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April 17, 2009

The cheapest flights to Switzerland involve flying to an airport in a neighbouring country, and we’re not talking about France

Filed under: British Airways, Budget flights, Easyjet, Ryanair — Tags: , , , , , , — ja @ 1:38 pm

Switzerland might have much more a reputation as a tax haven than as a bargain basement paradise, but here is a little-known option of finding the cheapest flights to Switzerland, and enjoying the scenery along the way. It is well-known that cheap flights to Geneva are available from a huge range of different airports throughout the UK, and that you can also get cheap flights to Basel, whose airport is technically in neighbouring France, from Stansted and Dublin courtesy of Ryanair, and Liverpool courtesy of Easyjet.

So what’s my little secret? Cheap flights to Zürich — that bastion of palatial airport facilities? Surely not? Well, with Aer Lingus and Easyjet now fighting it out amongst each other to offer cheap flights from London Gatwick to Zürich, Easyjet also offering Zürich flights from Luton, so you might well be able to bag a bargain, but if you’re prepared to travel with only hand luggage and if you have got yourself one of those otherwise pointless Visa Electron cards then you should probably know that the very cheapest fares on flights to Europe are still offered by Ryanair. We looked at cheap flights to Switzerland for April 2009, and Ryanair’s prices on flights to Basel were very compatible with what Easyjet and Aer Lingus had to offer on flights to Zürich. The real bargain was on flights to Friedrichshafen in neighbouring Germany, which are available for £20 return “all-in”

All very well you might say, but you asked the cheap flights to Switzerland, not cheap flights to Germany. Well, as it happens, Friedrichshafen is a mere 45 minutes away from Romanshorn in Switzerland, on the other side of Lake Constance by ferry (hourly service). From here, there are regular trains throughout Switzerland via Zürich. Trains connect from Friedrichshafen airport (Flughafen) to downtown (Stadt) Friedrichshafen in just six minutes, and there are at least four services each hour. And the cost of this ferry transfer is a mere €7. So next time you are thinking of cheap flights to Switzerland, why not give this route a try?

April 2, 2009

How many of the UK world Heritage sites have you visited?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , — ja @ 4:57 pm

As the weaker sterling makes European holidays more expensive and interest rises in staying at home within the UK, how many of the UK world Heritage sites have you managed to visit? Did you know that there are currently 26 sites designated by UNESCO as being of world Heritage standards within the UK. These are:

Bath (city)*
Blaenavon Industrial Landscape
Blenheim Palace *
Canterbury Cathedral, St. Augustine’s Abbey and St. Martin’s Church
Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape* (the Eden project is part of this, surely this must make future lists)
Derwent Valley Mills*
Dorset and East Devon Coast*
Durham Castle and Cathedral*
Edinburgh, New Town*
Edinburgh, Old Town*
Giant’s Causeway and Causeway Coast*
Greenwich (Maritime Heritage)*
Gwynedd - Castles and Town Walls of King Edward
Hadrian’s Wall*
Ironbridge Gorge*
Kew, Royal Botanic Gardens of
Liverpool (surely The Three Graces?)*
London, Tower of*
London, Westminster Abbey*
London, Westminster Palace and Saint Margaret’s Church*
New Lanark
Orkney  (Neolithic heart)
Saltaire
St. Kilda
Stonehenge (plus Avebury and associated sites)
Studley Royal Park, including the Ruins of Fountains Abbey

I have put a star by the ones I’ve managed to get to so far (16 down, ten to go), and hope that I can make it to a few more this year. How I’ve never been to Stonehenge is thoroughly unforgiveable, I’ll have to admit, and I will also be honest and say that it took me four years of study at Edinburgh University before I finally went inside the castle.

What are your local tourism ‘not seen yet’ confessions?

Why is the UK world Heritage website so confusing and inaccurate?

Filed under: Just get me there — Tags: , , , , , , — ja @ 4:52 pm

Why are simple lists sometime so difficult to clarify? Back from my visit to Blenheim Palace earlier on today, I remembered the information board which said it was one of 26 world Heritage sites in the UK. How many of these had I visited, I wondered, and how many more do I still have to explore?

I googled ‘world Heritage UK’, and landed on the UK world Heritage sites Portal, part of that wonderful Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Here is one of my pet hates — drop down menus which might give you the opportunity to visit websites one by one, but which don’t let you cut and paste the whole list. Granted, those in the know can do a ‘ view source ‘, but aren’t these government websites supposed to be accessible to all, not just cyber geeks? Besides, stripping down a list from a drop-down menu still takes a bit of fiddly find find and replace work.

By that stage, I’d already clicked on the supposedly interactive map of world Heritage sites in the UK, but this was very messy, with the Cornwall and West Devon mining landscape being represented by a whole sequence of dots, but just one dot being used to represent all the landmarks in central London, sorry I correct myself — all of London, that’s how confusing the map is!

Below the map is a tiny link to a text version, which is what should be offered in the first place, but I’m still confused. According to world Heritage UK, there are 28 sites administered by the British government, and according to Blenheim Palace there are 26 — this difference being made up by outlying territories, but why is there no distinction in this list to pick out Gough Island wildlife reserve (230 miles south-east of Tristan de Cunha, in case you’re interested), or Henderson Island in the Pitcairns? The list actually has 29 sites in it — to add to the confusion Avebury is counted as part of Stonehenge and associated sites, and the Derwent Valley Mills are listed together with the Dorset and east Devon coast for some reason. Then I check through again and see that I have missed the obvious historic town of St George, Bermuda, so now I’m down to 25. Avebury might be listed twice, but it clearly says it is part of the Stonehenge complex, so I can only assume that is meant to be counted once.

Meanwhile, Edinburgh old and new towns are counted as one entity, but as anyone who has visited Auld Reekie will know, there is the small matter of the old Nor Loch, now Princes Street Gardens and Waverley Station, which separates the two from each other. Thankfully, I think I’m back to 26 again.

And when it comes to making the list, they can’t even organise it in proper alphabetical order — i.e. city of Bath should be listed under Bath, city of, surely?

Anyway, now I have finished my rant, and worked out which sites do indeed make up the list of 26 world Heritage sites which are actually in the UK, I can write my blog article about visiting them (at least they won’t be able to make any claim against me for taking Crown copyright information — true plagiarists take all the mistakes with them):

How many UK World Heritage Sites have you visited?

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