Plaque in Gordon Square in Bloomsbury 

Ah, Bloomsbury—aptly named for its blossoming trees and for the squares and side streets filled with pretty greenery. Once home to the famous Bloomsbury Group, a gaggle of literary types like Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster, the area now hosts the famous British Museum and nearby Russell Square.   

When choosing the neighborhood for your London hotel or B&B, Bloomsbury is an attractive choice. Here are some things to think about before “booking it” in Bloomsbury:

Advantages of staying here-

Location, location! Bloomsbury has access to all major forms of transport, so it’s easy to dine in Soho, see a show in the West End, or do some shopping in Piccadilly Circus before heading home for the night.

Its proximity to the British Museum makes it a shoe-in for art aficionados, and book nerds will love meandering the streets in search of the blue plaques that mark the former homes and haunts of writers like Charles Dickens and George Bernard Shaw.

Today, Ricky Gervais, star of the British version of “The Office”, lives in Bloomsbury’s Tavistock Square. (Isn’t that reason enough?)

Disadvantages of staying here-

Bloomsbury, it’s no secret, can get expensive. Well, most of London can. However, budget hotels and cheap B&Bs can be found in the area.  A little bit of research will go a long way in finding the right hotel. Check out the hotels we recommend in Bloomsbury.

If all the good picks are booked up, try staying in the nearby Kings Cross area, which often has cheaper hotel offerings, and benefits from easy access to Bloomsbury and central London.

And, if you’ve ever stayed in Bloomsbury, tell us what you thought in the comments section below.

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When it comes to our list of travel essentials, iPods and MP3 players are right up there with good city maps and sun block. And, if we hit a bump in the road or happen to meet with a European transit strike, there’s no better way to while away the hours than with a few portable travel guides.

Read on, dear Cheapos, for five free podcasts we love for Barcelona, Spain:

For those with unique taste

If you’re more into meandering side streets than queuing up at the Sagrada Familia, check out Notes from Spain’s frequently uploaded casts. Audio guides offer an “anti-tourist” take on exploring Barcelona, from back street tours of the barri gotic to a bike route through the Basque region.  

For well-rounded travelers

We like Tourcaster for its wide array of podcasts—from tours of art museums to jaunts through national parks—highlighting destinations around the world. Although some audio guides get super-specific (Madrid’s Royal Palace, anyone?), the Barcelona City Guide provides a comprehensive introduction to the city’s top attractions, like Gaudi’s Parc Guell or the best places to eat tapas. And, unlike other Tourcaster podcasts, it’s free!

For the language buffs

Don’t know your por qué from your por favor? Radio Alicante International FM, a radio station broadcasting from Spain, doles out language lessons in a free podcast on learning Spanish. Download the courses from iTunes and listen, repeat, listen, repeat.

For architecture aficionados

For a Cheapo architecture fix, we like LoDingo’s comprehensive building tour. The two-hour podcast winds its way through Barcelona’s best examples of “el Modernisme Catal,” the style made famous by the Catalonian architect Antonio Gaudi.

For some in-flight entertainment

Okay, so the Barcelona Vidcast HD podcast is in Spanish, but since it’s a video, the sights and sounds of the city speak for themselves. It’s available on iTunes (search “Barcelona Vidcast HD” to find it), is perfect for the plane ride over or for distracting yourself during a classic Spanish conundrum, the rail strike.

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OK, we admit. We’re terminal sleepers. We’ve been known to snooze airport, train and bus station-style. You know, back against the wall, legs out front, maybe a backpack or sweatshirt to prop your head. It’s a scene we’re very familiar with. We’re also fans of sleeping on moving trains, feel that suitcases make great makeshift beds, and think it’s perfectly fine to pull up a corner in a hostel doorway when you miss the memo about the lock-out.

So, we were super charged when the New York Times today announced a particularly cool awakening. Frank Giotto, a business traveler tired of long airport waits and miffed (aren’t we all?) by the decline in free hotel vouchers from airlines, designed a contraption he’s calling the Mini Motel. Described as a ”a one-person tent complete with air mattress, pillow, reading light, and alarm clock,” it’s also a cheap—albeit quirky—sleep. The whole package costs $39.95 and comes with eye shades, a bed sheet, ear plugs, and a tooth brush and tooth paste.

For more unique sleeps, check out our post on sleepinginairports.net. And, be sure to read the story in the New York Times business section. We also recommend reading the suggested uses for the mini motel, ‘free flight opportunities’ being our favorite proposal.

Sweet dreams!

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If you’ll be in Lisbon anytime soon, plan to lay low during the week (or head to the beach) and hit the major sights and museums on Sunday. Why tour on the day of rest? Because many of Lisbon’s attractions are free, for at least a few hours, every Sunday of the year.

Some museums—like the Museum of Ancient Art and the National Tile Museum— are only open for free for a few hours on Sunday, typically from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m..

