Today only, Ryanair is offering a serious fare sale. 150,000 fares on flights during the last three weeks of January are going for €1/£1 apiece.

There are restrictions, of course. This fare is only available between mid-day Monday and mid-day Thursday, and not on all routes. The promotion ends at midnight, so there isn’t time to check fares and availability to see how many cheap fares actually turn up. We’re going to trust that the fares are there and encourage readers to try to find them.

A partial list of covered routes can be found here (in PDF format.)

A few food-related articles and posts that have caught our eye over the last few days…

1. Kevin Gould’s “Eat like a local…” Budapest feature in last Saturday’s Guardian. Mmmm, coffee and cake, and lots of it.

2. In the Telegraph, Gill Charlton’s guide to Naples, with its mention of ultracheap, ultradelicious pizzeria Vesi.

3. David Lebovitz’s France archive.

4. Nordljus’s riveting images of Istanbul, many of which are of things to eat.

Olivia Giovetti, who, among other things, once wrote a fab set of Wandering Cheapo posts on Prague for this very blog, recently launched a brilliant blog of her own. High Culture on a Low Budget is a breathlessly plugged-in guide to finding high cultural treats on the cheap.

The first slate of posts covers Riga, London, Paris, Prague, Vienna, Geneva, Budapest, and Bolzano—a lovely mix of tried-and-true and less well known destinations. There’s opera. There are museums. There’s a Christkindlmarkt. There are tips for getting into world-class performances for far less than you’ll spend on your budget hotel.

In short, High Culture on a Low Budget is ideal for culture vultures who don’t have deep pockets. And in addition to being outstandingly useable, it’s erudite and fresh.

We can’t wait to see what she’ll come up with next…

Emma Clarke, the ubiquitous voice behind “Mind the Gap” and “Stand clear of the closing doors” in London’s Underground, has been fired by the Tube, according to news reports published in London today.

The sacking of Emma took place because the voice-over professional published a number of quite funny faux-announcements on her personal website (which is now so popular that it has become almost impossible to access). These spoof recordings poke fun at perverts, Americans, and the Tube itself.

Some examples:

“We would like to remind our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loudly.”

“Would the passenger in the red shirt pretending to read the paper but who is actually staring at that woman’s chest please stop. You are not fooling anyone, you filthy pervert.”

The 36-year old Clarke also admits to never riding the Tube anymore, because it’s “dreadful.” In the words of the Times of London, it looks like it’s “the end of the line” for Ms Clarke.

Perhaps she might try “Mind the Gaffe”?

Alas, we’ve returned from our patriotic turkey festivity to find, with great relief and thanks, that France’s rail strike has ended.

The strike that derailed commutes and clogged highways ended on Friday, after nine days of severely limited national, regional, and local public transportation services. The Herald Tribune reported Friday that only 2 percent of workers were still out, and that trains were running close to or on schedule.

High level (read: presidential) negotiations helped get the workers back on board, but negotiations between the unions and rail official continue today (Monday).

Thus, dear reader, ends our daily rail strike update. Indeed, another reason for giving thanks.

Europe has its fair share of those little tiddler states – you know the ones, territories like San Marino, Monaco and Liechtenstein which, if you cut a decent pace, you can walk across in a day.

Vatican City is the tiniest of the bunch. You can stride from one end of this theocratic state to the other in the time it takes to mumble two Hail Marys. In addition to those well known microstates, there are places like the Faroes, the Åland Islands and the Bailiwick of Guernsey which function to all intents and purposes as independent states while retaining a nominal political link to another entity. Then there are the places that aspire towards independence, but whose secessionist aspirations have not yet been internationally recognised: Abkhazia, Transdniestr and – certainly one to watch in the weeks ahead – Kosovo.

Oddest of the bunch is surely Sealand, an upstart self-styled principality on an abandoned sea fort in the North Sea. No-one really takes Sealand seriously, except for the retired British army officer who ‘occupied’ this unprepossessing lump of concrete in 1967. He and his family (all now royals of course) really assert Sealand’s right to independence, and in this fortieth anniversary year of Sealand life, devoted (or gullible) fans of Europe’s quirkiest polity can purchase souvenir mugs and T-shirts.

