One week older, one week wiser. Here are a few things we didn’t know last Sunday.
1. Threats and bribes were the norm in Soviet hotels
For a proper Fawlty Towers experience, it was hard to beat a hotel stay in the Soviet Union. Marcel Theroux recounted a few memories for Telegraph Travel. “The phrase ‘na remont’ – closed for repair – was one that even non-Russian-speakers found themselves able to recognize after a few days in the country, while eating in hotel restaurants was an experience with the dark absurdity of a play by Ionesco, involving tears, threats, bribes, and broad farce. The menus were imaginary, the waiters on the take, food never arrived, and every now and again a raucous Russian wedding party would tear loose.
“Yes for all that inconvenience – the atmosphere of suspicion, the officiousness at the front desk, the minuscule cakes of soap, abrasive toilet paper and unpredictable showers – I do feel a certain fondness for those times.”
Credit:
GETTY
2. Britain’s best airport? It’s Doncaster
Doncaster Sheffield Airport handled just 1.2m passengers last year, and only four airlines offer services from it. Which might help explain why it has just been named Britain’s best air travel hub in a Which? survey – ahead of far busier rivals like Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester. Customers raved about its “small and uncrowded” feel and “short or non-existent” queues. The “personable and helpful” staff were also praised. The UK’s second best airport? It’s another minnow: plucky Southend.
3. The German word for ‘slug’ is a thing of beauty
Tricky to learn and sometimes hard on the ears, the German language has a bad rep. But Paul Sullivan, a Berlin resident for over a decade, has nothing but praise for it. “How can you be down on a language with unique words like ‘kummerspeck’ (‘grief bacon’, the fat gained through eating comfort food), and ‘arschgeige’ (‘arse violin’, which is a heavy insult)?
“Then there are the hilariously literal words, especially those for animals: a skunk is a ‘stink animal’ (‘stinktier’); a sloth is a lazy animal (‘faultier’); and a small dog is a foot horn (‘fusshupe’). My favourite, though, is slug, which in German is simply a naked snail (‘nacktschnecke’).”
4. Downton Abbey has done funny things to the Cotswolds
Most people hadn’t heard of Bampton before Downton Abbey aired in 2010 – it was just another Cotswold village, outshined by the likes of Burford, Minster Lovell and Bourton-on-the-Water.
Now, however, you can expect to see coaches full of tourists and a curious blurring of fiction and reality. Locals, who are getting a little miffed at the influx of selfie-seekers, say they often find people wandering among the graves, looking for headstone of Matthew Crawley – a character from the show.
For more horror stories from the village, read the full report by Lottie Gross.
Credit:
FOCUS FEATURES/JAAP BUITENDIJK
5. Bordeaux is less than six hours by train from London
The elegant French city is 461 miles from London as the crow flies, but just five hours and 27 mins from St Pancras by train (with a change in Paris) – so there’s no excuse for flying there.
For more cities less than six hours from London by rail, see our guide.
6. Sarajevo is about to get a little closer
A brand new airline is coming to Britain this month. Step forward FlyBosnia, which launched in January 2019 with a focus on religious tourism. Its five existing routes feature Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, but it’s now eyeing up the UK market and a twice-weekly service from Luton to Sarajevo is coming on September 24. Remarkably, this will be the first direct flight from Britain to Bosnia. What have travellers been missing? “With its extraordinary cultural and religious mix and rich Ottoman heritage, Sarajevo really merits a visit,” explains Telegraph Travel’s Adrian Bridge. “Surrounded by green hills and bisected by a river, it is a place of spectacular beauty, and though the scars of war are still evident, Sarajevans display heartening resilience and vitality.” Fares are still available for the inaugural service, from around £100 one-way.
For more new winter flight routes, read the full story.
7. If you don’t look up, you might miss something
There are few things more photogenic than a beautiful ceiling and a new book by art historian Catherine McCormack, The Art of Looking Up, celebrates some of the finest. Such as the one inside the 17th-century Debre Berhan Selassie Church in Ethiopia. The faces of 135 angels, each with a slightly different expression, look down on worshippers.
See our gallery for 30 ceilings worth craning your neck for.
Credit:
GETTY
8. There are Martians in the Thames Estuary
Inspired by the recent demolition of Didcot Power Station, our regular contributor Chris Moss went in search of more bleakly beautiful industrial ruins. Among his favourites are the Maunsell Sea Forts, built in the Thames and Mersey estuaries to protect Britain during the Second World War.
“Now rusting, the structures were constructed in 1942 and decommissioned in the early 1950s,” he wrote. “Standing alone and abandoned under the moody skies of our inshore waters, they have an HG Wells-era Martian quality.”
Credit:
GETTY
9. A disastrous first holiday could be the secret to a happy marriage
This week a handful of happily married members of the Telegraph Travel team recounted their first holidays with their significant others. The anecdotes shared one thing in common: things went wrong.
Wrote one: “If your new girlfriend spends an entire evening listening to you empty both ends into a hotel room toilet – and shows no emotion but sympathy – she must be the one. So goes the old saying.”
10. There’s nothing like 177 American retirees to change your mind about cruise holidays
“Around 95 percent of my fellow passengers were from the States – a nation so hospitable, they’ll introduce themselves and invite you to stay with them in the same sentence,” explained Gabrielle Sander this week following her first river cruise. “Over the course of the eight-day voyage down the Rhine, my partner and I exchange tales of respective hometowns, family, pets and past cruises with retired teachers, engineers, doctors, and an air hostess, from Atlanta to LA. We got a window into what life is like where they live, and they picked our brains on London, Brexit, and the Royal Family. These interactions became one of the unexpected highlights of the trip which, prior to heading off, was enticing me mostly with the promise of new cities and their edible specialties.” Who needs Cologne and currywurst when there’s American hospitality?
Not convinced? Read the full story.