We suggest you break up your day with trips to two or three museums and attractions, leaving time to stop for lunch or custard. For example, It’s easy to pack in the Maritime Museum and Monastery of the Hieronymites, in the Belem district, in a morning or afternoon. Or, spend the entire day at the Gulbenkian Museum, which is open all day Sunday for free.

Have a fun-day!

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Cheapo newsflash! We’ve just launched a brand spankin’ new city guide and budget hotel primer for Brussels, Belgium! Turns out, you can sleep cheap in the land of waffles, beer, and all those bandes dessinées.

Our guide includes articles on transportation in and around Brussels, reviews of 27 centrally-located hotels, and more. Stay tuned as we’ll be adding more stuff soon. In the meantime, we hope you’ll enjoy getting to know the city of diplomats, bankers, cartoons, chocolate, and a little guy Belgians like to call Manneken Pis.   

As usual, let us know what you think!   

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With the launch of our newest city guide, we’d like to give one big, warm shout-out to Belgium’s beloved Chez Leon. It’s not easy finding reasonable food fare in the EU capital city, but Leon’s menu and service make it clear why the locals recommend the “mussels in Brussels.”

Mussels at Leon are fresh, cheap (a fixed price meal, including pommes frites and one free beer, is €14.50 per person), and served to your liking. When last there, this Cheapo ordered mussels marinières (mussels steamed in a tomato base) and watched as her fellow Cheapos delighted in mussels à la provencale.

For beer to go, pick up a four-pack for €6. It’s good stuff, we promise.

Check Leon’s web site for details on summer recipes (curry mussels anyone?), Leon beer, and more.

Visit our new Brussels guide here.  

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A few thoughts on great travel deals from the editors of hidden europe magazine.

BERLIN — We are often amazed at how much money North American visitors to Europe pay for rail passes, especially when, with a little advance planning, travelers can often reap great savings through pre-purchase of point-to-point tickets. These are not tickets marketed with hefty surcharges by overseas agents, but rather the promotional fares available directly from the various rail operators in Europe, usually through online sales.

But the question is not simply one of rail pass vs. individual tickets. It is also always worth looking at local rail pass offerings.

For Example, Czech Out This Deal

Eurail offers a pass that affords eight days unlimited first class travel in the Czech Republic for $359. Better to wait till you arrive in the Czech Republic, and for less money you can buy a pass that affords an entire month’s travel.

And for those who think an entire month in the Czech Republic is a bit much, the Czech Railways sell a one-week pass, too. Try $80 for second class travel for a week, and a small premium of about $16 more will secure first-class comfort, if that’s important to you. You can check those prices here (in Czech crowns).

Slow Travel Dividends

Canny Cheapos search around for bargain local passes, and they are to be found in most parts of Europe.

Hats off to five friends who visited us in Berlin yesterday evening, having traveled all the way from Vienna by local trains. Vienna to Passau on Saturday, stopping off overnight in the Danube town, then continuing from Passau up to Berlin on Sunday. Yes, it took a while, about 16 hours traveling in all, compared with 10 hours on the fast train. But fun they said, and a journey full of those happy insights into rural life that makes slow trains so appealing.

What did they pay? Just €63 in all. That’s not per person, but for all of them! Less than €13 a head for a big leap across Europe. This was easily done with a smart combination of the Austrian Einfach-Raus Ticket and the German Schönes-Wochenende Ticket (Happy Weekend Ticket), both one-day rail passes sold in the countries concerned. Totally flexible. No need to pre-book, and you can travel at will on all trains except the fast express services.

British Bargains

Regional passes are available for travel in many parts of Britain and, for visitors focusing on just one region of the country, they are a fine deal, knocking spots off BritRail prices.

For example, if Wales is your focus, and you plan on having a week in the principality, why pay $329 for a four-day BritRail pass, when you can pick up a Freedom of Wales ticket for just $140 – four days travel within Wales and the nearby border areas of England within an eight-day period. What’s more, the locally-purchased pass is valid on almost all bus services in Wales, too. That’s not the case with BritRail.

Similar passes, usually priced between $100 and $150 are available for most other UK regions (eg. SW England, the North), typically offering four days of travel in any eight-day period or sometimes travel on seven consecutive days.

Get on board

Why not research local rail passses by checking out the national websites of the following European rail operators? Do check that that you really are using the “official” national rail websites and not a site developed by a third-party vendor or agency.

Each of the companies mentioned below has good local railpasses that can all offer much better deals that Eurail prices:

www.oebb.at (ÖBB, Austria)

www.cd.cz (CD, Czech Rep)

www.vr.f (VR, Finland)

www.bahn.de (Die Bahn, Germany)

www.nationalrail.co.uk (all rail operators in Great Britain)

www.mav.hu (MAV, Hungary)

www.irishrail.ie (Iarnród Éireann, Ireland)

www.ns.nl (Dutch Railways)

www.pkp.pl (PKP, Poland)

www.sbb.ch (Switzerland)

This is the latest in a summer series of postings by Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries. The Berlin-based duo are the editors of hidden europe magazine. Cheapos can preview the contents of the July 2008 issue of hidden europe by clicking here.

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