 25,000 bottles of water between the 27 - 30 May at Canary Wharf and Liverpool St stations and there will also be a prize draw to win a short break in the Oetz Valley in the Tirol.

I don’t like negative advertising, Of course there are a lot of negative points about bottled water anyway such as pollution caused by the manufacture and transportation of the bottles. How will you react if you’re offered the free bottled water? Ask them how they transported the 250,00 bottles from the Tirol to London, tell them you’re quite happy with your tap water or happily grab the freebie?

Tap water has beaten the majority of bottled waters in recent blind tests. There is a campaign running to encourage restaurants to offer their customers free tap water as a matter of course. I think that’s a great initiative. I noticed that in restaurants in France there’s always a jug of tap water on the table.

What’s your opinion? Next we’ll be sold pure bottled air because the air we breathe has passed through other humans. That could be a profitable new chargeable item for Ryanair?

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