Owner: Europe a la Carte Blog URL:http://www.europealacarte.co.uk/blog/ Join Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 09:33:39 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Authentic travel in Europe on a modest budget. See more of the real Europe by venturing, even slightly, off the beaten track to a less well known destination without the tourist crowds and which offers better value for money. Site statistics:Click here
Rail travel disruption in Scotland due over Easter 2007-02-22 12:25:37 I know that there is never a good time to shut Glasgow Central railway station, the busiest station in Scotland
. First Scotrail have announced the Glasgow Central will be close on the 7 - 8 April 2007 for major signalling work. There will also be disruption at Glasgow Queen St railway station from 6 - 10 April and there will be a replacement bus service between Inverkeithing and Perth and Dundee from 7 - 9 April due to works at Inverkeithing station.
So we are not supposed to fly or drive because of the pollution and harm caused to the environment this causes and taking the train in Scotland over the Easter
weekend will be more bother than it is worth. Should we all just stay at home?
The appalling customer service offered by UK online travel companies 2007-02-22 11:15:31 When Darren of Travel Rants asked me to guest blog, I thought great, a chance to rant, why not live up to the name. What aspect of travel makes me want to rant, it’s poor customer service. I looked at Travel Rants and saw that Darren had recently blogged on this topic. Darren reckoned that a high percentage of online
travel companies would fail a basic customer service test and they would probably take around 48 hours to respond to an email. I found the Transversal customer service study of top websites in the travel, banking, insurance, consumer goods and telecoms sectors, which can be downloaded if you register at Transversal.
Guess what 60% of emails to travel company websites did not receive a reply. Of the remaining 40% companies who did manage to respond, the average response time was 42 hours. Darren was very close with his estimate of 48 hours! The travel websites were asked ten pretty basic question e.g. can I fly from this airport to that airport, do I Read more:appalling
Do you buy your travel insurance from a travel agent? 2007-02-21 21:09:54 The UK Treasury is investigating the sale of travel insurance
purchased as part of a package from travel agent
s. At present travel insurance bought as part of a package is not subject to the same Financial Servies Authority (FSA) regulation as stand alone travel insurance. I know that travel agents make good commission on selling insurance to customers. Travel agents are opposed to the extension of FSA regulation and assert they are in the best position to offer pertinent advice on an appropriate policy, offer convenience to the customer and ensure that the customer is immediately covered and doesn’t forget to buy an insurance policy later. The British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA) believes that self regulation cover sold by travel agent does not always offer the best protection and is often overpriced.
I can not remember the last time I purchased travel insurance from a travel agent as I always thought it was too expensive. Even in the days before the internet I woul
How to avoid paying higher rate APD 2007-02-21 19:31:10 British Midland are exploiting a loophole so that business class passengers only have to pay the standard rate of APD. They have removed the partitions which demarcate ecomony and business class. I can’t understand this as the business class passengers are still gaining access to lounges and receiving a higher standard of on board catering. Therefore how can they claim that, solely on the grounds that the partition is no longer there, it is now a one class plane? At present passengers travelling with airlines which only have one class, even if it is all business class, such as with Silverjet, pay the lower rate. However with that scenario everyone on the plane is receiving the same treatment.
No frills hotels 2007-02-21 18:35:10 I read an article about the growth of no frills hotels in Asia. The rooms have no cupboards or expensive floor coverings. It is claimed that guests want a clean room, comfy bed, good shower and a secure environment and only want to pay for what they use. Prices of between 3 - 20 US dollars are quoted. However I read that towels and other basic amenities can be purchased and are then yours to keep, I began to wonder if you would also have to buy sheets to use on the bed. I know that the price is low but what do you consider to be a frill? It also depends on what they charge you for the so called frills.
I think that chains such as Travelodge are servicing this market in the UK. You can stay at a Travelodge for as little as £15 per night if you prepay at least 3 week in advance but you can pay much more if you book at short notice of during peak times. The rooms there are as basic as I would choose to stay in. They are en suite room with towels, sheets, duvet, a small bar o
Youth travel market growing fast 2007-02-28 15:25:32 The full potential of the fast growing youth market of 16 - 24 year olds is not being tapped, with a only one third of tourism authorities having a youth tourism policy. It was often assumed that the youth market was too low budget to take seriously. However because young travellers generally stay for longer their cumulative spend may be higher than the average tourist. Young travellers are also more likely to spend in local community run operations which are important for sustainable development.
