Canaries before turkey
For more great holiday ideas, see page 39
holiday can be used for a two-hour train ride to Hamburg. Here, see the atmospheric Winterwald Christmas market and Miniatur Wunderland – the largest collection of model railways and miniature airports in the world. Entrance is included in the break, which ends with an overnighter in Cologne.
Here the gothic cathedral offers an impressive backdrop to stalls in distinct areas, each with its specialisation, from angels to Heinzelmannchen – little house gnomes. The six-day holiday costs from £915pp, including rail travel and five nights’ hotel B&B. See ffestiniogtravel.com.
Cruise control Down the Danube to Budapest
A cluster of lovely cities sits on the banks of the upper Danube and each has a jewel of a Christmas market. So taking a cruise passage between Munich and Budapest, through Germany, Austria,
YOU can escape the festive madness at the end of this month with a bargain break to Lanzarote.
S Seven nights’ self-catering at the 3H Los Pueblos A Apartments in Puerto del C Carmen is from £193pp i including flights ights from
Slovakia and Hungary, means stopping off in the likes of Regensburg, Passau, Durnstein, Vienna and Bratislava en route, sampling their markets.
Venture into the heart of Vienna, see the Christmas card-like cobblestone streets that weave through Passau and visit the quaint wooden stalls at Regensburg’s Christmas markets at the Thurn und Taxis Palace.
It costs from £1,670pp, including gg flights, , meals, drinks and excursions. See emeraldwaterways.co.uk.
Great cake Dresden, the oldest market in Germany
This winter, new direct flights with Ryanair allow access to the oldest
Christmas market in Germany, y, in Dresden. And it is worth the e
Birmingham on November 29. It excludes transfers but the apartment complex is just 15 minutes from the airport. There is a pool with sea views as well as tennis courts, a cafe, bar and restaurant. See travelsupermarket.com. journey, not least because this is also the city that invented stollen Christmas cake.
Dresden is a Christmas city par excellence. The 600-year-old Striezelmarkt takes place in a courtyard just behind the Royal Residence and is busy with the flicker of candles and sound of original musical instruments.
Traders sell only handmade crafts, dress in doublet and hose and price their goods in talers, not euros. They will speak in rhyming couplets, too, given giv half a chance.
Meanwhile Me in the Neumarkt there is a more mor modern market, where many of the stalls sell figures made by former mineworkers min in the nearby Erzgebirge mountains. mo
There T is also a helluva lot of stollen – last las year 130,000 kilos of it were eaten in Dresden. D And Brits will go a long way for a nice piece of cake. Flights cost as little a as £20, see ryanair.com.
Q ASINCE Thomas Cook shut up shop I can’t find affordable flights to Goa. Can you help?
YOU say you have been a regular traveller to Goa over the past few years, usually on Thomas Cook flights but without having to book a package. Since the company’s demise you have been unable to find anything comparable for length of flight or price.
But you can still fly nonstop to Goa with Thomas Cook’s rival, Tui.
It will come as no surprise that fares this winter are not cheap: £1,338 was the best-priced return currently in January. Charter flights often do not show up on flight comparison sites such as Skyscanner. See tui.co.uk.