Last Carriage

If you're heading to Germany this summer, and are looking for some offbeat attractions, you might be interested in Gridskipper's guide to the Seven wonders of Berlin.

Amsterdam is a particularly popular city for travellers, not least for its thriving nightlife and beautiful historic centre. But along with the throngs of visitors come high prices, and if not adequately prepared, the unsuspecting traveller can find themselves spending considerably more money than they had intended to.

With a bit of planning, however, it's possible spend time in Amsterdam without blowing a fortune - or, at the very least, being able to save your money during the day so that you can party hard at night, if that takes your fancy. This guide tells you how.

Fairfax Media NZ investigates Helsinki, to find out why Finns are so good at design.

Many visitors to Denmark spend much of their time in the capital, Copenhagen, but see little or nothing of Zealand, the island on which it resides.

The Irish Independent travels through Soro, Slagelse and Korsor as it investigates what the island has to offer. Surprisingly, however, they didn't mention the highlight of a visit to Slagelse: the nearby remnants of a Viking fortress, Trelleborg (reconstructed Viking-era building, pictured left).

To get to Trelleborg, from Slagelse, catch bus 312 from the railway station.

It's the city where cinema began, it was the heart of the French Resistance during World War II, and it was the capital of Roman Gaul. Where is it? The Independent visits Lyon.

In the first of a series of articles on northern Germany, The Toronto Star visits a Ballhaus in Berlin, a city in a constant state of change.

The New Zealand Herald investigates the Cappadocia National Park, in central Turkey, a landscape formed when a volcano erupted millions of years ago, and explores the underground city of Kaymakli.

South Africa's Mail & Guardian newspaper writes that Singapore is trying to move away from electronics exports as its primary means of income, and instead is branching out into tourism, opening up casinos and snaffling rights to the Formula One Grand Prix. Many of its residents, however, aren't all that happy about this...

The Times has a guide to some of the many hotels in the historic Croatian city of Dubrovnik.

Next Sunday (June 10th, 2007) marks the opening of the new eastern TGV high speed railway line, that will provide fast rail connections from Paris and Strasbourg to Basel, Zurich, Frankfurt and Stuttgart. As The Guardian explains, this is likely to open up much of southern Germany and eastern Switzerland to rail tourism.

The services to Germany will be operated by a new company named Alleo, as reported by Marcel Marchon of trainblog.com, whilst services to Switzerland will be run by TGV Lyria.

In The Know Traveller reports that prices from Paris to Basel, one way, will be a hefty US$128.

Meanwhile, The Independent provides the Complete Guide to Switzerland in style.

Newcomers to London are often shocked at the price of accomodation. A single room in a three-star hotel could easily set you back £100 - or more. The Independent gives a rundown of the five best budget accomodation options" that London has to offer.

The Guardian spends 48 hours in Ålesund, Norway

"The town is set on a fish-hook shaped peninsula more or less midway between Bergen and Trondheim. Bound by the sea and the impressive Sunnmore mountains, the main part of Aalesund occupies a narrow tongue of land while residential neighbourhoods have spilled on to outlying islands"

Recent blog posts on Alesund:

• Hurtigruten - Floro, Maloy, Torvik, Alesund, Geiranger, Molde

Budget Travel Online has a series of budget travel guides to Europe; here, they provide some suggestions for a day trip to Utrecht, in The Netherlands.

"Ignoring the tacky 70s mall that houses the Utrecht train station, press through the narrow medieval streets to the Oudegracht, the "old canal," dug around a thousand years ago. It's lined with bookshops and restaurants with terraces directly on the water."

The New York Times spends a weekend in Florence, and finds art, religion ... and food.

Florence is just an hour and a half away from Rome on the Eurostar Italia, so if you're looking to get away from the constant noise and traffic of Italy's capital, it might be a good choice.

While you're there, consider a day trip to Pisa.

Recent blog posts on Florence:

• Hungry Potato


• Viator Travel Blog