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May 27, 2009

If all roads lead to Rome, do all flights fly from Friedrichshafen?

Filed under: Just get me there, Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — ja @ 9:40 am

Okay, a slightly surreal question, but here’s a few thoughts: –

  • Of course all roads lead to Rome today, it’s the Champions League Final featuring Manchester United and Barcelona. Rome might be famous for St Peter’s Square, whereas Manchester just has to make do with shouts of Judas at the Free Trade Hall (now the Radisson SAS Hotel), which indicentally is on St Peter’s Street. At least we do actually finish our cathedrals, which is more than can be said for Barcelona. Hopefully their finishing will be just as bad as Gaudi tonight! Then they call in Norman Foster of Wembley Fiasco and Wobbly Thames bridge fame to redesign the Nou Camp, have they learnt nothing? And speaking of new camp, I think Canal Street offers a different version of that in Manchester.
  • Do all bikes lead to Barcelona? (The Catalan capital is one of many European cities which has an excellent free bike rental scheme).
  • Do all trains go to Turin (TRN)? No, but that is where Virgin’s Pendolini (which operate to and from Manchester) come from, so let’s hope Man-U complete a successful Italian Job (filmed in Turin) tonight.
  • How many ships are heading to the Ship Inn in Barbados this summer? (Where there’s a famous plaque celebrating the draining of all beer stocks by Australian cricket fans and a visiting Royal Navy crew.)
  • And yes, all flights do emanate from Friedrichshafen in Germany — that is where the (Led) Zeppelins were built. It was only after the Hindenburg disaster that flights in fixed wing aircraft became more popular. However, that’s got no relevance for today, let’s get back to work. What’s this got to do with Flightmapping? Flightmapping is all about showing physical links between two places. Sometimes conceptual links are much more fun :) More on our new map concept to follow shortly. In the meantime, enjoy the game tonight!

April 2, 2009

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?

March 2, 2009

How to get to Wolfsburg

Filed under: General Travel (non-flights), Just get me there — Tags: , , , , , , — ja @ 12:33 pm

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.

June 20, 2007

Caribbean inter-island flights are still too expensive, too unreliable, and just too inconvenient

Filed under: Caribbean flights, Just get me there, Uncategorized — ja @ 6:18 pm

If you think you can find bargain flights to the Caribbean from the UK, then that is fine - as long as you only want to stay on the one island.

Try moving between them, and journey planning becomes a nightmare. Unfortunately, the story is one with which we are all too familiar - too little competition, inefficient airlines propped up by state subsidies, and an uncaring attitude amongst upper management when it comes to finding ways to make improvements.

Following February’s marger, the only airline offering a significant level of inter-island flights around the English speaking Caribbean is LIAT. Caribbean Airlines (formerly BWIA) connect some of the larger islands, but these services generally act as feeder flights onto their long haul services. Other connection are available with airlines such as Winair (often through St Martin), or American Eagle (usually though San Juan, Puerto Rico).

I’m looking for flights from Barbados to Nevis. This really shouldn’t be difficult, considering the distance, but I am trying to get back to Barbados on a Tuesday, the one day there are no flights to Antigua (from where the connections are made to Barbados), from Nevis.

It would be easy to say that Nevis has it quite good, considering that only around 11,000 people live on the island. But, as with any Caribbean island, when tourism is the mainstay of the economy, the levels of flights are always going to be significantly higher than the population alone might suggest - and the Four Seasons Nevis resort alone can always generate a steady flow of inbound visitors. Unfortunately, from a British perspective, most visitors to the Four Seasons are arriving on flights from the USA, meaning that Nevis always seems to maintain better connections with San Juan in Puerto Rico than it does with Antigua, even though flights to Antigua only take around 25 minutes.

So why not hop over from neighbouring St Kitts? There might be regular ferries from Nevis to St Kitts, but I still can’t find a flight connection which will get me to Barbados with enough time to spare to catch the 17:25 flight back to Gatwick. The best I can get is a boat which leaves Nevis at 7:00 am, with an expected sailing time of 45 minutes, and a 5 minute cab ride to the airport, that gets me there at 7:50, if all goes to plan. The time of the only flight connection from St Kitts to Barbados? Guess what - 8:20, check-in time 30 minutes, leeway zero.

I lilke to cut things fine, but not that fine.

June 10, 2007

Questions & Answers (FAQs) about flying

Filed under: Budget flights, Flights Reviewed, Just get me there, Site updates — ja @ 7:01 am

If you have a question to ask about your flight, we’ll do our best to answer it.

Anything along the lines of - what can I take on board, can I use this device, what is this airport like for connections, etc.

If we can’t answer it, I’m sure we’ll find someone who can.

