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EuroCheapo Blog

EuroCheapo Blog
The EuroCheapo Blog offers great budget strategy and planning tips, up-to-date travel news, and great suggestions on hip places to see and things to do.
Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Articles

Strike Update: France and Germany Subway & Rail
2007-11-15 22:22:00
It seems like half the world is “striking out” the last few days. Broadway stagehands and TV comedy writers have walked out, and now French and German rail employees are taking to the picket lines. Here’s the latest on the European rail strikes: France Rail Strike Day Two of strikes, affecting national trains, regional trains, and metro. Strikes expected to continue into tomorrow (Friday). The French government announced Thursday that the rail unions are willing to negotiate.  150 national TGV trains (out of 700) ran on Thursday, which is better than the 90 that ran Wednesday. 6 out of 16 Paris Metro lines were out of service on Thursday. (There seems to be a little light at the end of the metro tunnel.) German Rail Strike On Thursday, passenger train drivers joined a larger rail strike begun Wednesday for higher wages and better working conditions in Germany . Deutsche Bahn (German National Railways) calls the strike the biggest in its history. “Heavi...
More About: Update , Subway
London: The Eurostar Arrives at St. Pancras
2007-11-15 20:49:00
We’re psyched that the new and improved St. Pancras train station opened this week in London . The depot, rebuilt and improved with a $1.7 billion budget, boasts more than just slick rails. Indeed, St. Pancras Station boasts the longest champagne bar in Europe, its own underground shopping mall and—most importantly—the fastest Eurostar journey to date from London to Paris. (Trains also leave the station for Brussels and Lille.) We’re not, however, completely sold on the station’s PR: A daily farmer’s market in the downstairs arcade promises to be “Where the best of the British meets the flavours of the continent.” (Well, they’ve had their plates full.) We recommend taking a virtual tour of the station. On this side of the Atlantic, more “rail good” news as the U.S. House of Representatives last week approved $1.4 billion to keep Amtrak chugging along and improve track conditions. We’re glad to know our government, too, is finally taking...
EU to Low-Cost Airlines: Clean Web Sites Up
2007-11-14 17:56:00
Yesterday, the European Union’s Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva condemned “misleading advertising and unfair practices” pursued by European sites selling airline tickets. The Consumer Protection Commission investigated 446 Web sites and found that a whopping 226 did not respect EU consumer protection law, on grounds of unfair pricing, hidden charges, and/or improperly translated conditions and terms. Consumers should be empowered to know from the get-go how low a fare actually is. The last second taxes and charges smoke-and-mirrors-effect does no one any favors; low-cost carriers may not realize it now, but this investigation will actually strengthen them in the long run, by giving consumers a more realistic sense of what they’ll actually be paying for their flights. Best of all, the Commission’s statement has teeth. Airlines and other vendors have four months to clean things up. If sites do not manage to do so, they’ll be fined or...
More About: Web Sites , Sites , Cost , Clean
Tues List: Flybe, Georgia, Moscow
2007-11-13 17:54:00
It’s a Tuesday, the sun is shining, and there’s a snap in our step. What’s on our minds? Thanks for asking. 1. Flybe is apparently looking for another acquisition. It looks as if the purchase of BA Connect has only whetted the airline’s desire to grow. 2. We’re Georgia mad, again, thanks to Kate Weinberg’s Georgia travelogue in the FT this past weekend. Horseback riding, check. Mountainous terrain, check. Involved toasts at mealtimes, check. 3. And in the New York Times, also this past weekend, Sophia Kishkovsky teases us with a suggestive description of Moscow ’s enormous All-Russian Exhibition Center, an olio of Soviet triumphalism and fairground amusements.
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Flash: Another 500,000 Free Ryanair Flights
2007-11-08 17:19:00
Today, Ryanair announced the “sale” of half a million free flights. Good for travel on Mondays through Thursdays in December and January (with a “limited availability” quasi-blackout period from December 18 through January 8), these fares are on sale through midnight tomorrow. These flights are utterly and completely gratis—no taxes and no fees. It’s a serious giveaway. And while it’s not available on all routes, some available routes include London Stansted-Glasgow, Girona-Basel, Frankfurt Hahn-Forli. At the very least, this sale is worth checking out. Move quickly.
More About: Flash , Flights , Free
London: Country Walks!
