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Holidays without air travel
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brian


Posts: 2,002
Joined: Apr 2005
Post: #1
19-08-2008 02:10 PM

Not a great one for air travel myself , seems a nightmare. What is wrong with Bogner Regis?
Would be interested to see reply

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Andy


Posts: 57
Joined: Feb 2005
Post: #2
19-08-2008 02:31 PM

I think What's wrong with Bognor Regis probably deserves a thread all of it's own.

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jon14


Posts: 145
Joined: Sep 2007
Post: #3
19-08-2008 02:37 PM

Quote:
I think What's wrong with Bognor Regis probably deserves a thread all of it's own.


Ah, Andy - that's a bit harsh - Bognor's a great place if you want a base from which to visit lots of nice places........no?

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brian


Posts: 2,002
Joined: Apr 2005
Post: #4
19-08-2008 03:12 PM

I agree Bognor Regis not everybodies cup of tea , even George the fifth said b****r Bogner.
Seriously though air travel far to cheap. Should be a luxury.

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Applespider


Posts: 285
Joined: Feb 2006
Post: #5
19-08-2008 04:22 PM

I like flying and fly reasonably frequently - usually up and down to Scotland to visit family for weekend trips but other holidays too. I've done some UK trips but, to be honest, as a single or when travelling with friends, it can work out far more expensive with less guarantee of weather/friendliness/change than going abroad to widen horizons and visit overseas pals.

I take the train to Scotland for longer breaks but it just doesn't work as well for weekend trips - I tried it again recently and it was the worst trip north/home in years.

The flight is about the same price if you book at the equivalent times - but I don't have to leave work early and I arrive in Scotland earlier on the Friday evening. On the Sunday, I can leave Mum's after having an evening meal and be home by 11ish. The last time I caught the train, I left 90 minutes earlier and got home at 2am.

Not to mention that you end up travelling over mealtimes and the buffet cars/restaurant cars aren't always open (or have much other than a toastie in them). I appreciate you can take your own but the National Express East Coast have a 'meal' service that only runs from 1-4pm which seems a little ridiculous. Not particularly useful on a train where everyone is coming from the office on a Friday night and will be on the train til after 11pm.

I don't own a car so take public transport/walk most places and I pay the carbon offset fee on the flight so don't feel horribly guilty about preferring the convenience.

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fany9560


Posts: 24
Joined: Nov 2007
Post: #6
19-08-2008 04:34 PM

I am planning to visit friends in Scotland next month and have previously tried train and flying - downside to both. I don't like being restricted on how much bagge I can take flying, but it is quicker than the train. The train would be fine if I had a seat to myself in a quiet carriage but of course you can never guarantee anything!

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Cellar Door


Posts: 356
Joined: Oct 2007
Post: #7
19-08-2008 06:06 PM

Brian wrote:
I agree Bognor Regis not everybodies cup of tea , even George the fifth said ***** Bogner.

If Bognor Regis isn't your thing like it appears that it wasn't for George the Fifth, then, like me, you could head to the continent without needing to put thousands of feet between you and the planet.

I should get to Bognor Regis. Never been. I see that it's on the coast so that's good. I love coastal Great British places from Broadstairs to Blackpool. I love chips and donuts and most of them do a fine service in both.

My favourite jaunts of the last few years have been to the Normandy coastline where the D-Day beaches are. They run from the west of Caen. I love the town of Arromanches-les-Bains. I am a keen history fan relating to the events that culminated in the invasion that was code named Operation Overload.

D-Day is J-Jour in French. I never knew that growing up and it still makes me half smile. Especially when I say it in my ?Allo ?Allo style of French accent. "Good Moaning".

The trip by train from Forest Hill to the southern coast and then aboard the overnight ferry are the slow way to go. And you can feel like you've started your journey as you soon as you board the train at platform 2. I don't get this feeling usually when I used to fly.

