European Travel Adventures

Head over to the always entertaining Accident Planet for some excellent ship accident photos - don't let them put you off your next ferry cruise!

Shipbeached

An interesting little video on the the best practice for finding food at decent prices in Amsterdam - basically walk around a bit till you find somewhere! Simple as that!

There are Newcastle ferry crossings to Amsterdam daily.

My post today is going to focus on an event a little closer to home for me.

The Barclays Scottish Open Golf

BSO

This year’s Scottish open Golf has once again attracted one of the best line ups in world golf, competing in this year’s highlight - of the European tour are no less than 11 Major Championship winners. This year’s event at Loch Lomond will have a mouth watering list of players who between them have won 23 Major championships from the last 24 years.

A lot of the golfing greats are looking forward to playing two huge competitions in the space of two weeks here at the home of golf in Scotland, with The Open Championship also being played this month at Turnberry . This next fortnight is surely going to be a mouth watering experience for any good golf fan that is lucky enough to be in the area.

Hotels in Loch Lomond are said to be at their busiest this weekend but there is still some rooms available - they are running out fast.  

The ferry has always been a very popular mode of transport, preferred by many countries over more conventional means of transport due to the fact that they are more economical, consume less fuel in comparison to motor vehicles and help  of traffic congestion and also save a great amount of time. but what most ordinary passengers (like ourselves) probably never consider is that there is more than one type of ferry boat!

Each boat is selected by operator dependent on the type of ferry crossings with which is to be used. There are broadly five different types of ferries .....

Docking ferries
Docking ferries are used for docking road and rail cars, with ramps specififcally designed to carry both types of vehicle.The structure that acts as a wave guard can also be lowered and elevated in order to align with the fixed ramps or rails on the ports, thus enabling an easy loading and unloading of vehicles and rail cars.

Catamaran
Scandenavian and European countries have slowly but surely began to use the catamaran extensively for ferry crossings, transporting both, passengers and vehicles. They are large capacity and many of them use waterjet propulsion, and a larger than a Hydrofoil ferry. The Catamaran is a very elegant vessel.

Ro-Ro
Ro Ro ferry boats are designed for transporting cars and other vehicles in an easier, more efficient manner. Cars can be driven to and from ro ro ferries with complete ease.

Cable Ferries
Also reffered to as 'punts' in ceratin countries, cable ferries are steered by cables attatched to the shore.

Hydrofoil boats
Hydrofoil ferries can sale at high speeds, and can even surpass hovercrafts for pace. The English Channel has Hydrofoils wich are on an even par with some trains on the same route - they are a great option for exceptionally busy commuter routes.  

Types of ferry boats

There we go - probably some types of ferries that you had never heard of - possibly you will be lucky enough to travel on each boat in the future.

This May between the 9th and 22nd the Passenger Shipping Association has set up Ferry Fortnight in an effort to encourage ferry travel amongst the general populace. They feel that the UK as an Island nation does not utilise the boat as a mode of transport as much as it should - we are inclined to agree. 

Therefore,  for those of you out there who are uninitiated to the joys of ferry travel now would be a great time to experiment - most of the major ferry operators are offering special deals during this period and we thought that we would outline a few of the best deals around. There are probably hundreds of other great offers available, if you come across any please get in touch and we will update the post.

Ferry Fortnight Offers

• DFDS Seaways - offering cars go free offers on their ferry sailings between Holland and Denmark, as well as two for one offers on Mini Cruises to Amsterdam and Esbjerg in Denmark.
• Irish Ferries - one-third savings for car plus two from £79 one-way on Pembroke-Rosslare until Jul 3 (summer, £99). Book by Jun 30.
• Brittany Ferries -  25 per cent off selected gites, cottages and apartments in France, 20 per cent on casas in Spain (15 per cent on apartments) - free night in a Parador Spain in June and Sep-Dec.
• LD Lines -  is starting a high-speed service between Dover and Boulogne from May 29, with an introductory offer of 2,000 tickets from £27.50 each way for a five-day car and four passengers ticket. Book by May 28, valid until Sep 30. 
• Condor Ferries - return day trips to the Channel Islands from £13.70

Those were our top deals of ferry fortnight - hopefully something there tickles your fancy - enjoy your time on the high seas!