2007-11-08 16:59:00
It’s not often that we feel compelled to essentially offer advertising copy for another publication, but we’ve fallen in love with Time Out’s Country Walks Volume 1, a compendium of 53 walks (one for each week of the year plus one reserve) within a short distance of London . The country walks listed in the book were honed over several years by an informal group of London area walking enthusiasts. The book, originally edited by Nicholas Albery and first published in 1997, is quite palpably a labor of love. Suggestions for lunch and tea are made for each walk. Length of walks, transportation information, and a toughness scale for each walk give prospective a sense of what to expect. We admire the volume’s sheer enthusiasm and attention to detail—sections on lyme disease, the suggestion that walkers invest in “a compass with a swivelling rim marked in degrees,” maps, and its careful descriptions of walks and potential hazards (”exclamation mar...
SkyEurope vs. Ryanair: October Stats
2007-11-07 17:17:00
Behold, the return of our SkyEurope/Ryanair statistical face-off. In October 2007, Ryanair carried 21 percent more passengers than they did in October 2006, and managed a modest increase in load factor—the number of seats filled on planes flying throughout the month—of 2 percent (from 83 percent to 85 percent) also against October 2006 numbers. SkyEurope, by way of contrast, enjoyed an impressive 34.4 percent hike in passenger numbers in October 2007 against October 2006. Despite this, the airline’s load factor in October 2007 was .5 percent (75.3 percent to 74.8 percent) in comparison with October 2006 stats. Against this backdrop, Ryanair launches eight new routes from Shannon today, and seven from Bristol—with another five more inaugurations to follow by the end of the week. SkyEurope, still consolidating after its base contraction, has announced plans to sell two Boeing 737s. Thanks to AirScoop for alerting us to the sale.
More About: Stats , Rope
hidden europe: 2008 European Rail Schedule Highlights
2007-11-06 18:16:00
Even the most seasoned Europe an traveller can be caught unawares by rail schedules changes. Most European rail companies introduce major timetable changes over the second weekend in December, and this year there are some big alterations in the offing. There is no more civilised way of making a big hop across Europe than on a night train, and the new schedules see a whole raft of new night train services. Take Amsterdam for example. The Dutch city has always featured on Europe’s night train schedules, but for 2008 Amsterdam secures new daily services to Copenhagen, Dresden, Milan, Minsk, Moscow, Prague, and Warsaw. For the first time for many years Switzerland and Bavaria will benefit from direct overnight trains to Poland and points east, with new direct night sleeper services from Basel SBB and Munich to Warsaw and Moscow. Fixed fares apply for travel on most European night train routes, often with little advantage for railpass holders. A one-way journey in a shared sleeper c...
More About: Schedule , Highlights , Rail
What Happened to Fly For Beans?
2007-11-02 18:50:00
A few months ago, we were waiting with bated breath for launch announcements from Fly For Beans , a new Cardiff-based low-cost carrier. It’s not that we’re impatient, exactly. It’s more that we’re wondering if the airline will ever actually lift off. FFB has the pre-launch marketing all sewn up. They’ve got a perky site full of typical low-cost carrier bravado, in a reddish hue not particularly easy on the eye, either—a sure sign that they’ve done their market research. In a “bean blog” entry written by Director of Flight Operations Brian Bibb last week, we learned that the airline’s route map will include one destination that Mr. Bibb himself, a pilot of two decades’ standing, has never flown into. Where might said destination be? We’ve come across some completely unverifiable rumors suggesting that one or another airport in Bulgaria will appear on the FFB route map. We can only dream.
EasyJet and Those GB Airways Routes
2007-11-02 18:03:00
The other day we speculated about easyJet’s acquisition of GB Airways , hoping aloud that the former would take over all of the latter’s routes. We’ll admit a vested interest. We’re planning to fly from London to Cyprus next summer, and we want to do it cheaply. We just came across the first sign that our hopes may be dashed. In today’s TTG Live, Gary Noakes quotes an easyJet spokeswoman at length. She reveals—no surprise here—that GB Airways’ Gatwick slots, not the GB route map, motivated the acquisition. (With the acquisition, easyJet will operate a whopping 24 percent of flights out of Gatwick.) The medium-haul routes to Cyprus and Egypt are “…not the focus of the strategy; the strategy is growth at Gatwick.” We’ll have to wait a few months to see what this will mean for the orange-and-white. We’ll be sorely disappointed if the acquisition yields no new routes at all.
