Toilet bomber fails in Denmark

by Tom Johansmeyer on

A man has been detained in what’s being called a suicide bombing attempt. Injured in the blast, the suspect is believed to have tried to ignite the bomb in the Jorgensens Hotel in Copenhagen, with the toilet being the scene of the (alleged) crime. He sustained injuries on his face and arms. Police picked him up in a park, where he’s said to have run following the blast.

The low-cost hotel is on Israel’s Square, in the center of Copenhagen. It’s also located close to Norreport Station.

Little is known about the man’s identity, though he is said to have carried papers from two countries. Also, his intended target hasn’t been established conclusively yet, but the newspaper Ekstra Bladet, is believed to have been a possibility.

[photo by jemsweb via Flickr]

Flying Wizz Air, European low-cost airline

by Meg Nesterov on


I just flew with Wizz Air, a major budget airline in Europe whose name and stunts I had previously only snickered over. It turns out in addition to offering low fares across Europe, they are also the largest carrier in Hungary (at least according to Wizz, Malev Hungarian would beg to differ) and a major player in Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria. Last week I traveled to Bulgaria (look for some future Weekending posts soon) and decided to try to fly across the country from the Black Sea town of Varna to the capital city Sofia rather than spend another eight hours on a bus. As is often the case with budget carriers, Wizz has caught a fair amount of flack for their nickle-and-diming fare structure and customer service, so I was anxious to experience it first-hand.The booking process
The low-cost carrier advertises flights as low as 15 GBP from London to Poland before taxes and fees, and I found fares from Varna to Sofia starting at 78 Bulgarian (around $50 USD) plus a few bucks for taxes. Not too bad, a lot pricier than the bus but much faster. Enter the laundry list of service fees. First, you are hit up 5 Euros per passenger to use a credit card (only other options are European credit cards or bank transfers that aren’t possible for US travelers). Next, you are offered a bunch of services that might be useful for some (extra legroom, flexible booking, priority boarding, etc) but not integral to the flight. Then comes the big guns: baggage allowances. Whether I’m traveling for two days or two weeks, at maximum I pack a standard wheelie carry-on and a purse, and avoid checking bags whenever possible. Wizz allows just one piece free, up to 10 kg (22 pounds), and charges 15 to 60 Euros per bag depending if you select the option online, at the airport, or at the gate. Not wishing to be caught with a surprise charge at the airport, I opted to check one bag. Final tally: 117 Bulgarian leva per ticket or $76 USD, booked less than two weeks in advance.

Pre-departure
Haven’t even gotten to the airport and there’s another potential fee: flight check-in. It’s free if you do it online up to 7 days in advance AND print boarding passes, or 10 Euros if you wait until arriving at the airport or can’t find a printer. After entering your passport information and checking in online, your boarding passes are available as web documents or PDFs. I downloaded the PDFs and emailed to my hotel in Varna, who were kind enough to print, but boarding passes via email. Arriving at the airport, they will still check your documents, but my baggage was not scrutinized and I noticed several fellow passengers with more than one bag to carry on, so I may have been able to get away with a purse and a rollerboard.

In-flight experience
Seating on the flight is open, causing the usual every-man-for-himself rush at the gate, but inside the plane, seats are relatively comfy with snazzy purple leather seats. There is an excellent (and free!) in-flight magazine with great destination info and articles that made me want to move to Poland immediately. The Varna to Sofia flight was too short for the full food and beverage “service” (i.e. they didn’t wheel out the cart of stuff you pay for) but the usual drinks and snacks were available for purchase at typically high prices (2.50 Euros for water, 3 Euros for Cup Noodles, which is sort of a great flight food idea). Flight attendants were helpful and cheerful in the signature purple and hot pink colors.

All told, I’d fly Wizz again (especially to Poland), especially if I were near to one of their hubs. Fares are much lower than the competition (Bulgarian Air priced out at 211 leva for the same route) and if you stop looking at fares as inherently all-inclusive, the a la cart structure is actually refreshing and honest. There aren’t many perks and no in-flight movies or tv, but with most flights under 3 hours, you can get by. Airline experiences are all in the seat of the beholder, but with prices this low, a leather seat and free English-language reading material feels more luxe than low-cost.

London’s Cumberland Hotel unveils Jimi Hendrix-themed suite

by Melanie Nayer on

Paying homage to one of the greatest musicians of all time, London’s Cumberland Hotel is unveiling its new Jimi Hendrix-themed suite, complete with swinging mirrors and a purple haze.

The hotel, where Hendrix is said to have given his last ever interview, created a suite worthy of a rock legend, complete with a giant bed adorned with velvet cushions and zebra throws. The suite is being unveiled on Sept. 18, the day Hendrix died 40 years ago. An hour-long recording session of Hendrix talking to his music writer friend Keith Altham can be played on the iPod docked in the suite. “Everybody should have a room where they get rid of all their releases. My room was a stage,” Hendrix said in the interview.

Among the typical amenities and decor, guests can marvel at the Hendrix-inspired Flying V guitar that hangs on the wall alongside framed copies of NME articles. For a truly memorable trip, you’ll notice a rainbow that swirls across the ceiling past a cascading light in the form of a human figure. A mirror swings towards the bed, showcasing the crimson carpet, orange curtains and, of course, a haze of purple.

The Hendrix Suite at London’s Cumberland hotel costs 399 pounds a night (approximately $612 USD) for two people, which includes a bottle of Hendrix’s favourite Smokehead scotch and breakfast.

