continents

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!

I've previously noted that the United States is treating tourists as if they were criminals, and now it appears that this practice is now spreading further, with Japan set to require foreign tourists to be fingerprinted and photographed upon entry.

While it is hard to see how this will help one iota to reduce terrorism (especially given that the only terrorist attacks upon Japan have come from within), it's clear that such measures result in a drop in tourist numbers, as travellers find there are more convenient places to enjoy.

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...

After ten years of work, London's history St Pancras railway station has been restored to its former glory, and reopened by Queen Elizabeth, in a ceremony on Tuesday.

Passenger services from St Pancras International, which previously went to the rather unimpressive Waterloo International station, will begin on November 14th, to Paris (two hours, fifteen minutes) and Brussels (one hour and 51 minutes).

Pictures from the BBC.

One of the many certainties of travel is that a trip to Rome or Venice will have you negotiating your way through crowds of other travellers, competing with them for accomodation and queueing behind them to enter museums and other historic attractions. This is to be expected, of course, given the world-renowned status of these cities.

After a while, however, the throngs of people wear you down, and the sheer business of tourism takes much of the authenticity away from these cities. Is it possible to see a piece of historic Italy without having to share it with thousands of other alien invaders like yourself?

Perhaps it might be worth putting Genoa on your itinerary, and bypassing the larger towns, as recommended in this article.

Located on the Italian Riveria, not far from the French border, Genoa has a history old city, parts of which are recognised on the UNESCO World Heritage List. With a population of only around 600000, it is not a large city by world standards, and doesn't get anywhere near the amount of tourist traffic seen by its more popular Italian siblings, which makes it ideal for a relaxing trip.

Genoa is served by several InterCity rail routes: Milan (1.5 hours), Turin (1 hour 50 minutes), Florence/Pisa (3:20/2:10), and also by international trains from Nice (3 hours) and Zurich (6.5 hours). Additionally, there are overnight services to Naples and Palermo.

One of my favourite TV travel documentary series has been that put together over the last two decades by former Monty Python member, Michael Palin. In fact, it was probably his documentaries that first sparked my interest in travel, as there were few other travel shows on television here in Australia, at the time, that showed off-beat and hard-to-get to destinations. Amongst many other countries, Palin did a marvellous job of opening up Russia to the world, in his programs, as it was just starting to emerge from decades of isolation from the West.

Now Palin has turned his sights on somewhere a little closer to home - in his latest documentary, New Europe, he explores Eastern Europe, visiting some the new members of the EU as well as some prospective members.





The show is currently screening on the BBC in the UK, and will be shown in November, on TV ONE in New Zealand. No word on when it will be shown and who will show it in Australia, the US or Canada.

There's an interview with Michael Palin on stuff.co.nz here.

The series has an accompanying book of the same name (see advertisement above).

Germany is well-known for some of its historic cities that look like they're straight out of a fairytale, and Lübeck, the former capital of the Hanseatic League, certainly falls into this category. If you're a medieval-architecture aficionado, you'll be in your element here, with three areas listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The old city area is situated on an island in the middle of the river Trave. The town is famous for the towers that form one of its two remaining city gates, the Holstentor, located in the west of the city and likely to be the first landmark you see if you arrive by train.

Other famous sights include the Marienkirche, the imposing 14th-century Gothic-style cathedral - the third largest church in Germany; the Heiligen-Geist Hospital, a medieval almshouse; the Burgtor, the Castle Gate to the north of the city; and the 13th century town-hall in the centre of the city.

Lübeck has two youth hostels: the Altstadt hostel, located in the old city, about ten minutes walk from the railway station (84 beds, €17,10 per night), and Vor dem Burgtor, located at the north end of the city (211 beds, €16,00 per night).

There's an hourly Regionalexpress rail service from Hamburg (50 minutes), and also from Kiel (one hour and twelve minutes), so Lübeck can make an ideal day trip from either of those two locations. Lübeck is also served by the rail/ferry service to Copenhagen, Denmark (four hours), via Puttgarden, and hence makes a worthy stop on a trip to Scandinavia.