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Wed. Duo: Georgia in the FT; Azerbaijan at Eurovision
2007-10-31 16:47:00
We admit that we have a soft spot for Georgia , one of three ex-Soviet countries occupying Europe’s southeastern corner. We were thus quite happy to see the FT’s Special Report on Georgia in today’s paper, Quentin Peel’s article on tourism in Georgia in particular. Slowly, Georgia is readying itself to welcome greater tourist numbers, though, as Peel points out, hotel room availability in Tbilisi lags far behind airport and road infrastructure improvements. Still on the Caucasian regional tip, we were downright chuffed to learn earlier this month that Azerbaijan will be participating in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest for the first time. Azerbaijan joins its fellow Caucasian nations Armenia (entry year: 2006) and Georgia (entry year: 2007) at the kitsch fest.
Friday List: easyAcquisition; Madrid; Ryanair Expansion
2007-10-26 17:17:00
Autumn is here! 1. EastJet announced yesterday that is has acquired GB Airlines. A giddy glance at the GB route map turns up several destinations not currently served by easyJet, including Tangier and Fez in Morocco, Malta, Hurghada and Sharm el Sheik in Egypt, Tunis, Paphos, and Ajaccio and Bastia in Corsica. We’re hoping that easyJet won’t abandon these routes. 2. Jaunted reminds us that Madrid ’s Festival de Otoño is in hyperactive mode through the middle of November. 3. Ryanair announced a modest route expansion today, with a new Shannon-Alicante route as well as new routes between Dublin and Palma, Santander, and Zadar. All routes will be inaugurated in March.
More About: List , Friday , Expansion
Volareweb Mixes It Up
2007-10-24 23:07:00
The last time we checked, Italian low-cost carrier Volareweb flew to seven destinations in Italy, plus Paris. So imagine our surprise when we took a glance at the Volareweb site the other day to discover the following new destinations: Alghero, Cagliari, Helsinki, Lodz, Maastricht Aachen, Manchester, Pescara, Porto, Rotterdam, and Wroclaw. Three new Italian destinations? Two in the Netherlands? Two in Poland? And, um, Helsinki? Very interesting. All the airline’s new destinations are being served from Milan Malpensa. Volareweb is currently hawking €21.99 fares (including taxes and charges) on routes in and out of Milan. In the past, we’ve had a difficult time locating Volareweb’s lowest promotional fares, so imagine our pleasure when we found a €41.86 (yes, that’s under their listed lowest fare) for a Milan Malpensa-Maastricht Aachen roundtrip at the end of November. Volareweb, we’re paying attention.
More About: Mixes , Mixe
Tuesday List: TUIfly, Slovenia, La Vie Verte, Museums
2007-10-24 00:49:00
Tuesday evening. The skies are gray. And we’re a million miles away, thinking about some of the following things… 1. Like another low-cost carrier sale. TUIfly is selling off winter one-way fares for €11 apiece, taxes and surcharges included. On sale through midnight on Sunday, October 28, these fares are good for travel from November through February. 2. Like Slovenia . Thanks to the Guardian’s Mat Smith, who teases us with tales of night tobogganing in Slovenia. 3. Like green lifestyles, courtesy of our friend Denise Young’s La Vie Vert e blog, which appears to be churning out green posts by the truckload. 4. Like free museums. In January, the French government will offer free admission to 14 museums and monuments for a six-month trial period. The cultural sites with waived admission include the fab Cluny Museum in Paris.
More About: List , Museums , Tuesday
hidden europe: Smoothing over History
2007-10-23 00:09:00
hidden europe has been on the road this past fortnight, meandering through Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is not a country that gets a lot of attention in the travel media. Sarajevo café life, the bridge at Mostar and the Roman Catholic shrine at Medugorje are the three Bosnian “sights” that travel writers love to cover. But what about the rest of the country? It is of course a region that endured a terrible war in the 1990s. The Dayton Accord may have been a fine way of ending that war, but it wasn’t necessarily the best possible way of creating an enduring peace. But against the odds, Bosnia and Herzegovina is emerging as a credible multi-national state. Its two entities, the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska, have been cajoled into a precarious co-existence, while the town of Brcko (an enclave that is part of neither entity) is maturing from a wayward market town, where everything from guns to women were traded, into an entrepreneurial pocket of Bosn...