Ecotourism’s next evolution: Rent a cow in Switzerland

by McLean Robbins on

Need to get away from it all? How about a month or season on a picturesque Swiss farm? Thanks to to enterprising Swiss farmers, professionals can now contribute to the local economy and “participate physically in the life of a medium-size mountain farm and to acquire at a preferential price genuine goods produced on the estate.”

Sure… but what does that mean? According to bmi Voyager, the concept was launched by herder and farm owner Michael Izor, who allows people to rent his cows in western Switzerland, just outzide of Zurich. “The animals are very calming and we hope it gives people a little perspective,” said Izor.

For £180 (one month) to £380 (a four-month season), one gets their choice of a specific cow, a preferential rate on local cheese, and access to the farm itself. The landowner then agrees to offer a tour of the estate and a meet and greet with the staff and your cow.

You’re also promised a light welcome meat – we’re hoping one that isn’t beef based! You’ll also receive a certificate of sponsorship and a picture of your cow, as well as a preferential rate on mountain pasture cheese at the price of CHF 16 per kilo.

Seasonal sponsorships include the above, but also require a commitment of four hours of mountain work, According to the website, “this work will consist of looking after the pastures and enclosures, preparing the fire wood, participating actively in the raking of the hay, etc. There’s nothing like work to fit in and get a better understanding [of the land].” A season-long contract also requires a minimum purchase of at least 10 kilos of cheese.

This surely brings new meaning to the term working vacation!

Image via Flickr user Artnow314.

How to take a round-the-world trip

by Alex Robertson Textor on

An open-ended round-the-world trip can be led by whimsy and happenstance and benefit accordingly from extremely loose planning. A more structured, time-limited round-the-world trip necessitates figuring out transportation in advance. With five weeks to play with, we fell into the latter camp.

I emailed AirTreks in the spring and dutifully submitted an itinerary through their global map booking request system. AirTreks prices round-the-world itineraries, for fares well under what one would pay for each individual stretch.

Around this time, we made another decision, one personally radical. We would fly business-class the entire way. Such a choice certainly isn’t unusual for many frequent fliers, but for a budget traveler like myself who travels in coach barring those rare times I’m upgraded or am flying on someone else’s dime, this was a big shift in approach. This choice amplified the unusual nature of the itinerary, underscoring the fact that this trip wouldn’t be repeated or emulated anytime soon.

Once we nailed our itinerary down and decided to go with business-class tickets the entire way, we requested a new estimate from AirTreks. Then Matt started to play with the oneworld Explorer round-the-world booking engine. This is where things got interesting. The oneworld Explorer fare was several thousand dollars cheaper than the AirTreks fare.

There was really no decision to make. Even our patient AirTreks consultant urged us to go for the oneworld fare. We made the purchase. Though shockingly expensive by my own personal standards and customary budgetary constraints, the entire journey in business-class turned out to cost a few hundred dollars more than a single first-class round-trip ticket from New York to London.As far as subsequent planning is concerned, things have been pretty low-tech. We’ve got a handful of guidebooks (all Lonely Planet, though this is simply an accident of timing and availability) and a few downloaded iPhone apps, which I’ll comment on if they turn out to be at all helpful.

Other planning focused on the tips of friends and acquaintances. My sister, a food writer, recommended some Sydney restaurants. Melbourne chef Tony Tan, who I’d had the good fortune of meeting on my previous visit to Melbourne, passed on a must-visit list of new Melbourne restaurants. A friend of Mauritian background provided contact information of a villa rental company with beautiful properties that were simply too expensive for our budget. The exchange that followed didn’t help us with accommodations, but it did allow us to clarify our focus for Mauritius.

For hotels we scanned our guidebooks for mid-range accommodations and then searched online to get a general sense of how hotels were reviewed. I’ve always taken TripAdvisor with a massive grain of salt, as I’ve found on several occasions that I don’t mind the sorts of hotels pilloried by TripAdvisor contributors. But we did use TripAdvisor this time as a kind of quality control verification source. In one case, we nixed an otherwise appealing hotel choice based on a number of reviews that suggested an ongoing cockroach infestation.

We poked around online to find low rates at good hotels. In both Sydney and Melbourne, location was the key consideration. In Sydney we wanted a central neighborhood, and we ended up with a boutique hotel in Potts Point booked through Venere. In Melbourne I lobbied for a stay in St. Kilda, an area I remembered very fondly from my last visit. There we found a furnished studio apartment.

For our single night in Johannesburg, we decided to stay in a guesthouse in Sandton, a Johannesburg neighborhood with good restaurants. In New Caledonia, Mauritius, and Réunion, we focused on well-priced guesthouses and hotels in areas beyond built-up coastal tourist strips. In London, we opted for the Hilton in Canary Wharf because we found a good deal for it on Hotwire. The most expensive nightly rate we’re paying for a hotel is $165. The least pricey is around $82.

We made most of our hotel reservations in advance, leaving a few nights free in New Caledonia (to give us some freedom if we decided to change accommodations) and Réunion (a by-product of our inability thus far to find an inexpensive guesthouse in one of the island’s inland Cirques, or calderas.) We wanted to put logistics to bed as completely as possible in advance. More open-ended itineraries would probably benefit from fewer advance reservations.

Check out other posts in the Capricorn Route series here.

(Image: Flickr/Vinni123)