I don’t think it just the potential of 16 - 24 year olds as they travel at this stage in their lives, they will be the travellers of the future and if they have a positive experience in a location, they may well return again at a later date with a partner or family or recommend the destination to others.
One up for Travelodge 2007-02-27 15:47:39 I’ve been away for a few days. Our destination was Norfolk in the east of England but as we live in the north of England we spent a night in the Scotch Corner Travelodge on the way south to Norfolk and a night at the Harrogate Travelodge on the way north again. The Travelodges cost a non refundable £15 per night for room only Supersaver rate, if you book at least 3 weeks in advance. The rooms were a good size, clean and simply furnished. The Travelodge in Harrogate is in the town centre, a great location the only drawback being lack of a free car park at the Travelodge.
Our accommodation in Norfolk cost of £65 for a double room with breakfast. As you can see from the photo below the hotel, the Lodge Hotel in old Hunstanton looks very attractve on the exterior. It is a listed building, a former Dower House which has retained some period features. However when we entered our room it was as though we were in a different building. Our room was small, totally lacking in charm or charac
APD under legal attack 2007-02-27 15:39:50 Airline Passenger Duty is to be scrutinised on 2 legal
grounds in a challange mounted by the Federation of Tour Operators. Firstly it is claimed that the UK Government can not impose charges solely to exit or enter the UK, charges can only be made for use of an airport service. Secondly the manner in which the recent doubling of APD was introduced is being called into question. Only seven weeks notice was given and passengers who had already booked were still liable for the additional tax.
I also picked up on the point made in the article that APD is hardly an environmentally friendly tax as it is each individual passenger who is charged rather than the plane, it was not exactly an incentive to have a fuel efficient, lower emissions plane full of passengers.
Read more:attack
Have you heard of SKAL international? 2007-02-27 09:33:59 What do you know about SKAL, the international association of travel and tourism professionals? I read about SKAL in a TravelWire news bulletin, I have never heard of them. They formed in 1934 to promote global tourism and friendship. They claim to be the only international group which unites all branches of travel and tourism industry. Their moto is “doing business among friends in one small world”. They held a seminar last weekend, 24 February 2007, in Milan on Sustainable Development in Tourism. A SKAL panel judge annual Ecotourism Awards.
I must find out more about SKAL as they appear to have very laudable aims. Have you had any dealings with SKAL, are you a member?
What do you want to do with your one life? 2007-03-02 11:21:28 If you live in the south east of England and are looking for something to do over the weekend, the One Life Live lifestyle event starts today, 2 March 2007 and runs until Sunday. The show is billed as providing ideas and inspiration to explore options leading to a more fulfilling life. There are six zones, take a break, relocate, life balance, retrain, be your own boss and life begins at.
The admission fee is £12 if you book in advance, £15 on the door. I don’t know if I would pay this admission fee. I am sure that the exhibitors pay a fair whack to be there but then they will be expecting to drum up business by exhibiting. The event is sponsored by the likes of the magazine Eve and Wanderlust a travel company.
If you do visit the show I’d be interested to know your opinion. Was it good value. It could be better to pay to get in and attend a great show than get in free to a poor event.
Read more:one life
Childrens Book Festival, Aberfeldy 12 - 13 May 2007 2007-03-01 14:04:44 The Watermill in Aberfeldy, Perthshire is putting on a book festival for kids aged 5 - 12 during May. The event will be co-rum by local kids who attend the weekly book reading sessions and will feature several authors of childrens’ books. The Watermill is a Grade A listed former oatmeal mill which opend in Spring 2005 as the largest bookshop in the Highlands, with an art gallery and a cafe.
