Hindsight, coupled with being in the happy position of having to operate nothing more complicated than this keyboard, makes it easy to pontificate on how Eurostar could or should have handled the chaos following the train failure and the three-day closure of the link between western Europe's two biggest cities.

Given that travellers were aiming for places barely 200 miles away, could the train operator not have snapped up every spare motor coach in southern England ( Read more... )
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Over the coming year there are plenty more inspirational opportunities for travellers ? from a total eclipse in one of the world's most beautiful islands, to the once-in-a-decade chance to attend the Oberammagau Passion Play. Your year of living dreamily starts here.

JANUARY

First, we take Berlin. The New Year's Run in the German capital is the ideal way to fulfil your resolution to keep fit, with a 4km jog that starts at the Brandenburg Gate and leads ( Read more... )
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In the northern hemisphere, the snowsports "year" starts in mid-October, when the bulk of holiday bookings are traditionally made, and ends in mid-April, when the snow begins its annual migration to the Arctic or across the equator to the mountains of the southern hemisphere. It is rare for skiers and boarders to refer to a single calender year; rather, they remember ? and look forward to ? pairs of years coupled together. For example, in a discussion of seasons which started badly reference will ( Read more... )
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Angsana Riads Collection Morocco

£3,432: Riad Aida, Medina. Includes exclusive hire of the riad (which sleeps 13) with breakfast and mint tea throughout the day; flights are not included. "Angsana Riads Collection boasts six distinctive traditional Moroccan riads, each with its own character and unique features. The unique and private setting of each is perfect for hosting groups for special occasions. The price also includes a 10 per cent discount," says Angsana's ( Read more... )
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The steamer stopped briefly at Isola Madre, with its Mediterranean garden; at charming Baveno; at Pescatori, tiny island of fishermen; and at Isola Bella, with its baroque palace and garden. But we were not getting off.

At Stresa we went straight to the public library, but about Captain McEacharn there was nothing. 'You should try England,' we were told.

We learnt at the hotel that McEacharn came from Galloway. But apart from this, and despite another visit to his beautiful gardens, ( Read more... )
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The Ryanair plane came to a halt on grass, just 30 yards from Glasgow Prestwick airport's perimeter fence and the A79 dual carriageway.

Relieved passengers praised the pilot for managing to avert a major accident.

No one was injured but the runway had to be closed while engineers recovered the stricken plane from the field.

The drama happened shortly after 9am as the Dublin flight headed towards the terminal building in freezing temperatures. ( Read more... )
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It is as though the travel gods had selected key easyJet bases for special punishment: Geneva, Milan Malpensa, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Madrid, Gatwick and Luton have all suffered extreme weather that wrecked schedules and led to hundreds of flight cancellations.

The financial cost of the wintry snap will run into tens of millions for easyJet and the other main corporate "victim" of the cold snap, Eurostar. In the short term, they must refund peak-season fares to those ( Read more... )
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The new rules, due to come into effect in March 2010, will require US airlines to disembark passengers if the plane spends more than three hours on the ground. In a recent case in Minnesota, passengers on board a Continental Airlines flight were forced to spend six hours waiting to disembark after landing, turning the two-and-a-half hour Houston-Minneapolis flight into a nine-hour marathon. In February 2007, a JetBlue flight from New York to Cancun was delayed on the tarmac for nine hours during ( Read more... )
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Dunkirk

The northernmost town in France is home to 200,000 people, some dramatic creations at the Contemporary Art Museum, and perhaps the best moules frites in France. It also has a superb beach (Dunkirk is a Flemish name, meaning the church on the dunes) which offers easy access to picturesque towns such as Bergues, France?s uncrowded alternative to Bruges. Yet many British travellers know of it only because of the evacuation of 300,000 servicemen in 1940. ( Read more... )
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Warning of the week: Tube and bus fares to rise in London

From 2 January, bus, tube and tram fares in London will increase. For travellers, the cash price of a one-way ticket between the centre and Heathrow airport rises from £4 to £4.50.

Single fares for a short trip in Zone 1, the central area, remain at £4. Almost any visitor will be better off investing in a pay-as-you-go Oyster stored-value card, for example through the Transport for London online shop: ( Read more... )
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Next year could also see a rise in "volunturism" where travellers elect to do volunteer work overseas, the report from travel organisation Abta said.