Ah, the cabins on the ferry. Please indulge me this moment of reverie for just a minute more. The cabins with your own shower and dunny (a great Australian term?). Then falling asleep on the gently rocking ship. After a dawn breakfast we slide into the French dock and then it's on my pushbike to ride along the coastline. And then a night in a little Norman B&B at Arromanches-les-Bains. Drinking local wine while gazing across the channel to some islands that William the Conquerer would come to call his own by the time 1066 had come to an end.

It still amazes me as someone that grew up on the far side of the world that all this difference (the food, the drink, the language) is only just over there (waving my hand towards the south).

This weekend relaxing away can be done cheaply. Around ?100, if you book ahead, including all transport and accommodation costs.

Could anyone else pass on their hot tips of trips sans plane?

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Sherwood


Posts: 1,412
Joined: Mar 2005
Post: #8
19-08-2008 08:02 PM

You can reserve train seats with Virgin trains. Presumably, you can choose a quiet carriage.

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Applespider


Posts: 285
Joined: Feb 2006
Post: #9
19-08-2008 08:22 PM

I get the train at Christmas - precisely for the baggage reason as it means there are less restrictions on gifts and less likelihood of damage.

If you book far enough ahead, you can get a first class advance ticket for around ?65 which gets you free tea/coffee/biscuits brought around to you, a steward to order things from the buffet and a guaranteed seat in first class - which is a little more spacious and less noisy than standard - particularly on those busy trains where there are more people standing along the aisles in standard class than sitting down.

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shzl400


Posts: 729
Joined: Oct 2007
Post: #10
20-08-2008 09:13 AM

Cellar Door - you sure you didn't mean to post on the Duffing thread? Laugh

We spent a week in East Yorkshire/North York Moors earlier this summer at two differrent farm B&Bs. Still recovering from the huge breakfasts! Lots to see and do for kids and walking is free.

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Cellar Door


Posts: 356
Joined: Oct 2007
Post: #11
20-08-2008 10:42 AM

shzl400 wrote:
Cellar Door - you sure you didn't mean to post on the Duffing thread?

Well observed, shzl400. Admin could cut all of my posts in this entire forum and paste them into the Duffing thread without anyone noticing anything amiss.

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PVP


Posts: 271
Joined: Mar 2005
Post: #12
20-08-2008 11:03 AM

1000 things you never really wanted to know about Bognor...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bognor_Regis

The King was rather fond of the place apparently, hence the Regis.

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fany9560


Posts: 24
Joined: Nov 2007
Post: #13
20-08-2008 03:40 PM

Cellasrdorr - which ferry route did you do lpease? that trip sounds just what I am looking for, a few days on the cheap in Normandy. I went once before but missed a lot of museums due to time contraints

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Cellar Door


Posts: 356
Joined: Oct 2007
Post: #14
20-08-2008 08:28 PM

Hi Fany9560, go to Brittany Ferries.

You can get return weekend tickets with a cabin for October for as little as ?60 right now. That?s the foot passenger price (with a bicycle).

My favourite of the ferries is the Normandie.

I hope that I can inspire you to go, if you didn?t before, to Abbaye aux Hommes in Caen to see what's left of King William I of England (aka William the Conqueror). The story of his entombment there is so undignified. It involved the funeral procession catching fire! Then various factions squabbling over the rotting, smoking corpse. It now holds only what?s left, which I think is just a charred thighbone.

Caen's not a big draw even though it's got the Abbey and the Castle.

The castle was built by William the Conqueror in around 1060. It is majestically preserved. It's where you'll find the Mus?e des Beaux-Arts, with one of the premier collections of European art. If you missed that before, then please put it on your list.

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michael


Posts: 3,255
Joined: Mar 2005
Post: #15
20-08-2008 08:54 PM

Can I recommend cruises from Newcastle to Norway (Bergen and beyond). The cost of the trip is actually quite cheap, but I can't remember how much. The real cost comes from meals on board the boat and everything being very expensive in Norway.