Read more:Childrens
, Festival
What’s in a name 2007-03-01 11:04:43 This mornings’ blog posts seems to be on the common theme of names. Turkey is considering using the Turkish spelling of it’s name, Turikye ( the u should have 2 dots above it). The rather narked president of the Ankara Chamber of Trade had to make his speech to the empty chair intended for the Turkish Tourism Minister, who was a no show at the meeting. This was after the date of the meeting had been changed to accommodate the Minister’s schedule. The change in name is desired because Turkey is also the name of a bird in English and can have rather negative connotations e.g. we might refer to a poor quality or useless product as a turkey. However if you look at photo, courtesy of Wikipedia, of the turkey below he is a beautiful bird.
I’ve always thought that country and city names should retain their given names. Greece is know as Ellas to the Greeks. Why do we call Firenza Florence? I think it leads to confusion and is unnecessary to change names. What
Is it whales or Wales? 2007-03-01 10:23:16 I thought this piece from the Travel Daily newsletter was quite amusing. At a lunch in Sydney, Australia, yesterday hosted by Visit Wales
, marketing director Roger Pride described a number of confusions about the destination. He said that on a recent trip to New York to promote Wales he told a taxi driver what he did for a job, and received the response “Great animals - do all you can to save them”. And at another event he was on a stand promoting Welsh cuisine labelled “Cheese from Wales’ and was asked several times how it’s possible to milk a whale.
The Owgen Falls, Snowdonia
Photo courtesy of Visit Wales
Read more:whales
Beat the London Tube journey times and keep fit 2007-02-28 20:27:34 I thought that the London Tube map of the central zone published to indicate walking times between stations is brilliant. I lived in London more than 20 years ago and would often walk to my final destination in central London rather then change tube lines for one or two stops. You can’t tell from the official tube map how far apart the stations in the central zone are located. The map was evidently put together by a group postgrad students in one week. Well done!
I Sego for it girl. 2007-02-28 20:01:53 I know that I am going 50% off my focus of writing posts about travel in Europe but at least it is about France. Arnold of Foreign Perspectives, who now lives in France, told me that a French website was looking for posts about the forthcoming French Presidential elections from an outsider’s angle. I thought sounds interesting, could get my blog some publicity and there are 30 prizes of podcasts. So below is my offering. I just hope that the French will appreciate my sense of humour.
The forthcoming French Presidential elections have not whipped up great interest public interest in the UK. The Presidential elections raise a couple of interesting points for me personally, feminism and the internet, both connected to the socialist candidate, Segolene Royal, nicknamed Sego.
Firstly does France really hanker for it’s first female president? It
would be seen as a breakthrough in the rather macho world of French
politics where only 12% of deputies are female. Royal’s p
English Rock and Pop music site 2007-03-03 14:42:22 England Rocks is a website set up by Enjoy England offers a wealth of links to find our more about England’s rock and pop heritage. I think that it is a pretty useful resource. If you are planning to visit region in England you can search for links relevant to that area. It features things like locations which have inspired song writers, homes of performers amd music venues. You can also search by artist and type of music. UK residents can request a free map detailing relevant locations. There is a competition with 5 digital radios on offer as prizes.
Read more:English
, music site
Do we need new technology to get off the beaten track? 2007-03-04 13:11:30 I came across this article in the Times technology section advocating the use of multimedia technology to encourage visitors in Venice to venture into less touristy neighbourhoods. In the trial visitors were offered a mulitmedia two hour walking tour. Armed with PDAs loaded with flash animation, video clips and maps, they set out of their tour of discovery. Feedback from the trial was very postive.
This article exemplifies the culture of spoon feeding. Why do you need new
technology complete with all the bells and whistles to get off the beaten track? Just do it, explore the area for yourself without being told what to do and see! Take the advice of 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.”
When I write a destination guide I want to instill a desire in the reader to visit and explore that destination themselves, no
Voluntary bed tax proposed in Edinburgh 2007-03-04 10:24:54 There are discussions about implementing a voluntary bed tax in the Scottish capital. A mandatory bed tax has been ruled out but it is believed that if you ask in the right way and reassure visitors that the money raised will be spent on environmental and cultural initiatives some visitors will be happy to contribute. It is esimated that around three million pounds could be raised based a contribution of £1 per visitor.