May 24, 2007

Flight routes wanted

Filed under: Aviation Economics, Budget flights, Just get me there, Routes & News — ja @ 11:21 am

Please post any questions about flight routes you would like to see, or have brought back:

May 10, 2007

Time to head back to Switzerland

Filed under: Just get me there — ja @ 4:12 pm

I’ve always enjoyed visiting Switzerland, and I guess it tops my list of places to head to to switch off, and get away from it all for a few days.

The only problem is that it is never quite as easy to get to as I’d like - especially with our “rules” about trying out as many different airlines and airports as possible, which make finding cheap flights to Switzerland a complete nightmare:

  1. Trying to work out flight combinations.
  2. Shall I get a Swiss Rail Pass before going?
  3. Am I going to do any biking? If so, will I take my bike with me - certainly not this time!

When I travel, I usually like to as many visit different places as possible, but sometimes I just want to get away, and stay a few nights in the same place. Even before running Flightmapping, I would rarely stay in the same hotel twice, and would always try our a different airline / routing over a tried and tested one.

However, when I spend most of my time looking into flight routings, sometimes it is nice to get back to a bit of familiarity. So even though I am finally getting to test out flights from Berne, I will be staying again at Balmers in Interlaken, which is often rated as one of the best hostels in the world.

There are still very few hotels or hotels out there that I have stayed in more than once. Last month, I managed to notch up a third visit to the Radisson in Manchester, but I guess that hotel will always feel special because of its historical assocations with the Free Trade Hall. This will be my fourth visit to Balmers - so I guess that comes as quite a glowing testimonial from someone with very itchy feet.

This time, I must finally make it up to see the stunning views from Bachalpsee. And I’ll make sure I’ve got the right walking gear.

Flight reviews to follow shortly:

  1. London Gatwick to Geneva (BA)
  2. Berne to London City (Darwin Airlines)

April 10, 2007

A road trip without the roads

Filed under: Flights v. Trains, Just get me there — ja @ 3:52 pm

We’ve recently returned from a few days on the move, with my colleague Lewis and I spending four nights in four very different locations. The main reason for the trip was the first-ever affiliates mini cruise, organised by DFDS Seaways and A4U Events. This was an opportunity for like-minded website owners to get together, have a mini-conference, and then enjoy a trip to Amsterdam.

Our journey involved getting from Coventry to Newcastle last Tuesday (March 27) evening, sailing with DFDS to Ijmuiden, near Amsterdam, on Wednesday evening (arriving Thursday morning), and then making it to Manchester on Friday evening, in time for the Versus Cancer event at the MEN Arena. Fellow Flightmapping colleagues Mark and Toby also joined us for the cruise, and made their own way back from Amsterdam - Mark will be adding his own blog about this shortly.

Coventry to Newcastle

Eastern Airways operates up to three daily flights from Birmingham to Newcastle, and I’d certainly like to give them a try, as they are one of the few UK based scheduled airlines I haven’t yet flown with. I’ve seen one-way flights on Eastern from around £75, but by the time we came round to booking, the cost would have been about £180 each, which is a ridiculous sum of money for such a short flight. Many of Eastern’s routes are between cities which cannot easily be joined by train routes, but this is not the case on the Birmingham to Newcastle journey.

Virgin Trains offer plenty trains between the Midlands and the North East, but there are only three direct services a day between Coventry and Newcastle. Typical journey times are around four and a half hours - very comparable with driving, and competitive with flying, considering the time taken with check-in procedures, and getting to and from the airport (our office is within easy walking distance of Coventry station).

There are two major annoyances with this particular route. Firstly, it crosses several other rail companies’ major routes, making the stretch between Birmingham and York more delay prone than many other cross-country routes. The other irritation is that passing through these different cities means that there often large numbers of people wanting to get on and off at each station, so it can be difficult to find a good seat for the whole journey.

This was one of those occasions when buying a first-class upgrade made sense. First-class train tickets from Coventry to Newcastle are available from just £39 each way, but when we booked, the fare was £50. This still works out extremely favourably, compared to the £71 standard open single in second-class, as a saver return would have only had limited use for us. The extra space first-class offers, not to mention the quiet and the free snacks and drinks, was well worth the extra cost.

The train was on time for both legs of the journey, and we arrived in Newcastle just in time to see the sun going down over the Tyne. The view over the river was spectacular, and the way that Newcastle United’s magnificent stadium, St James’ Park, sits proudly above the city is truly breathtaking.  

My only gripe would be the hassle that taxis have in getting out of Central Station - the meter was already on £5 by the time the driver had pulled out and driven round the block! If you are staying in a hotel in the centre of Newcastle, a taxi should not be necessary anyway, whereas other parts of the Toon can also be reached by the Newcastle Metro. We were staying on the Quayside, which is much less accessible.

Manchester to Amsterdam

Ideally, an early afternoon flight would have suited us well, but unfortunately Jet2 only operate two daily flights from Amsterdam to Manchester, morning and evening. Further details about this journey will be published shortly in our flight reviews section.

 

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