More About: Europe , History , Hidden , Rope
SkyEurope’s Summer 2008 Timetable
2007-10-20 00:55:00
Who’s thinking about next summer? Not us. If anything, we’re hoping for cooler weather—and as quickly as possible. We want our autumn and we want it now. That said, the impulse to plan is a wise one. Slovak budget airline SkyEurope released part of their summer 2008 timetable earlier today. Released routes include five in and out of Bratislava, nine in and out of Prague,13 in and out of Vienna, and a handful of routes to Slovakia’s hinterlands, Poprad/Tatry and Košice. Advance planners, take note! Several low-cost carriers have released or will soon be releasing 2008 timetables. This is a great time to keep a look-out for route availability over the following seasons.
More About: Summer , Rope
Spain: Autumn Art Round-Up
2007-10-19 00:58:00
We don’t know about that “stays mainly in the plains” bit, but we’ll say with certainty that when it rains (in Spain ) it pours—at least when it comes to artistic ventures. As bullfighting season draws to a close, the art scene is just revving up. Here are three main events to watch: 1. Thinking takes to the streets: For the first time ever August Rodin’s “The Thinker” has left its home in the Rodin Museum in Paris for an exhibition in the streets. The streets of Málaga and Granada, that is. On October 17, “The Thinker,” along with the six sculptures of the “Burghers of Calais” were unveiled Málaga’s old town. They’ll visit (under the watchful eyes of a 24 hour guard) until December 19; following their tenure in Málaga, they’ll grace the streets of Granada through January 27. 2. Cinema Paradiso: Film critics, mark your calendars! The Seville Film Festival opens on November 2 with The Lark Farm, ...
More About: Round Up , Round , Autumn
Rome: “Film Fest” takes center screen this week
2007-10-17 01:39:00
When in Rome , do as the locals do and attend the city’s annual film festival, which kicks off this Thursday, October 18th. The opening night will be celebrated with a screening of Second Wind, a wild French film about bank robbers. We’re there. You can snag screening passes for the 10-day event online or in person, with most tickets going for between €3 and €10. Dozens of screenings happen daily—with 11 premieres lined up—and are presented around town in fabulous venues. We took special note of both the temporary space erected by IKEA and the Byzantine-style Parco della Musica, which can seat one gazillion spectators. This year’s film fest also celebrates Indian and German culture through series of special programs, screenings, and break-out discussions. Check out the festival’s official website for more information. We always wanted to see Brad Pitt in lederhosen. We’d take him in a sari too.
More About: Screen , Week , Center , Cree
Paris: The latest on Velib’, the rental bike phenomenon
2007-10-15 22:27:00
We were pleased to see that Eric Rayman at the New York Times recently arrived in Paris and immediately hopped on a Vélib’ bike rental. In yesterday’s travel section, Rayman describes the joys of pedaling down the Boulevard St-Germain (and the terrors of biking through Place de la Concorde). We’ve been big Vélib’ fans since it was launched this spring by popular socialist mayor Bertrand Delanoë, and have even eyed it with envy (especially one Cheapo in this office, who bikes his way through lower Manhattan every morning, along streets that are decidedly unfriendly to cyclists). The program has put 15,000 bikes on the streets of Paris, available for short-term rental for almost nothing from more than 1,000 hop-on and drop-off stations. BudgetTravel.com pointed out in a post this summer that many Americans were unable to rent bikes from the Vélib’ program, as the kiosks were only programmed to accept credit cards with “smart chips,” whic...
More About: Rental , Bike , Phenomenon
London: Crack, Pop and the Cutting Edge
2007-10-11 23:46:00
Ok, so a recent installation at the Tate Modern in London kinda cracked us up. The exhibit, by Colombian artist Doris Salcedo, is called Shibboleth and is a 167-meter long crack in the floor. Museum goers are invited to interact with the exhibit. A story in the AFP says, “some visitors have been so distracted by the impressive surroundings that they have unwittingly fallen into the crack, around one foot (or 30 centimetres) wide in places.” The crack gets filled next April. For more on the artist, check out the Tate’s site. Across town at the National Portrait Gallery, a huge pop art exhibit opened today. The usual suspects—Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and David Hockney—are among the 52 artists represented. The exhibition runs through January 20th, 2008. More info at the Gallery’s Web site. Price: £10. And, if you’re in London—whatever you do—please, for the love of art, go to the annual Frieze Art Fest. It’s on until October 14th and, though it will set you b...
More About: Cutting Edge , Crack , Edge , The Cut
hidden europe: Hasta la victoria siempre!
