Category Archives: General Travel (non-flights)

Some holidays tips for the recently unemployed

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I’ve just scanned through a post here offering 10 tips for people who might have recently become unemployed.

So is this an updated version of Norman Tebbit’s advice about getting on your bike to find work? Well, when it comes to bikes, I’ve just had a bit of a Ryanair style repair – something along the lines of 75p for a new spoke and £7.50 in labour for two minutes work.

That’s almost as much as I recently paid for cheap flights to Italy with Ryanair recently. If the idea of working your way around the world doesn’t appeal, there do seem to be more and more people turning to the internet to earn money. Now do I want to give too much away here? Well, we have our little niche, so if you are looking for more ideas about making money without having to travel further than from your bed to your computer, then Income Diary is one site which has quite a few good ideas – including today’s interview with Peter Slowe, the founder of Gap Year company Projects Abroad.

So whether you are looking for work at home or abroad, there are plenty of resources out there if you are flexible enough to be able to make use of them.

How to get to Wolfsburg

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Continuing on from our article about ‘The International’, here are a few notes about how to get to Auto City (Autostadt) by train and plane from the UK:

Hanover

The closest main airport to Wolfsburg is Hanover, although flights to Hanover are only available from a limited number of UK airports. Hanover airport is served by local (S-bahn) trains, which will take you to the main station in Hanover in just 17 minutes. From here, Wolfsburg can be reached in just half an hour if you take advantage of the fastest (ICE) trains. This train fare will cost you €23.50 (approximately £20).

Direct flights to Hanover are available from London (Heathrow, Stansted), Birmingham, Manchester, Southampton and Newcastle.

Berlin

Although closer to Hanover, Wolfsburg is on the main Hanover to Berlin ICE Express route. The fastest trains from Berlin Schönefeld airport take around one and three-quarter hours, changing at Berlin East station (Ostbahnhof).

Alternatively, if you are travelling on a ‘The International’ film tour, and departing from Berlin Central Station (Hauptbanhof), then you can reach Wolfsburg in just over one hour by ICE (€44/approximately £40), or just under one half hours by InterCity train (€36).

Most direct flights to Berlin from UK airports arrive into Schönefeld airport, although direct flights from Heathrow with British Airways or Lufthansa, flights from Stansted with Air Berlin, or connecting flights with airlines such as KLM, will arrive into Tegel airport (TXL).

The main attraction in Wolfsburg is Autostadt, and you can also experience the Phaeno Science Centre, which is right opposite the main station.

The International (film / locations) – A concert of Architectural Anthems

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I know that Flightmapping.com’s prime purpose is dealing with flights, but we’ve always had a strong interest in visiting movie locations, especially on films when a lot of travelling is involved. When it comes to showcasing impressive architecture, the Bond franchise is often top draw, but I’ve never seen a film quite like The Internation, currently in cinemas across the UK. Much as I enjoyed the plot (I’m really not getting into that here, that’s well out of our territory), I couldn’t help but sit in awe at the architectural concert that served as both the backdrop and a major star of this film from start to finish.

Berlin

Berlin Central Station / HauptbahnhofThe opening anthem was the scene outside Berlin’s shiny new Hauptbanhof (central station) — perhaps my only complaint here was that they did not go inside — with two decks of track crossing each other, glass lifts and escalators-a-plenty, this would have been an ideal chase location.

We were then served up offices of ‘The International’ (Bank of Business and Credit), which was supposed to be in Luxembourg, but I would suspect was somewhere around Treptower in Berlin. Other Berlin locations used in the film included Daniel Liebskind’s Jewish Museum, whereas additional scenes are filmed in the VW Autocity (Autostadt) in Wolfsburg [how to get there].

Milan

Action then moves on to Milan, featuring a predictable choice of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, and a much more interesting assassination scene (won’t say who) in the square outside Milan Centrale station, which is also flanked by the Pirelli Tower.

New York

The chase for intelligence then moves to New York, leading up to a grand finale shootout inside a replica of Frank Lloyd Wright’s original Guggenheim Museum. This made use of interactive (and translucent) exhibits on display at the museum, together with embedding bullets all over the spiral stair case and full-scale destruction of the internal roof.

Istanbul

For the encore, were taken first to the shores of Lake Garda, where digital effects superimpose Zaha Hadid’s Phaeno Science Centre (also in Wolfsburg) onto the stunning backdrop of a lakeside setting. The second encore takes us through the streets and bazaar of Istanbul, through the courtyard of the Sultan Ahmed (Blue) Mosque, and onto rooftops overlooking the Bosphorus, where the film ends.

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I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible with these, but if you have any corrections, please let me know below.

Trying out Hotel Booking Websites

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I guess I might be ventruing slightly off my cheap (or not so cheap) flights patch here, but I have been asked if we can push a few of the other consolidator websites, especially for hotel and flights packages.

The problem is that I am very stuck in my ways in this respect – if I am looking for hotels in the UK, I nearly always end up on either Late Rooms or Expedia, and Expedia certainly takes the crown for overseas bookings. Sometimes, I’ll give Superbreak a try – and to give them credit where it is due, they do often have some excellent deals on UK city hotels.

So last night I was looking for a hotel for one night in either Antigua or St Lucia, as I can’t find any flights that will get me from Nevis back to Barbados in the same day. When it comes to searching for hotels, I’m pretty flexible – naturally, I’d rather stay somewhere a bit fancy, but I still expect good value. This isn’t always easy to find in the Caribbean, but the starting point has to be at a hotel booking website which offers plenty of choice.

So here’s a simple league table of how many hotels each of the “big four” offered me in Antigua. I think that, for the time being, my loyalty to Expedia shall remain. They have even stopped referring to the “Royal Antiguan” as an “all-inclusive hotel” (see Hotel Snob blog) – about time!

How many hotels in Antigua does each site offer – for one night in early July 2007