If you’ve had a holiday in the Maldives, been on a gap year volunteering programme, or just done the bucket and spade thing on a Costa, Tourism Concern has been involved.

Over the years they’ve done great work to improve the impact of tourism, and move it closer to an ideal vision of tourism that benefits the host community and provides a happy, enriching experience for the tourist.

They’re a force for good in an industry which is often very far from that vision, so I am sad to see it reported in the trade press today that they are likely to fold this year if they can’t raise more finds.

Please, donate, buy the latest edition of their excellent Ethical Travel Guide, or at least pass this blog post on to your friends!

I’d booked a berth in a 2-bed cabin, and either I had no roommate, or she didn’t show up. Or she did show up, saw my stuff and demanded another cabin. The bondage gear comes in handy sometimes. About twice the size of a Scotrail sleeper, with proper bathroom, it was all mine. The lack of a key was a bit odd, but I could lock it from the inside, though a trip to the deck involved carrying all my valuables with me. As I’m travelling like a branch of Dixons at the moment (laptop, phone, mp3 player, camera) the handbag was heavy. Convergence would help a lot – tech companies take note.

Leaving the port was wonderful. The big engines quietly churned and we had soon left the noise of the dock bars in the distance. The city’s lights glowed behind us, the Chalkidiki peninsula’s to our left, and a huge orange half-moon hung so low in the sky it could have been a mountain top. Chalkidiki is so built up now that there are lights almost all the way to the lighthouse at the tip.

Gulls surfed the air turbulence while fish jumped through our wake. Slowly, stars appeared. Its a long time since I’ve seen a lot of stars.

The sea was calm, and I slept well, waking up to full sunlight and the realisation that the porthole looked out onto a deck. Hello, Sailor, indeed.

First port of call was Skiathos, and then on through beautiful clear seas to Skopelos. The boat left me there, and headed on south to the Cyclades and Crete. It makes the round trip every couple of days, and I’ll get it back on Saturday. For €73, which is less than I paid for my hotel in Thessaloniki, its a great way to travel.

The highlight of the Archaeological Museum is the Gold of Macedon, grave goods from the many graves which have been excavated. That of Phillip II is the most famous and, if I can sort out the bus timetables, is the plan for Tuesday. I’m charmed by the beautiful gold sheet work in crowns of delicate golden flowers. They look so fragile, but have survived so long.

After the museum, I head off to find the Roman city. The Palace and Arch of the 4th century AD emperor Galerius, who ruled as part of the 4-emperor tetrarchy, sit in the middle of the post-war apartment blocks which characterise so much of the city.

A little further north is the Rotunda, which my guidebook tells me has the best mosaics outside Ravenna and Constantinople. Its a bit hard to tell, because the interior is covered in restorers scaffolding, but the bits I can see sparkle in gold. Like the Pantheon in Rome, this building has survived intact from ancient times by being consecrated as a church, then becoming a mosque and is now a church again. The mosaics I can see look Islamic, rather than Christian, with birds and abstract shapes.

In between, there’s lots of sitting in coffee shops and enjoying the sunshine. Its still all very quiet, and clearly not a tourist town. Even the hotel seems to be more for business people than for tourists.

It is amazing that with a brand new terminal, BAA decided not to keep domestic and international passengers separate, so that the possibility of coming in on an international flight and switching boarding passes with an accomplice to get onto a domestic flight didn’t even arise. And this isn’t even about ‘security’, just about the odd illegal immigrant. Is it really such an easy way to get into the country that it is worth hassling everyone? And shouldn’t they just recheck passports and boarding passes at the gates?

Alternatively, walking would do me the world of good, and if the weather is good, getting outside a lot at that time of the year keeps the winter blues at bay.  I like the look of this, based in one place the whole time so if curling up with a good book appeals one day, there shouldn’t be a problem.  Quiet and relaxing.

Decisions, decisions.  And if anyone reading this has very good references and would like a central London flat with a cat to feed at that time of the year, drop me a line.

Technorati Tags: Christmas holidays, Spain

I’m embarrassed I didn’t find it – I am sure I looked at SNCF, but think I was confused by wanting to buy a through ticket to Spain.

In fact, the easiest way to get by train from London to San Sebastian is:

London Waterloo (Kings X from 14 November) to Paris Gare du Nord on Eurostar
Paris Montparnasse to Hendaye on a TGV booked through Voyages SNCF. This cost about e90 each way, though discounts are available, and takes about 6hrs 30 minutes
Then the small but delightful Euskotren from Hendaye to San Sebastian.  Note that you need to go out of the SNCF station at Hendaye and turn right for the Euskotren.  It cost a mere e1.40, and the train leaves every 30 minutes.