2007-10-09 17:26:00
The cult of Che Guevara gets a boost this week as special events across Europe commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the revolutionary’s untimely death in Bolivia on October 9, 1957. In Derry in Ireland, a week of celebrations will include the unveiling on Saturday of a new mural of Che – complementing the long standing Che Guevara mural a little further up the Foyle valley in Strabane. Che Guevara stock remains as high as ever among European socialists, not least in Andalucía (southern Spain) where knotty issues surrounding land tenure are still a popular grievance in some agricultural communities. Stop off in Marinaleda, just forty miles southwest of Córdoba, to catch the feel of a small town that has a passion for combative action against absentee landlords. A spark of revolutionary zeal permeates the town and is reflected in graffiti, street names and murals. Other European socialist thinkers and politicians still mould the travel plans of more politically engaged trav...
More About: Victoria , Hidden , Rope
Sunday Travel Section: Off to Europe
2007-10-09 00:59:00
We do love the annual “Europe travel” edition of the New York Time’s travel section, which appeared in yesterday’s paper. Here are a few highlights: Fall Travel : Cheap? No. Cheaper? Yes. Natch, we were into this article in the Practical Traveler series. It’s chock full of helpful budget travel tips (think south, flight strategies, consider packages, etc.).  But it also makes it clear that traveling to Europe is still possible for Americans, even during a period of dismal exchange rates. (And yes, we also loved it because it gave us a very nice shout-out!)  Season to Savor: As Weather Cools, Europe Heats Up Articles on cities like Rome, Berlin and Prague showcase how, as temps go down, Europe’s cultural scene stays on the up-and-up. Worshiping Paris As if we needed another reason to genuflect before Paris, this beautiful recap of one journalist’s spiritual journey, through Parisian churches and the like, has us packing.
More About: Sunday , Section , Rope
Ryanair’s Free Seat Promotion
2007-10-05 00:47:00
Ryanair again offers what appears, at first blush, to be impossible: one million completely free fares. Good for travel between November 5 and January 31, they can be purchased through Monday, October 8. While strictly speaking not too good to be true, this promotion comes with more exceptions that most. To wit: the free fares only extend to flights on Monday afternoon, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday before noon, and Saturday afternoon. In addition, the entire period from December 18 through January 8 is blacked out. We’re also having a hell of a time finding these free fares on the Ryanair site, though it’s easy to find €.01 and £.01 fares with nothing but taxes to pay. Say what you will about Ryanair’s no-frills cattle-call experience and advertising bluster. If you’ve got the time to find the right fare, Ryanair’s an incredibly cheap way to fly.
More About: Promotion , Free , Seat , Romo
Near-Europe’s Latest LCC Destination: Aqaba
2007-10-04 01:14:00
European charter airlines and low-cost carriers are slowly but steadily adding destinations in countries just outside of Europe. While Ryanair and most charter airlines—the latter feeding into holiday packages—fly to a range of destinations in Morocco, these are but one demonstration of the latest frontier. Among other routes of note, the Russian low-cost carrier SkyExpress flies east of the Urals to Tyumen, several charter airline fly to destinations in Tunisia, Transavia among other airlines flies to Egypt, and tuifly and Thomsonfly jet to Tel Aviv. As of November, Aqaba (on Jordan’s Red Sea coast) will be added to the slate of midhaul Europe-adjacent destinations reachable by a low-cost carrier. JetairFly, the Belgian wing of TUI, will be flying to Aqaba from November. The Red Sea resort town draws divers and sunlovers and is a stone’s throw from Eilat, Israel. It’s also got a popular Turkish bath on hand, and is about two hours south of Petra by car. We fou...
More About: Destination , Rope
Noteworthy Mentions: SkyEurope, Isle of Man, Vueling
2007-10-03 00:55:00
Today SkyEurope announced the release of 99,000 promotional all-inclusive €29 fares. “All-inclusive” here means that taxes and fees won’t pounce out at the final step of your online transaction. This promotion is good for travel between November 1 and December 15. Tickets can be purchased through October 7. In the past, we’ve struggled to find very many good fares during these SkyEurope promotional sales; nonetheless, this one is certainly worth a look. Isle of Man Travel Services is trying to drum up off-season interest in the Irish Sea island with some holiday packages. Noteworthy: a £135 per person package for two nights at the Sefton Hotel, including sea transportation from either Heysham or Liverpool and all additional taxes, or £170 for an identical package but with an extra night thrown in. Ultracheap? No, but not bad for a longish weekend in the pricey British Isles. Meanwhile, Spanish low-cost carrier Vueling is having some serious troubles. Last...