I am not sure how accommodation suppliers would feel about being the ones to collect the donation, it’s got to involve more work for them. I have the feeling that a sneaky way to get the donation would be that a suggested donation was included in the price and you had to opt out of paying. I don’t think that it is a good idea, a bed tax proposal was recently withdrawn in Venice. Visitors pay VAT on all their accommodation, meals and purchases and I think that in a very competitive travel market, Edinburgh
could just be shooting itself in the foot. What d Read more:Voluntary
, proposed
The T list 2007-03-03 23:03:54 The T list contains your favourite travel and tourism blogs. It’s a way of using links to boost smaller blogs and getting more readers. Let me know if you enjoyed any of the blogs listed below.
Instructions
- Write a post.
- Copy/paste the link list from the post you’ve discovered the T-List into it.
- Make sure the links are active and correct.
- If your blog is on the list, remove it’s not a self-promotion post. As Tim Fehlman (Z-List) said : “Don’t worry, because if your name is on mine, it’s on others and will spread.”
- Add your favorite tourism and travel blogs on it.
- Add the url of the blog where you’ve discovered the T-List as well.
- Publish the post.
- People will notice the T-List and continue it.
Here is the list
Foreign Perspectives
Hotel Blogs
Les Explorers
Chrispitality Media Blog
A Luxury Travel Blog
Travel Rants
Travolution Blog
BootBlog
Erin Julian
My Travel Backpack
Happy Hotelier
Radaron
The Travel PR Blog
Trieste “T for you” card 2007-03-03 22:00:18 If you visit Trieste in northeastern Italy the &ldquo
;T for you&rdquo
; card is a good buy. It costs 8 euros for 24 hours or 10 euros for 48 hours. The card gives you free public transport and entrance to civic museums. Trieste is a fascinating city which has a distinctly mid European feel due to the fact it was the port of the Hapsburg Empire.
Trip to Perthshire 2007-03-05 15:33:28 I am in the final stages of preparing my guide to Perthshire. I have written most of the text, I need to take photos. I will stay tomorrow night, Tuesday 6 March, at the Salutation Hotel in Perth. I’ll spend the next day visiting Dunkeld, Pitlochry and Aberfeldy. On Wednesday night my lodgings will be the Crieff Hydro Hotel.
You can see why I think Perthshire is so beautiful from the photo below which I took looking north up the River Tay from Perth.
Chocoholics head for Geneva on 17 March 2007 2007-03-05 12:18:58 If you love chocolate the third Geneva
chocolate festival takes place on Saturdat 17 March
in Versoix, a small town on Lake Geneva. There are lot more chocoate related activities in Geneva so you could make it into a long chocolate weekend. Anybody for a chocolate body wrap?
Low cost airline Flyme dives into bankrupty 2007-03-05 10:12:24 Swedish airline Flyme, based in Gothenburg is to file for bankrupty. I’m not sure where that leaves passengers, maybe taking the boat home or away? The Danish low cost carrier Sterling has stepped and offered to accommodate passengers free on domestic routes and to offer a discount voucher to Flyme passengers on any international parallel routes. I imagine it must be terrible to arrive at the aiport to return home and find that your airline is no longer flying. You could also lose money if you can’t get to your destination and you have prepaid for car hire or accommodation.
Please let me know if you have been affected by this and what, if any, alternatives are on offer.
Why do there appear to be more male than female bloggers? 2007-03-04 22:20:46 As a female writing a blog for my travel business, it struck me when I was looking at the comments made on my blog that there were all from males. Now my blog is fairly new, started in October 2006, so it is hardly a statistically significant sample, with comments in the teens rather than thousands. I also thought of the contacts I have made with other travel blog authors and could only think of one female Pam Mandel the travel editor of Blogher.
I think that women are just as interested in travelling as men, therefore I would have expected blog authors and comments to be fairly equally distributed between the genders. In fact I read the results of survey in the Tourism Review Magazine that in mixed sex couples 60% of online travel bookings were made by women.