Wind surfing

As everyone else will be praying for a glimmer of sunshine this easter week  the surfers traveling to Brandon Bay will be praying for the exact opposite and will be thriving for some heavy wind and rain com this year’s Brandon Bay surfing event.

The ferries have been reported to be cheap again this year round, and the Cork-Swansea ferry is about 60/40 in favor of still running when the event takes place so their should be no problem in traveling to the event via ferry.  

There could be accommodation available at Jamie Knox’s B&B. 

The continent of Europe is never short of strange and unusual stories to report on. The diversity of the culutres that make up the continent, and the always good-for-a-laugh legal minutae of the European Union often combine to produce a steady stream of weird news. Obviously, being junkies of all things Europe, we like to keep an eye on the latest stories to emerge from this fair continent - here are some of our favourites of recent times:

Map of European lanuagues - There are over 20 languages spoken throughout Europe, this handy map provides a colour-coded guide to what is spoken where.

Languages_of_Europe

Euro chiefs ban 'Miss' and 'Mrs' - the EU strikes again! - this time they want to alter the monikers of every woman in Europe - gotta love these guys, they're truly wacky!

Top European Blogs - a list of Europes top blogs - Germany and Spain dominate.

Top 10 beaches in Europe from The Guardian Travel Section - title says it all really. I haven't been to any of them! (so much for the great traveller) - have you?

Seven abandoned cities and towns of Europe - some truly amazing locations here - check out the Belgain Castle!

Belgium-historical-abandoned-castle

Thats just a few of our best posts of recent years - do you have any other quirky stories to share?

As any travel junkie will tell you, a good travel book is an essential aspect of the pre, post and on-holiday experience. There is an enormous amount of travel literature vying for our attention, and it can be quite a task to seperate the wheat from the chaff. There are however, a few standard books that we consistently refer to no matter what type of trip that we are planning.

There is no need just to stick to 'Travel Guide' style books - as hard as they try it is very difficult to cover an entire city or even country within a couple of hundred travel-friendly pages. Indeed, we have found that it is sometimes better to read books (even fiction) set in a particular country or about an aspect of a countries history in order to get a feel for the culture and environment you may wish to visit, after all inspiration is a vital aspect of any prospective travel experience.

A nicely balanced mixture of reading is what we aim for.

Without further ado, here are some of our favourite books - some are guides and others fall into the 'inspirational' bracket.

Interesting travel story breaking today - budget airline Ryanair have announced plans to scrap check in desks altogether by October 2009. They claim that this will speed up the check in process. Passengers with hand luggage only will check in online and go straight to security, whilst luggage carriers will go to the designated Ryanair 'Drop-Desks' -  We largely welcome this idea, there's nothing quite as annoying as a check in queue jumper!

Stena

Truck crashes through ferry door mid transit

Passengers described when they where just getting comfortable on there Ferry to Belfast from Stranrar that they heard a loud bang just as the ferry started to pick up speed, when the passengers ran to the back of the ferry to investigate they discovered a large truck hanging half-in, half-out of the ferry's rear doors, more than 30ft above the sea below.

A spokesman said that all vehicles are secured by staff and apparently this was done so by the crew on shift, Investigators were looking into the cause of the accident on the ferry that trapped up-to 200 travelers on board the vessel overnight. 

There was no injuries reported after the or during the accident and the vehicle was not carrying any hazardous material that would have polluted the see.

An investigation was launched by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch that will likely take 3 months just to decide if the incident is serious enough to mount a full report into the accident. There will also be an ins

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investigation by the police to see if there was any foul play leading to the accident.