It’s that time of year when we are apt to meddle with time. Most European countries adopt daylight saving time (DST).  All those that do favor seasonal DST will thus set their clocks back by an hour early next Sunday morning, October 30. This means that overnight trains in Europe next Saturday night will pause » Read more

Anyone for Kalmykia? It is a republic that lies in eastern Europe between the Volga and the Manych River. Kalmykia is in the premier league of offbeat destinations in Europe. It is even less visited by leisure travelers than Ruthenia, Lusatia or Moldova. If you like feather grass steppes and wide open spaces, then Kalmykia » Read more

The June issue of the Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable is something of a publishing milestone, being the 1,500th edition since the book was first published in 1873. Ideal reading, we would say, for canny Cheapos looking to plan complex itineraries around Europe by train this summer. The book lists train, bus and ferry schedules » Read more

The new high-speed rail service linking Helsinki with St. Petersburg, just launched last December, has been an immediate success, with passenger numbers in the first four months of 2011 up over a third on the same period in 2010. With the journey time slashed to 3 hours 36 minutes, it is no surprise that cross-border » 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

Yes, the weather may still be wintry in New York and Nice, but now is the time to start planning spring and summer 2011 travels around Europe. Many European railway administrations operate on a three-month advance booking horizon, so services on lots of French, German, Italian and Spanish trains (by way of example) are now » 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

If an article in last week’s Financial Times is to be believed then the end is nigh. Not of all life as we know it. The FT merely predicts that the days of the guidebook are numbered, as ever more travellers switch to online sources to get key information on destinations. The newspaper noted that » Read more

It was 25 years ago this spring that Athens assumed the mantle of being Europe’s first ever “Capital of Culture,” and so kick-started a program that has developed into a mainstay of the European culture and travel calendar. Since then, cities from Bruges to Bologna, Stockholm to Sibiu, have basked in the limelight for a » Read more