I decided to do a bit of research. Problogger has made similar observations but on a larger scale than me. In a online poll of 799 site visitors, 72% of respondents were male, 28% female. When they analaysed the gender of the Read more:appear
, bloggers
Why don’t the UK Government move to protect DIY travellers? 2007-03-06 12:58:02 I was struck by the contrast in Government
attitude towards the two issues related to financial aspects of travel highlighted in this Travelmole article. There is no protection for UK travellers who put together their own holiday, although a proposal for a scheme which would have provided a safety for all types of travel arrangements was mooted to the Government last year. However the Goverment is actively pursing proposals to impose regulation on travel agents sales of insurance to customers.
I think that the Government should introduce a scheme to protect all travellers, however they book their trip. It can’t be that difficult to arrange a simple, low cost, effective means of financial protection. I think that most travellers would accept that paying a small fee for this protection was a worthwhile cost.
Undersea cables better option than giant pylons 2007-03-06 10:40:41 When I read this article stating that undersea cables
are the most viable economic and environmental method of carrying electricity produced from renewable sources in the Western Isles to areas with a higher population, I wondered why the erection of giant
pylons had been the initial proposal. The electricity generated by the giant wind farm in the Western Isles was to be brought onshore at Ullapool, then underground cable to Beauly near Inverness and the overground by giant pylon to central Scotland. I assume the undersea option
would be a cable down the west coast of Scotland. Perhaps it is cheaper to erect pylons and then easier to repair and maintain them?
Certainly from a viewpoint of preserving the beautiful Scottish countryside an undersea cable would be preferable. I know sometimes when I have gone to take a photo, I’ve thought how much better
the photo would be without the pylons. Again it is a matter of balancing different needs. Scotland does want to be a leader Read more:better option
Angus Walking Festival, Scotland 31/5/07 - 2/6/07 2007-03-06 09:33:13 The programme for the annual AngusWalkingFestival
has been announced. Many of the walks are stenuous but there are couple of easy walks at the weekend. There are also evening events such as a BBQ with traditional music. I know this area pretty well as my grandparents had a holiday hut in Glen Prosen, where I had many happy holidays. Unfortuntely the hut burned down one day when we were out walking. As we descended the hill we could see some smoke in the distance and by the time we got back there was nothing left of the hut.
Read more:Scotland
National Trust for Scotland’s ghastly makeover 2007-03-08 20:16:11 I visited the Hermitage in Dunkeld yesterday. Originally this was a landscaped garden designed for the Duke of Atholl. Ossian’s Hall is a follly built in 1758 as a viewing point for the Falls of Braan. I have visited the Hall many times of the years to enjoy the beautiful view.
The National
Trust for Scotland
has renovated the Hall and I could not believe how awful it is now painted a crimson red with gaudy mural tiles which are already hanging off the walls. I spoke to other visitors to the Hall and they all agreed that it looked terrible. What do you think?
Rainbow photograhy 2007-03-09 12:14:37 I think that photos are an essential part of my destination guides. I can wax lyrical but why bother when a photo can say it much more eloquently. When I was in Perthshire earlier this week I tried to capture rainbows in my photos. The rainbow in the photo below was caused by all the water spray from the Falls at Braan at the Hermitage near Dunkeld.
The second photo was taken soon after sunrise looking down at Crieff from the Knock (a hill to the north of Crieff)
Read more:Rainbow
UK Passport Office slip ups 2007-03-09 11:58:32 According to an article in yesterday’s Travel Daily newsletter more than £350,000 has been paid out in compensation over the last three years to UK travellers whose trips have been marred by blunders by the UK Passport
Office. The number of successful compensation claims made over the last two years has risen from 2,290 to 3,391. Evidently two passports per day are lost in the secure post used to send them to passport holders.
My husband renewed his passport last month and it all went really smoothly. His posted in his old passport and the new one arrived in less than 2 weeks. Luckily I was in when the courier arrived. It was quite expensive £65 plus around £5 to send it in by the recommended special delivery. I would recommend that you apply in plenty of time. You can get up to 9 months credit on your new passport when you renew an existing passport. What has been your experience of standard of service provided by the UK Passport Office?
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