europe

Whenever I travel, I always carry a small, portable shortwave radio with me, mainly to keep up with world news, when I'm travelling through countries where English isn't the main language. You may wonder what the point is, in this age of 24 hour BBC World and CNN satellite television - until you find yourself in a small bed and breakfast or hostel without a television, let alone a satellite receiver.

I was staying in a hostel in Florence back in March 1999, when NATO commenced its bombing campaign over parts of Kosovo and Serbia. The hostel didn't have a TV room, and there was certainly no English programming on the radio in the city at that time; if I hadn't had my shortwave radio with me, I probably wouldn't have even known anything was going on, just across the Adriatic. Now, many might argue that knowing about this might not have helped me in the least - but who knows; I could well have been heading to Croatia at the time, and there's nothing to say the NATO attacks might not have reignited the conflicts that had been going on in that area for many years.

The BBC have announced that their World Service broadcasts to Europe will close on February 18th, 2008. The World Service has been broadcasting in a number of forms since 1938, and has been one of the most reliable broadcasters of news and information programs available, and I dare say has been invaluable to many a traveller on the road in that time. Unfortunately, the BBC now expect people to hear their service via local rebroadcasts (which tend to only be available in big cities, if at all), the internet (hard to get to that when you're on the move) or satellite radio (not exactly something you want to put in your backpack).

It's a pity that the BBC couldn't wait until future technologies, such as portable satellite radio, or Digital Radio Mondiale broadcasts on shortwave, became feasible, because once they have left the shortwave bands in Europe, they are going to be leaving a very big gap for the traveller in times of emergency.

After reading an article in The Age today that pans the tiny republic of San Marino for having an excess of shops selling rubbish that no-one in their right mind should buy, it occurred to me that none of these shops would survive unless there was actually a market for them.

To be fair, San Marino isn't the only place in that area with an oversupply of plastic trinkets on sale to clueless travellers; I have distinct memories of seeing shady men setting up makeshift stalls on white sheets on the ground, in almost every Italian city that I went to. While on the odd occasion, their wares might have been related to the nearest famous site - for example, plastic colosseums and books on the history of Pompeii (printed in China, of course) - but in general, it was purely junk, like the green plastic soldiers, furnished with a rifle, that vibrate and simulate a real soldier crawling along the ground. While it makes me wonder why anyone would buy such things at all, who would be silly enough to buy them when travelling?.

Many of the vendors clearly aren't operating legally; I recall seeing one vendor, in Venice, having a worried conversation with a colleague who had just arrived upon the scene, and then quickly packing up his trinkets into a white sheet and running off, very fast; two minutes later, two members of the police force casually strolled into the area - I don't know if they were even aware that an illegal vendor had been operating there or not. However, if these men are willing to risk arrest to sell their goods, there must be some pay-off and hence I must come to the conclusion that people are actually buying this rubbish.

I see the same here in Australia; Melbourne's Queen Victoria market is often touted to tourists as a must see, and I'll admit, the atmosphere is fascinating and it's a great place to buy food - but half of its stalls are selling the same Chinese-made junk that are sold in similar markets everywhere on the whole planet. I wouldn't buy any of this in a pink-fit. Do tourists really need fake Gucci handbags? Or even the genuine Gucci handbags, for that matter? Or Bart Simpson t-shirts?

The French engineering firm Alstom have launched the prototype of their new high-speed AGV train at their rail test centre in La Rochelle. The train, when operational, will be able to travel at 360 km/h, covering a distance of 1000km in just three hours. It will also have more seating than existing TGV trains, with space savings coming from the removal of motor carriages at the ends of the trains - instead, the trains will have distributed motors underneath each carriage.

I've just noticed on the Scanrail website that their railpass, which covered rail travel in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, is no longer available; sales of this pass ceased on December 31st, 2007.

This is a shame, because it was possible to purchase the Scanrail pass even after a traveller had arrived in Europe, although with a few restrictions. The only remaining equivalent is the Eurail Scandinavia Pass, which is not available to European residents, and cannot be purchased by travellers already in Europe.

Travelodge is building a hotel in West London made from 86 modified shipping containers. When completed in June, it is expected that rooms in the hotel will cost around €25 per night, less than a third of the cost of the nearest Travelodge in Slough, and cheaper than the nearest youth hostel.

The rooms are pre-fabbed in China, shipped out to the UK, where they are installed and then will be decorated. It is intended that the rooms are recyclable and although the words eco-friendly have been touted in relation to this building, I have to wonder what the insulation is going to be like. How are shipping containers going to deal with an unusually hot summer?

With a European winter now in full swing, the newspapers are full of European alpine ideas. Firstly, we have the New York Times with an article on night skiing in St Moritz - if you can afford to stay there, that is. Fortunately, it's not the only resort they list.

Still on Switzerland, the Independent goes ballooning in Château d'Oex, but at €227 for an hour's flight, it makes the aforementioned accomodation in St Moritz look like a night in a run-down motel.

The Independent also has a look at skiing in some of the lesser known areas of Austria's Tyrol region; and while you're there, why not have a weekend in Innsbruck?

Anyone who's had to fly this Christmas knows how bad the experience can be. If the trip out to the airport, which by necessity is incredibly inconveniently located, isn't bad enough, then there's the queues, delays and cancellations once there. And after that, the flight - stuck in a seat with no leg room, for hours.