The football World Cup is likely to lead to an increase in trips to South Africa, while new films and books are set to spark holiday destination ideas, the report said.

Among the movies likely to lead to a tourism boom in a particular area is Twilight Saga: New Moon which is set in the American state ( Read more... )
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The Sapsan, a red and grey train with a price tag of hundreds of millions of euros, set off from Moscow's Leningrad station at 7:00 pm (1600 GMT) on its first commercial run.

It will carry around 600 passengers between Russia's two biggest cities in three hours 45 minutes, faster than the four-and-a-half hours the journey took before.

Built by German firm Siemens, the Sapsan - which means peregrine falcon in Russian - will travel at speeds of up to 250 kilometres per hour (155 mph) ( Read more... )
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The ARIA Resort and Casino includes 568 suites, 16 restaurants, nine bars, 1,940 slot machines and 13,935 square meters (150,000 square feet) of gaming space. It is the ninth largest hotel in the world by room count, adding 4,004 rooms to the already competitive Las Vegas market. Room rates in the city averaged a record low of $84 (?58) a night in 2009, down from $115 (?80) in 2008, according to online booking site Orbitz.com.

Nevertheless, the partners behind the venture, MGM Mirage and ( Read more... )
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It's hard, however, to escape a rather visceral connection to slaughter in Fez's beautiful medina. It is traditional that every family should have a sheep for the festival, kept at home and then butchered. There are sheep in carts, sheep being dragged by their horns, sheep on people's backs, a sheep that emerges from the boot of a Mercedes. This is Morocco's most religious city, and they commemorate Abraham's willingness to kill his son with gusto.

Excited kids skip down ( Read more... )
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Further south on this coast, The Crane (thecrane.com) has added a "village" of boutiques and restaurants to its 202 luxurious suites and rooms. On the south coast at St Lawrence Gap, the all-inclusive Almond Casuarina Beach Resort (almondresorts.com) has had a revamp, adding 95 sea-facing rooms and a shorefront pool.

The activities

Any self-respecting surfer should try their luck in the Soup Bowl off the east coast at Bathsheba. This world-class ( Read more... )
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Queues snaked halfway down the Terminal 2 building as several hundred people attempted to get onto alternative flights after a spate of cancellations due to heavy snow and ice.

One angry woman confronted the airport's managing director about her lengthy wait to visit her son in the Philippines.

Bridget Fogg, 50, of Bolton, told airport chief Andrew Cornish that she had been in the queue at the KLM ticket desk since 4am and had still not reached ( Read more... )
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The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) today concluded "with the greatest reluctance" that a claim by BAA of "apparent bias" in the CC decision was successful.

However, BAA's appeal on the grounds that the CC had not properly taken into account the effects the recession would have on the sale of the airports failed today.

BAA had challenged the legality of the CC decision to make it sell Gatwick and Stansted airports as ( Read more... )
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The Copenhagen Wheel is one of many initiatives created to help the city of Copenhagen achieve its goal of becoming the first carbon neutral capital in the world by 2025.

The wheel was presented to government officials at the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change on December 15, 2009.

The Copenhagen Wheel transforms ordinary bikes into hybrid e-bikes that can provide their rider with an extra power boost in the tough parts of their ride. Energy from braking is stored inside the purposely ( Read more... )
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Thousands of people using the high-speed service between London, Paris and Brussels have had their travel plans disrupted after the trains ground to a halt during the severe weather.

The big freeze has also disrupted flights from some airports and people travelling to and from the US have faced further delays because of heavy snow there.

Eurostar said last night that engineers had identified the problem, which left more than 2,000 passengers trapped in the Channel ( Read more... )
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7 LOVE PARADE, SANTIAGO, CHILE The Love Parade in the Chilean capital is reputedly the world's largest electronic dance festival. The 4km-long street party starts in the centre of Santiago at noon, and the beats go on until dawn.

Information: Love Parade (www.loveparade.cl); Chile Tourist Department (020-7580 6392; www.sernatur.cl).

Got to be there: no direct flights from the UK; ( Read more... )
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