With many travelers surely now in full planning mode for summer 2011, let’s take a look at the winners and losers in the European battle for the tourist’s dollar (or euro). Greece Greece’s economic misfortunes led to a crash in confidence among the country’s hoteliers, and 2011 is shaping up to be a bargain year » Read more

Europe’s ferry schedules are famously fluid, and it’s often devilishly hard to keep pace with new route developments. Here is our choice of a quartet of interesting ferry options for spring and summer 2011. 1. St. Peter Line to Russia The news last week that over 60 ships were trapped in thick ice in the » Read more

We had a friend from Russia staying over the weekend. “It’s so nice to be back in Europe again,” he said as we met him from the train in Berlin after his overnight journey from Kaliningrad. His comment made us ponder European geography. Kaliningrad is just 330 miles from Berlin and it is most certainly not » Read more

Last month’s air travel mayhem across much of northern and central Europe prompted many travelers to rediscover long-distance bus travel. Networks such as those managed by Deutsche Touring and Eurolines suddenly found their services much in demand. Although in practice Eurolines’ routes are operated by more than 30 independent companies, the Eurolines web portal allows » Read more

This month has seen quite a bit of low cost carrier activity, as airlines from Air Baltic to Ryanair and easyJet added routes eastward to the Baltics and down to the Balkans. Here’s a quick roundup of some of the most interesting additions. Air Baltic Recent weeks have seen Air Baltic aggressively expanding its network, » Read more

And you thought you could simply “do Tallinn” and be done with Estonia! Tartu, Estonia’s second-largest city—just two and a half hours away from capital Tallinn can be reached for a mere EEK70 (€4.50; $6.10.) You do get what you pay for, though: dated Spaghetti Westerns on cracked bus TVs, no room for your big » Read more

Though Riga may be catching up, Tallinn still reigns supreme as Stag Party Capital o’ the Baltics. Since EasyJet opened its Stansted–Ülemiste route in 2004, British bachelor parties have been descending upon the Old Town by the airplaneful, crowding the streets with drunken song and leaving pools of vomit in their wake. (Although it’s been » Read more