Flights of fancy on offer via the internet as low fare airlines feed the dreams
KARL Baedeker died in 1859. His spirit lives on at Medders Manor.
Baedeker was father of the travel guide industry, a businessman and publisher who was based at Koblenz in his native German. Our old friend Karl was the man who allowed wealthy readers to undertake their Grand Tours of Europe with confidence.
In an era when travel writing was a widespread art form, it was Baedeker’s name which stood out from the herd as his books became synonymous with the genre. His guides, translated into all the major Continental languages, contained their share of comment about the state of hotel linen and the appeal of cathedral architecture.
However well-thumbed Baedekers became essential luggage as the 19th century progressed because the great man also had a realistic understanding of the practical side of travel. It was all well and good to be nicely informed on the impeccable stained glass windows in the town hall of Monami-sur-Loire.
But if the train departed from Platform One at Monami station at 09:30 hours, then the travellers who rolled up to Platform Two at 10:30 hours to find themselves stranded would not be best pleased. Accurate attention to such detail was the hallmark of Baedeker guides, whether priming readers for a glamourous adventure on the Orient Express or helping them make their rail connection with the mail boat at Holyhead. Of course the nature of travel has changed since Karl Baedeker was regarded as the fount of all tourist knowledge but the urge to explore has not been extinguished…
‘Do you know that if we flew to Stansted at 5:30 on a Wednesday morning, then we could be drinking black beer in Bratislava with our dinner that same evening?’
Hermione went to sleep with her lap-top tuned to the web-site of a well-known budget airline. During her slumbers, her restless brain processed the information offered and now she is waking up with a full itinerary ready to go and credit card poised.
‘Of course, it would be possible to get there via Esbjerg for a tenner less but that would have us arriving close to midnight. You have always wanted to go to Slovakia, haven’t you? Or was it Slovenia? Or Switzerland maybe? Anyway, the world is our oyster, just as long as we avoid Dutch bank holidays and half term breaks in the German schools.’
Though just roused from dreamland, I am pretty sure that I have never expressed aloud any desire to go to Slovakia or Slovenia. And any thought of quaffing beer – whether black, white or purple - is robbed of its allure by the fact that it is just too early in the day to contemplate such matters.
At least I am awake enough to make it clear that I have no immediate intention of going tobogganing in Tromso, wine tasting in Weimar, or even golfing in Galicia. Apparently, all three are destinations featured in the budget airline sale, any one of them just a couple of clicks away from becoming the destination for our bargain break.
Hermione departs for work but whips out the computer once more after our evening meal to resume the blizzard of affordable destinations open to us. Brussels is good, she reckons, though the seasoned jet-setter remembers to book flights which land at the airport which is actually in Brussels, not the one which is half way to Strasbourg.
Biarritz is over rated, she is adamant on this. But Estonia might be worth considering if the price of fares drops, as she feels it is bound to do. Albania is off limits and Alicante is not for the faint-hearted. But Frankfurt is enticing, while Florence is definitely a runner and Finland is surprisingly good value.
Hermione eventually looks up from the lap-top to see her husband staring at her in a state of undisguised alarm and distress, reduced to wordless panic by this riot of choice.
Be it known that we will be taking our vacation this year for a week in Salthill, as usual. I posted the B&B a letter reserving a room overlooking the seafront and enclosing an old-fashioned cheque.