Germany's most famous festival is on again in Munich and if you happen to be in the vicinity, I thoroughly recommend making a visit. For the uninitiated, it's a two week fiesta of food, socialising, fair-ground rides and of course, beer.

I was last there three years ago, arriving on the opening purely by chance, on my way back from a three week trip around the Balkans. It's well worth dropping by, just to experience some of the wonderful Bavarian food.

Much has been made of the dearth of available accomodation without booking in advance, but I found that I was able to get into a reasonable priced hotel quite easily, just by looking on the net from an internet cafe opposite Munich's main railway station. Even if it does prove problematic, Munich is served by a great public transport network, so staying in surrounding towns on the outskirts (for example Dachau) is always an option.

Jasmina Tešanović is a Serbian filmmaker and writer who became known worldwide when her diaries written during the 1999 war in Kosovo were distributed on the Internet. She has written some excellent articles on countries that were part of what was formerly known as Yugoslavia, and this month has been writing about South Korea.

Link: via BoingBoing

Continuing the theme we started last week with our look at Venice, we'll do a round-up of the various articles on Italy that have been cropping up in the print media over the last few weeks. The Melbourne Age has no fewer that four stories on Italy this month, starting with a look at cycling through the hills of Tuscany, moving to the other end of the country to try out some of Sicily's delicacies and then heading north to a health resort on Lake Garda.

And if that wasn't enough for you, consider having a look at the new couples obsession in Rome: chaining padlocks to metal posts on Ponte Milvio.

The New York Times checks out the sulfur baths near Viterbo, and later visits Sardinia's port city of Cagliari. Returning to Tuscany, we have two articles, one from Canada's Globe and Mail and the other from the UK's Independent.

In the blogosphere, the Vancouver Sun has been tracking the progress of Stephanie, in Me and my Euro Summer; her Italy coverage starts at day 29, in Florence. Episode 102 of the Amateur Traveller podcast focuses on the Cinque terra and Lake Como.

To round things off, there's a wonderful photo of Vernazza, from the Why Go blog.

I've just emerged from a three-hour trip from Melbourne to the north-eastern Victoria. It's ski season, here in the high-country, and being a Friday evening, the bus was packed to the brim with skiers planning a weekend at Mt Buller.

Bus travel is generally unpleasant even at the best of times. The best someone can hope for is that the trip is short, that it isn't crowded and that the bus-driver doesn't decide to put on a blaring video to keep passengers amused.

Alas, it wasn't to be. The person sitting next to me fell asleep and his head crashed onto my shoulder every few minutes, for the first half of the journey and the driver decided to turn up the heating to sauna levels, until someone pleaded with him to turn it down.

I've long been of the mind that travel isn't just about being somewhere; half the fun is getting there, too. Bus travel kills this notion. There's just nothing to enjoy about being crowded into a seat with no leg room, whilst dealing with the smell of your fellow passengers and the cleaning chemicals from the tiny toilet at the back of the vehicle and worrying about your luggage being stolen from the underneath compartment at stops along the route.

The sad part of this is that thirty years ago, there was a railway line from Melbourne to this area, but unfortunately, it was removed by a shortsighted government for minor economic gain. With the number of people coming to the area to ski now, the line would make a very welcome alternative to a pretty horrible bus journey.

The Sydney Morning Herald has a good article on Herculaneum the ancient Roman city which was, like Pompeii, was destroyed in the 79AD eruption of Mr Vesuvias.

Herculaneum is on Line 1 of the Circumvesuviana metropolitan railway between Naples and Sorrento. The journey takes approximately 20 minutes from Naples, and 50 minutes from Sorrento.

The Guardian has an article on Croatia's island of Hvar, one of Europe's up and coming party destinations. While many may well be justified in considering this a good reason to avoid it, the article points out that it is a long way from being Ibiza, at this point in time...

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