Airline Hopes To Avoid Volcanic Ash Clouds With New Technology

by Chris Owen on

Volcanic ash is something commercial airliners want nothing to do with. When Alaska’s Cleveland volcano erupted not long ago, shooting low levels of ash into the atmosphere, many airlines were concerned. Another blast could send ash higher, directly into their flight path between Asia and North America, causing major flight schedule disruptions. But while most airlines watch and wait, one is taking some proactive steps to deal with volcanic activity.

Ash clouds are a major problem for commercial airliners, which can literally fall out of the sky if they attempt to fly through one. The problem is the tiny volcanic ash particles. If they get into a jet engine, ash particles can block the ventilation holes that let in air to cool the engine. Accumulate enough of them and engine heat can transform the particles back into molten lava, something you don’t want in your jet engine. In 2010, Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano ejected an ash plume 30,000 feet into the sky, crippling airlines in northwest Europe for days as nearly 20 airports closed their airspace.Looking for ways to minimize the effect of volcanic eruptions, EasyJet has partnered with aircraft manufacturer Airbus and Nicarnica Aviation, a company that specializes in remote sensing technology to detect ash at the speed and altitude of commercial aircraft. To do that, EasyJet will fly a ton of volcanic ash from Iceland to an Airbus base in France where it will test the new uses for infrared technology-based Airborne Volcanic Object Imaging Detector (AVOID) equipment in August.

During the test, an Airbus plane will disperse the ash into the atmosphere and create an artificial ash cloud. A second Airbus test aircraft equipped with AVOID technology will (hopefully) detect and avoid the artificial ash cloud at over 30,000 feet.

Want to see an ash cloud up close, as it is being created? Check out this video:



[Image credit – Flickr user coolinsights]

Napoleonic Wars Refought In Spain

by Sean McLachlan on


The second of May is a date that every Spaniard knows. In 1808 on that date, the Spanish people rose up against Napoleon and started a long struggle to kick his troops out of the country. They’d been occupied the year before when Spain’s weak king had foolishly allowed French troops march through his territory to invade Portugal. Napoleon, being Napoleon, decided to keep both countries.

The Peninsular War, as it was called, was long and bloody. At first the Spaniards were outmatched, but they developed an effective guerrilla war that stymied the invaders. In fact the term guerrilla (“little war”) originated in this conflict. The English moved in to help and in 1814 their combined forces kicked Napoleon’s troops back into France.

All across Spain in the first week of May, communities hold festivals to commemorate battles and celebrate local heroes. Here in Cantabria in northern Spain, the municipality of Camargo holds a reenactment in honor of Pedro Velarde y Santillán, an artillery captain who was born in the town and died heroically on the first day of the uprising.

Camargo is a small place that most foreigners and even locals miss. We’ve lived ten minutes away from it for a year and we had to look up how to get there. Despite this obscurity, they put on a good show. A big street fair sold food and local crafts. Strangely there was French cheese and wine for sale, a rarity in a country with enough excellent cheese and wine that there’s no need for imports. I suppose it was in the spirit of the occasion.

%Gallery-187602%Modern and traditional stalls sat side by side. Kids took burro rides while their parents looked through traditional clothing or modern trinkets made by local craftsmen. A local Moroccan restaurant had even set up a tea stall and hookah stand. Why not? Some Moroccans ended up in both armies. I wasn’t too happy to see a mother let her 10-year-old boy take a toke from a hooka, though. You should keep dangerous, addictive drugs like tobacco away from children.

In a nearby park reenactors portraying Spanish and French troops drilled and answered questions from curious onlookers, while a fencing master gave sword-fighting tips to the kids. Soon the reenactors marched into town, firing off their flintlock muskets with an ear-splitting roar. French cavalrymen rode around the crowd shouting to the Spaniards that they were going to occupy the country forever and sleep with all the women. The Spaniards called them “sons of whores.” All in good fun.

So if you’re passing through Spain in early May, keep an eye out for one of these festivals. There’s an especially big one in Madrid, which was the flashpoint of the uprising, but you can find them in most regions, even in little towns like Camargo that you’ve never heard of.

[Photo by Sean McLachlan]

Postcards From Carcassonne: Exploring A Medieval French Village

by Anna Brones on

While on a film production in southern France (no really, for this), we were cruising along the autoroute between Toulouse and Narbonne. I was in the driver’s seat, which, for the record, is not the spot you want to be in while driving through this part of France. You get the occasional glimpse at the countryside, but as the sun shines and the southern landscape passes by, you definitely want to be a passenger so you can take it all in.

“Look… a medieval village!” I exclaimed, pointing to our left.

It was Carcassonne.

“No big deal,” one of our team members said with a bit of humor.

This had become our joke on this trip; pretending to be unimpressed. But if you’re not impressed by a road trip through France, you’ve been sleeping.

To the American eye, it’s always shocking to see historic monuments like this; on a road trip in the U.S. the oldest thing you might find is a Revolutionary War battle site. You’re hard pressed to find a cathedral or a chateau looming about.