Anyway, I'm flying off to Tenerife (unless you are a burglar, in which case I'm sitting at home with my shotgun).

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Theotherbrian


Posts: 95
Joined: Mar 2005
Post: #16
23-08-2008 06:03 PM

I recently spent a long weekend near Narbonne in the South of France. London to Narbonne return was a dream by train. Eurostar to Paris, an easy transfer on the RER between Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon and 300kph all the way on the TGV. I didn't book more than a month in advance and still got good deals. Go to http://www.tgv.com, click on France on the map and choose English (if you click on the UK, you get transferred to Rail Europe, which isn't as good). I got first class both ways for ?106, which added to a first class journey back on Eurostar with a meal and a litre of red all added up to a far more civilsed and green alternative to SleazyJet or Ryan Unfair. I would heartily recommend it.
It's a shame that our overpriced and chaotic privatised rail companies weren't run by SNCF, NMBS, D Bahn, NS or any of our mainland European neighbours. However, we seem in the grip of a collective political madness of public bad, private good. Hey-ho!

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Cellar Door


Posts: 356
Joined: Oct 2007
Post: #17
23-08-2008 07:02 PM

Theotherbrian,

You sound like an appreciator of train travel. Thank you the tip-off about clicking on France on the map. I also find Rail Europe a little lacking.

I travelled in 1999 to Barcelona and then onto Venice by train. I managed to go mostly at night over a week so that I got the sleeper services. From Barcelona to Milano the train tracks up into the Alps and then descends via Switzerland and glides past the Italian Lakes. It was at this point that I woke up at dawn and pulling the blinds up in my cabin was greeted with the snowy Swiss/Italian Alps. It was blindingly good. I could hear angels singing.

I had enough time to eat a silver service breakfast (included in the fare) in a half empty train before arriving in Milan to spend the morning before heading onwards for the last little bit to Venice.

I think the Barcelona to Milano bit was a little less than EURO 150. When the x-rate was about GBP1 = EURO 1.50. Not too bad for first-class cabin accommodation with ensuite, dinner (5 courses, no less), brekkie, and transport. This is travel.

Trains, huh? The love runs in my family. My folks have recently done the 4,000 kilometre, 2 or 3 (I can't remember exactly) night trip from Perth to Sydney on the Indian Pacific. For these two Octogenarians this is the pinnacle of easy travel. My father can barely walk now-a-days and this got him out and about on land. They usually are cruising on big ships around the South China Sea or the West and South Pacific. They live in Perth so it's relatively cheap for them to do that.

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davidwhiting


Posts: 80
Joined: Dec 2003
Post: #18
25-08-2008 11:18 AM

We've done the India Pacific in the other direction - an amazing trip.

You can get anywhere in Europe by rail, and not always much more expensive than budget airlines. For example, I visit Germany about twice a year by train - Cologne in 5 hours for ?70 or so return and so on.

If you want to find out about travel by the train, the best web source is http://www.seat61.com, a brilliant site run by a former railwaymanl which wins awards every year. Not only is it full of good advice about how to travel by train to European destinations, including train times, and some useful little wrinkles about how to book tickets at good prices, it also shows how to make it overland to East Asia and India. The snag is the trip seems to take about two weeks - having said which, it takes me about 4 weeks to recover from a long haul flight!

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brian


Posts: 2,002
Joined: Apr 2005
Post: #19
05-05-2009 08:15 PM

Must admit I was amazed so many British people holiday in Mexico. Obviously some people thriving in the recession. Why cannot some of them holiday in the United Kingdom and help our holiday industry.

Not really meant to be a dig at HMG it is my weird humour. Often vote for Labour.

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Londondrz


Posts: 1,538
Joined: Apr 2006
Post: #20
06-05-2009 08:38 AM

Brian, when I got married the wife and I decided to honeymoon in Scotland as apposed to going to South Africa to save money. It ended up costing us far more to holiday in England. If people have the means to go abroad why shouldnt they?

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