Far more expensive and long winded than flying, but without the airport aggro, and you know you’re doing your bit for the planet. It feels like travelling too even though it can be done in a day, if you leave early. Personally, the chance to stop off in Paris is too good to miss.

Technorati Tags: train, san sebastian, eurostar, sncf, euskotren

But something was wrong.  The wines were awful, and I saw other people getting different ones.  And it feels a bit odd just helping yourself to food.

With the wines, apparently most bars will have a number of fairly set varieties available by the glass.  Rather than just ordering white or red, you can order in grades – crianza (2 years in the barrel), reserva (5 years in the barrel), gran reserva (longer, and less likely in a bar) – or by variety – Bordon, Cato from Rijoa for reds, Txakoli, Rueda for whites. 

And while it is fine to just take the pintxos, you can have a plate, and put 3-4 on it.  Apparently locals don’t do this, they have one glass and one pintxos per bar, and the evening becomes an extended pub crawl.  The glasses are small though so its not as bad as its sounds.  Most measures seem to be about 125ml, unlike the ridiculously large 175ml minimum in the UK.

Thanks to my ‘individual class’ tutor at the language school (more on this later) I have now practiced the whole coversation, and tried again this afternoon, with much better results.

me pones un Bodron  = May I have a glass of Bodron
me cobras? un bodron y dos pintxos = I’d like to pay for a glass of Bodron and 2 pintxos.
Don’t use please and thankyou, they think its odd the way we say it all the time.

Technorati Tags: san sebastian, pintxos, ordering

I started with a tower of vegetables, and I’d show you a picture, except that the laptop, having refused point blank to talk to my phone, is now being rude to the camera.  What’s a girl to do when her devices aren’t speaking?

I was amazed at the vegetables.  For a country which must grow half of europe’s greens, Spanish food often lacks more than a simple salad, and can be very meaty.  It might be the machismo thing, but it was good to see brocolli and cauliflower for once.

I then moved on to a filet of Lomo, a white, succulent fish.  I’m not great with seafood, and hate fish that comes whole, but ‘pescodo sin cara’ seemed to do the trick.  Filete was probably the word I was looking for.   It melted in the mouth, and didn’t leave enough room for postres.

I’m trying to plan a celebratory weekend with friends later in the year, and someone suggested Le Limonaire, in the 2nd arrondissement, a short trip from where I was staying in the 3rd.  We went to try it out.

Le Limonaire is everything you expect a Parisian cafe / bistro to be with one major exception.  Small, slightly run down, full of locals, good food and fabulous artists.  Dinner was a tuna terrine on salad, followed by a beef stew on rice and a creme brulee (at least one cliche allowed with every meal).  We started with a bottle of a fairly non-descript red the name of which escapes me, and then moved on to a carafe of the vin du moins, a fresh, clear beaujolais which was very drinkable on a muggy summer evening.  We were joined by an older lady who lives locally and comes here often, but spoke no English – she’d hated it at school.

After the meal the compere told us to turn off mobile phones and not to smoke, much to my amazement, given normal Parisian habits.  Apparently Paris too will have a smoking ban from Jan 2008, and join the league of civilised places discouraging that foul and obnoxious habit.

And then the entertainment started.

When two blokes took the stage with squeegee boxes, my heart sank.  But this was not the badly played piano-accordion of a thousand buskers who one gives money to in the hope that they would go away.  Instead, what followed was excellent, and absolutely at the limit of my French to understand.  It was obviously satirical, with songs about political figures, and although I couldn’t really get the jokes, the audience were having a great time.

Next up were two women, an Argentinian percussionist, Vanesa Garcia, and a chanteuse with a beautiful strong voice,  where I just sat and enjoyed the music, without worrying too much about understanding the words.

The third act was a male singer, who was apparently singing something quite obscene, but entertaining, and then finally a guitarist, who switched to a ukelele for a while, very funny with lots of silly noises.

With my limited French, I felt I missed out on a fair bit, but it was a great evening anyway – the music, the ambience, the food, trying to speak to people, spending time with my friends.  It must be fabulous to have something like this in your neighbourhood.

Technorati Tags: le limonaire, paris, holiday June 2007

All the best to this poor woman, and the other passengers.