Carcassonne rose out of the rolling landscape, its protected walls reminiscent of a time that we’d only ever read about. A road sign reminded us that we were passing a UNESCO Heritage Site – in case the medieval village to the left wasn’t sign enough.
Carcassonne is a fortified town in France’s Aude region – that’s a fancy way of saying “walled city.” With a fortified settlement existing here since the pre-Roman period, it has had UNESCO World Heritage status. Its massive walls that are a prime example of a medieval fortified town were restored in the late 1800s by Viollet-le-Duc, and the restoration itself had a large influence on conservation principles and practices.

Today you can easily explore the inner city and its Gothic cathedral. It’s a mish-mash of tiny cobblestone streets, gargoyles and quaint restaurants and wine bars. You can’t escape the feel that it’s a little touristy, but get a few meters away from the main center and wander around the outer boundaries of the walls, and you can have a few moments to yourself.

Carcassonne is stunning, both from the inside and out. One of the best views of it is from Pont Vieux, crossing the Aude River. The fortified city is well lit at night, so if you catch the view at dusk, you get an amazing look at the golden shades of the wall paired against the sky – the kind of stuff postcards are made of.

But there’s more to explore than just the fortified city. Carcassonne itself is a bustling southern French city, complete with an excellent Saturday market, plenty of restaurants that serve local bottles of Languedoc Roussillon rosé, boat tours down the Canal du Midi and stores that specialize in foie gras de canard. And then there’s always cassoulet (although be advised that it’s not really a dish you want to be eating during warmer weather). When in Carcassone, eat duck – well, unless you’re vegetarian that is.

Planning a visit to Carcassonne? Be sure to check out Adelaide and l’Artichaut, both well-priced restaurants that offer up plenty of local specialties. Adelaide is just enough off the beaten path inside the fortified city that it doesn’t feel like you’re getting a bad tourist deal on dinner, and Artichaut is a good option when you’ve spent a morning at the Saturday market and want to sit outside on a terrasse for a bit of French food and a glass of good wine. Be sure to take a walk down the banks of the Canal du Midi – it’s another place that has a spot on the World Heritage list. Stock up on local produce beforehand and turn it into a picnic.

Whatever you do, take time to be impressed by the medieval village. It’s not everyday you are walking down the exact same streets that people did in the Middle Ages.

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In Praise Of Travel Lists

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Travel lists get a lot of grief. I’ve overheard many fellow travel writers offer the opinion that lists of various sorts are deeply inferior to any and all narrative travel writing. Others have suggested that lists are slowly crowding out real travel writing entirely.

C’mon now.

Let’s agree for a few provisional minutes that the purpose of travel writing is, very generally, to inspire people to think about travel. (Why not? This is a good goal, all things considered.) Few genres of writing are better suited to achieving this goal than travel lists – lists of destinations, hotels, beaches, restaurants and so on. A list written by an expert can feel like an extended secret, like an invitation to experience the world differently.

Lists at their best are efficient. They cover key territory and reduce unnecessary noise. They reveal their writers’ passions directly. Are they the ticket to cross-cultural understanding? Not usually, but then very few traditional travel stories, no matter how drenched they may be in self-importance, ever accomplish this end.

Let’s take this past Saturday’s print edition of Guardian Travel as an example of the value of travel lists. The section was full of inspiring ideas in list form – summer holiday recommendations, adventures in south-west England, and cool accommodations on the Isle of Wight. There’s a more bullet-point-like list of upcoming holiday festivals in the UK as well.

The summer holiday recommendations kick off with some exciting suggestions about corners of France slightly off the beaten path, written by Jacqueline Mirtelli of Atout France, the France Tourism Development Agency. Mirtelli suggests Cap Corse, the little-visited peninsula on the northern coast of Corsica, and finishes off her tip list with the inland villages of the Var, a region in Provence. Elsewhere Michael Cullen of i-escape tips the Greek island of Kastellorizo, Simon Wrench of Inntravel suggests the Danish Riviera, and Lucy Kane of Rough Guides lists Tbilisi, Palma and Montenegro as her summer travel recommendations.

In this short round-up piece the excitement of summer travel is infectious and inspiring. There is information here, and more importantly there are multiple jumping-off points for research. Could this sort of generalized excitement be achieved by one longer piece on, say, the Amalfi Coast? I’m doubtful that it could.

Like many absolutist stands that we travel writers get sidetracked into on occasion, the resistance to lists is misplaced. The wholesale replacement of narrative by lists would be a terrible development for sure; shy of that, there’s no need to attack the humble list. There is, however, as always, a need across genres for high-quality versions of all types of writing.

[Image of Cap Corse: Flickr | cremona daniel]

#OnTheRoad On Instagram: Paris, France

by Anna Brones on

Paris is one of those iconic travel destinations that everyone seems to have on their travel list at one point or another. It’s romantic. It’s beautiful. It’s chaotic. It’s French.

I came three months ago, with the excuse of needing a month to focus on a couple of writing projects and somewhere inspiring to do it in. I still haven’t left.

Paris is one of those places that sucks you in. The kind of place that when you ride your bike down a street just before dusk, you risk getting in an accident because you’re mesmerized by the golden light hitting the tops of the buildings. It’s a city of well-known landmarks, but also one of hidden gardens, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, hipster bike shops, abandoned railways turned to community gardens and moments of serendipity. That’s the Paris that I have fallen in love with, and will be sharing with you this week on our #OnTheRoad Gadling Instagram series.

[Photo credit: Anna Brones]