Last year life on the offshore statelet took a turn for the worse when a fire in a generator room destroyed what few home comforts Sealand ever possessed. Unsurprisingly, the Sealand Royal Family are minded to quit and return to the English mainland. So Sealand is up for sale. If you have 750 million euros to spare, now is the chance to splash out and buy your own (presumably slightly singed) statelet.

This is the six in a series of fortnightly blog posts by the editors of hidden europe.

The transportation workers’ strike that has halted much of France’s local, regional, and national rail transportation entered its seventh day on Tuesday, as protesters and their supporters took to the streets. Today’s developments:

On Tuesday, about half of the countries TGV trains were running. Eurostar service to London was normal. The International Herald Tribune reports that Paris Metro and bus service gradually improved during the day, with two Metro lines shut down entirely and less than half of buses running.

For Wednesday, Paris transportation officials expect one-fourth of the Paris Metro lines to be in operation. One-half of buses are expected to run, and they expect wide disruptions on regional and suburban lines.

According to France24, one-third of France’s civil servants were on strike on Tuesday. The growing list of strikers includes rail workers, teachers (elementary and high school), opera employees, newspaper printers, and postal workers.

The New York Times reports that fewer railway employees (both SNCF and Paris’ public transportation system, RATP) skipped work on Wednesday, with only about 30% calling in absent (down from 61.5% last week).

After keeping quiet for one week on the matter, President Sarkozy addressed the matter at a meeting with mayors on Tuesday, urging the workers to go back to work. Sarkozy is set to meet with union officials on Wednesday.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, was in town yesterday and it wasn’t just to swing by EuroCheapo’s HQ for a cup of joe (where’s the love Jeff? Next time.) Rather, he officially launched an e-book reader called “Kindle” that lets users download bestselling books for $9.99 and is apparently easier to use and better designed than other electronic readers currently on the market.

It took Amazon three years to develop the reader, which is either a sign of intense dedication or a little too much YouTubin’ distraction, but we’ll give them three cheers for bringing this product to market. After all, this little reader could be a blessing to travelers, allowing us to travel with all of our favorite books with minimal effort.

Kindle Pros: It doesn’t need to hook up to your computer; downloading a book takes about a minute and occurs wirelessly via Sprint without an additional charge (the fee is part of the $9.99); the screen has schnazzy techology that lets you read it with ease in direct sunlight; it has a long battery life and generates very little heat, so you can let the sun burn your thighs at the beach rather than the Kindle.

Kindle Kons: It costs $399…that’s a lotta kash; it lets you subscribe to around 300 blogs, too, but only if you pay a couple bucks extra per month. Hmmmm, aren’t blogs usually, well, free?

Just when you think you know how to book the cheapest flight to Europe from the States, the airlines and agency websites shake things up. Again. Budget-savvy author Tim Leffel notes on his budget travel blog a number of recent changes in booking policies and fees.

These include:

Effective December 1, Continental is dropping its 500 bonus mile award for booking flights through Continental.com for passengers booking within the United States. Similarly, Delta announced it, too was dropping mileage bonuses.

So why book directly through the airlines’ websites? Cheaper fares than the agency sites, who tack on an extra booking fee, right? Well…

Priceline announced this month that they were dropping their booking fees when you book a flight through their direct-purchase service (not through their “name your own price” service). Might this force other agencies, such as Orbitz and Expedia, to drop their five-spot charges?

Stay tuned!

It’s Monday, and the transit strike that has crippled Paris’ public transportation continues, affecting residents and tourists alike. Today’s strike update:

On Monday, all Metro lines but one are running. Bloomberg news reports that riders are typically waiting between five minutes and forty-five minutes between trains.

There is no train service between Paris and either Orly or Charles de Gaulle airports. Bus service is running to Orly, but not to CDG.

The much-publicized public bike program launched this summer, Velib, offers commuters an alternative to hitchhiking or walking. However, according to our cycling source in Paris, the bikes are so popular that many would-be riders are showing up to docking stations only to find them empty.

One-third of the high-speed TGV trains running into and out of Paris are running today, while rail service in the rest of the country has been drastically reduced.

Traffic jams were the worst today since the strike started, apparently a result of fed-up commuters shrugging it off and hopping back into their cars. Jams reached 300 kilometers (186 miles) around Paris.

The strike will continue into this week, with union leaders accepting an offer to meet with President Sarkozy on Wednesday. Until then, expect more of the same.