Fortunately, just in time for the new year, The Guardian has provided a list of ten non-flying trips. Of course, you have to be in Europe, first...

Travel through much of Europe is about to become considerably easier: in three days' time, on December 21st, nine more states will be added to Europe's Schengen Zone, allowing travel without passport checks across an area that stretches from Portugal in the west to Hungary in the east.

Most of the new countries to the treaty are former communist states; Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Lativa and Estonia. The other new addition is Malta, which will now become the frontier border for illegal immigration from northern Africa.

The UK and Ireland are still hold-outs, having not joined Schengen at all, and while Switzerland and Liechtenstein have joined, they haven't yet implemented the treaty.

The upshot of this is that travellers will no longer have to put up with regular, and often gruff, passport checks as they travel from Germany into Poland or the Czech Republic, or Austria into Slovakia or Hungary. On the downside, passport checks on the eastern borders will probably get worse.

I recall on one trip from Bosnia into Croatia by bus, my passport was checked three times in the space of about 30 minutes; first officers came through, and inspected passports; then another person came through and collected all of the passports and took them into a building, where they were stamped - and then returned, rather haphazardly, by being given to a passenger to hand out. This was followed by more officers coming through to check them again - presumably Croatian police, this time. Annoying, but not too bad, in the general scheme of things. What's been your worst border-control experience?

As of December 9th, it's now much easier to cross Switzerland from north to south, with the opening of a new high speed rail link, in a tunnel through the Alps. Known as the Lötschberg tunnel, it runs from Frutigen to Raron, and will shave off around 30 minutes on trips from Bern to Brig.

International travel will also improve, with six daily trips from Bern/Basel to Milan starting in 2008.

Ever since the September 11 attacks, governments around the world have been slowly making it more and more difficult for travellers to enter their countries. We've previously detailed how the United States and Japan have been treating travellers as if they were criminals, by fingerprinting them upon entry.

Now it's the United Kingdom's turn - everyone who enters the UK for longer than six months will require a biometric visa, which will include their fingerprints. Once again the question must be asked: how does this prevent terror attacks?

Anyone heading to Malta or Cyprus over the new year break should be planning ahead, as on January 1st, 2008, these two countries will be dropping their local currency (the pound and the lira, respectively) and will replace them with the euro.

This will bring the number of countries in the euro zone to fifteen, and will make life much easier for travellers, removing the need to exchange currencies upon entry from other eurozone countries.

Of course, if their experience of the euro switchover is anything like mine was, living in Amsterdam at the time of the 2002 changeover, then prices will rise dramatically.

It's so rare to see an article on the tiny European state of Liechtenstein that I'll forgive the fact that it's mostly about something as dull as winetasting.

Liechtenstein is minute. You could drive in from one side of it and out the other in about ten minutes; you could pass it on the freeway that makes up its entire western border in just twenty minutes, without even knowing that it was there.

Vaduz, the capital city - perhaps town would be a better word for it - has no railway station of its own, the closest being in Schaan, to the north; but given the size of the country, this means it's only about three kilometres away.

Trains run only a few times daily, between Buchs in Switzerland (3 minutes) and Feldkirch in Austria (18 minutes).

I wish I'd known about this, when I was last in Berlin: Alternative Berlin, a series of tours of that give visitors a taste of everyday Berlin, rather than just sights from a guidebook - everything from graffiti to driving Soviet style tanks. The main tour leaves from Alexanderplatz every day at 11am, and they recommend that you have a daily public transport ticket.

Thanks Drew!

After reading this article, which describes an itinerary that will get you from London to Marseilles in six hours, with the newly opened UK high-speed leg of the Eurostar, it made me wonder just where you can get to within six hours, without needing to fly.

Virtually all of Belgium is now within easy reach, taking in the very popular Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp, and of course, Brussels.

London to Amsterdam comes in at five hours and 34 minutes, with a change to an Intercity train at Brussels. Theoretically, the Thalys train on the Brussels to Amsterdam leg should be a little faster than the Intercity service, given it has fewer stops, but it's probably not worth the extra fare.

London to Frankfurt only just overshoots the mark, coming in at six hours and seven minutes, but just once a day: the 14:32 service, changing at Brussels (arrive 17:23. depart 17:59).

Strasbourg comes in at an average of five hours and 45 minutes, with the shortest trip being five hours and thirteen minutes (departs London at 10:30, arrive Paris Nord 13:53 and then stroll across to Paris Est to catch the TGV Est service to Strasbourg at 14:24).

Luxembourg can be reached via either Brussels or Paris, and ranges from five hours 40 minutes to six hours, with ten departures a day.

The area around Cologne, in Germany, is easily reachable in five hours and ten minutes - and two trains a day will get you there in only four hours and 48 minutes, departing London at 6:57 or 10:00 and changing in Brussels).

Lyon, too, with its high speed TGV line, is an easy destination, coming in anywhere between five and six hours, the shortest trip being just four hours and 50 minutes (departing London 11:05).

Sympathy must go to any travellers currently in France or planning to be there in the next day or so, as a strike by rail workers has currently crippled most of the French system.

This has left several lines of the Paris metro not running, and it's estimated that only 90 out of 700 TGV services were still in service. One interesting side-effect of this was the newfound popularity of Paris's free bicycle scheme, in the wake of the strike.

Be warned, however that if you plan to try to avoid the strikes by somehow escaping to Germany, rail workers there are planning to strike on Thursday, also. I would recommend heading for Belgium or Spain, instead...