More About: Wort , Rope
Friday Coffee Table Book Suggestion
2007-09-29 00:46:00
We just got a look at Rough Guides’ tome of a coffee table book Make the Most of Your Time on Earth. In addition to sporting a bit of a foreboding title, Make the Most is bursting at the seams with event and activity suggestions around the world. Looking at the compendium’s European offerings, we were pleased to see, in no particular order, the following trip suggestions: Pembrokeshire hikes; Scottish Highland Games; surfing in Tarifa; mountain walks in Madeira; taking the Lake Mývatn waters; overeating in Bologna; and bunker spotting in Durrës. You get the picture. Make the Most is glossy and packed with trip suggestions as well as listings-driven “Miscellany” section at the close of each chapter. Just don’t plan to take it with you when you travel. It weighs approximately three tons.
More About: Coffee , Book , Friday , Suggestion , Table
KLM: Break Away Fares
2007-09-28 00:13:00
We suggest taking a look at KLM’s current “Brea k Away” fare promotion. It offers decent roundtrip fares between Amsterdam and several European cities: Birmingham, Edinburgh, Geneva, Helsinki, London, Madrid, Manchester, Marseille, Milan, and Paris. The cheapest listed Break Away fare is Amsterdam-Paris, which begins at €147. Afraid of fare creep via undisclosed fees and taxes? Don’t be. These fares include all additional charges. In most cases, Break Away promotional fares last through November.
More About: Fare , Ares
Click4Sky: An Alternative to Low-Cost Carriers
2007-09-26 18:37:00
CSA Czech Airlines has just launched Click4Sky, a new, independently branded initiative designed to fill empty seats on Czech Airlines flights. The upfront basics look promising. The site itself is clean and light and direct, as all low-cost airline sites should be. (A heavy, busy low-cost carrier site, after all, screams Hidden Cost s! Scams! Fear!) Aesthetics and others dangers aside, Click4Sky charges CZK 1990 (€72; $102) for a one-way journey, taxes and fees included. In actuality, the CZK 1990 assertion is a bit slippery, as only roundtrip tickets can be purchased. So figure CZK 3980 (€144; $204) per ticket. There’s something pleasing about a set fare, as it completely eliminates guesswork, fare hunting, and, well, all attempts to divine future fares. Also pleasing is the fact that all Click4Sky seats are on regular Czech Airlines airplanes, with free drinks and gratis newspapers. Downside? Despite a wide-ranging destination map, which includes decent Central and Easte...
More About: Alternative , Carriers , Low cost , Alter
hidden europe: European Day of Languages
2007-09-25 16:52:00
Cultural assets are things to cherish. Scan the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and it will be clear that Europe bristles with treasures: from the cultural landscapes of the high valleys of Andorra to the wooden churches of northern Romania. Michelangelo paintings and Gothic cathedrals are self-evidently worth hanging onto. Yet some of Europe’s most important cultural assets are utterly intangible. Take language, an asset we too often take for granted. Most European s somehow learn to get by in one or two other languages beyond their mother tongue. And occasionally we run across folk on our travels who have not had the chance to practice, still less to perfect, another language and remain sadly monolingual. Plus of course a fair number of diehards who elect to remain assertively and stubbornly monolingual for one reason or another. Europe’s rich diversity of languages captures the media spotlight this week with the European Day of Languages (EDL). Officially slated fo...
More About: Hidden , Rope
Friday List: Air Berlin, Amsterdam, Ryanair, Roasts
2007-09-21 23:14:00
We didn’t really think we’d make it through this week. Here’s our Friday list. 1. The most significant event we’ve come across in Europe’s low-cost air world this week is today’s news that Air Berlin is set to purchase Condor. Thomas Cook, which currently owns most of Condor, will be selling the airline to Air Berlin in return for an almost 30 percent stake in the expanded airline, plus €120 million. It still might not happen if Condor minority stakeholder Lufthansa decides to oppose the purchase. 2. We will be visiting Amsterdam in a few weeks and we’re already excited about frites with peanut sauce, Surinamese spicy chicken, and pisang goreng. Our advance research just turned up D’Vijff Vlieghen, which looks like a splurgeworthy place to sample “New Dutch” cuisine. 3. We have it on good authority that Ryanair is trying to muscle its way into Schiphol, and furthermore is considering route expansions to destinations in T...
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