Beaches, beer, bangs
Want to get away in the next couple of weeks, but not sure where to go? Fred Mawer has some suggestions
SUN
Côte d’Azur Why? The “avoid high season” cliché is as true of the Côte d’ Azur as any holiday destination I know. From late June to midSeptember, the traffic can be horrendous, and the beaches and sights horrifically crowded. The problem is especially acute in and around the bottlenecked fi shing village turned jet-set resort that is St Tropez.
But if you visit in the next few weeks, the place will have quietened down significantly. It should be a pleasure to wander along the pastel-coloured quayside, or nose around the stalls of the twice-weekly market in the Place des Lices. At the same time, St Tropez will be far from dead: the Les Voiles de St Tropez regatta takes place on October 1-9. Daytime temperatures through to early October are normally very pleasant – in the low to mid-20s C. How? Fly to Nice, with Bmi, Bmibaby, British Airways, EasyJet, Flyglobespan or Jet2. Hire a car at the airport: the drive to St Tropez takes about 90 minutes. St Tropez’s tourist office (00 33 4 9497 4521, www.ot-saint-tropez.com) has contact details for hotels: consider La Ferme d’Augustin (00 33 4 9455 9700, www.fermeaugustin.com), just behind Pampelonne, one of the coast’s best beaches. Wimco (0870 850 1144, www. wimco.co.uk) has lots of upmarket villas in the area, some with availability in late September. How much?
I found fl ights with EasyJet from Luton, travelling September 21- 28, for £ 87 return. www.Holidayautos.co.uk quoted me £115 a week for the cheapest economy car, including insurances and taxes.
A standard double room at La Ferme d’Augustin costs £114 per night. A three-bedroom villa with pool for a week through Wimco will cost from around £ 2,100.
FUN
Oktoberfest, Munich Why? For the beer, of course. Six million visitors descend on Bavaria’s capital every year for the Oktoberfest – this year, from September 17 to October 3 – to knock back the amber nectar in vast beer tents. But drinking (and eating pork sausages) are not the only attractions: there are also parades of horsedrawn brewery wagons, marching bands and folk groups (the biggest spectacle is on Sunday), and this year there is also an agricultural festival. For more details, see www.oktoberfest.de. How? There are fl ights to Munich with British Airways, EasyJet, Hapag-Lloyd Express and Lufthansa. Conventional wisdom has it that Munich’s accommodation gets booked up months ahead during Oktoberfest, but I had no problem fi nding weekday availability in central hotels on the online accommodation reservations service of the city’s tourist board website, www.muenchen-tourist.de. Moswin (0870 062 5040, www.moswin.com) can fi x a package staying outside Munich. Consider going mid-week: at weekends, the beer tents are so packed that you struggle to be served. How much?
Travelling September 26- 28, BA offered me £137 · 50 return from Gatwick. For the same dates, the tourist board’s reservation service came up with a double room in a central three-star hotel for £120 a night B & B. Beer in the tents costs from £4 · 50 a litre.
CULTURE
La Mercè Festival, Barcelona Why? One of Barcelona’s biggest festivals runs from September 22 to 25. It’s an enormous knees-up: there will be over 100 outdoor concerts (everything from flamenco to hip-hop), lots of street performers, and fi reworks displays. Best of all, it’s a chance to witness expressions of traditional Catalan, and Barcelonan, culture – including the sardana folk dance, the building of 10storey-high human towers and the correfoc or “fi re run” (devils with torches chase onlookers). Information about the main events is at www.bcn.es/ mercè How? There is a wide choice of fl ights to Barcelona, including British Airways, EasyJet, flyglobespan, Jet2 and Thomsonfly. Ryanair fl ies to Girona, a 70-minute bus transfer to Barcelona. Hotels are pretty booked up for La Mercè weekend, but www.laterooms.com has some last-minute deals, while reviews on www.tripadvisor.com will give you a good idea of the city’s best-regarded hotels. For a package with a low-cost airline, www.flexibletrips.com is a good bet. Choose between staying in the Eixample district (Modernista buildings, good shopping, but lots of traffic), or the older parts of the city (a plethora of bars and restaurants, but safety is an issue – especially in the Raval quarter). How much?
The cheapest return I could fi nd from a London airport, travelling September 22- 25, was with Ryanair from Stansted, for £ 98. Bus transfers from Girona to Barcelona cost £13
return. www.
laterooms.com
came up with a
double room in
a budget hotel
just off the
Ramblas for
£109 for three
nights.
Most festival
events are free,
as is entry into
many
museums on
September 24.
Þ Airline
contacts:
Bmi (0870 607 0555, www. flybmi.com); Bmibaby (0870 264 2229, www.bmibaby.com); British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com); EasyJet (0905 821 0905 – premium rate – www.easyjet.com); flyglobespan (0870 556 1522, www. flyglobespan.com); Hapag-Lloyd Express (0870 606 0519, www.hlx.com); Jet2 (0871 226 1737, www. jet2.com); Lufthansa (0870 837 7747, www.lufthansa.co. uk); Ryanair (0906 270 5656 – premium rate – www. ryanair.com); Thomsonfly (0870 1900 737, www.thomsonfly.com). Þ All fares and prices quoted above were correct when we went to press, but are subject to availability and liable to change without notice