In continuing our focus on British Tourism Week, the smallest county in England, Rutland, is lucky to have one of the best waterside areas, Rutland Water. Apart from sailing, boating or fishing there is a popular pastime in walking and cycling around. This week there is a discount off bicycle hire. Strange to think that Rutland Water is only about 30 years old and that it is man-made. What life was like in the villages that disappeared can be found in the Normanton Church Museum.
Like a lot of other local tourism destinations, there is also a free offer just for residents. Barnsdale Gardens (they were the ones developed and featured by Geoff Hamilton on BBC’s Gardeners’ World) are open to locals for no cost this week (www.barnsdalegardens.co.uk).

UPDATE: 18th March. BA has announced that there will be extra flights as more volunteers have come forward than they expected so do check on the link below to see if things have altered since the original flightplan was drawn up.

BA has announced the standby measures it has put in place to get passengers away during the 3 day strike planned from March20th-22nd. You can see the details and how you might be affected at http://www.britishairways.com/travel/strike-ballot/public/en_gb?refevent=HOME_URGENT_CENTRE.
Only about 850 flights out of the 1,950 scheduled to fly will be cancelled. From Gatwick all long haul and about half of the short haul flights will fly. From Heathrow about 60% of long haul will fly but only about 30% of short haul. All affected passengers will be contacted by BA.

[ March 15, 2010 to March 21, 2010. March 15, 2010 to March 21, 2010. ] www.britishtourismweek.com 15th-21st March

Over 200 events throughout England and Wales. The website is searchable on a regional and daily basis so you can find your nearest event.

Just one of the events is free entry to National Trust properties on 20/21st March; Not all events are free.

[ March 15, 2010 to March 19, 2010. March 15, 2010 to March 19, 2010. ] www.fallasfromvalencia.com, Valencia, Spain.

The huge cadboard statues called “ninots,” some 700 of them appear throughout the city.  there are firweork dispalys every afternoon in the Town Hall Square at 2pm. This culminates on the 19th of March when they are all burnt except 1

[ March 12, 2010 to March 17, 2010. March 12, 2010 to March 17, 2010. ] 6 days of celebration culminating in the annual parade through Dublin on the March 17th.
see www.stpatricksday.ie

[ March 11, 2010 to March 20, 2010. March 11, 2010 to March 20, 2010. ] held throughout County Cavan,
see www.cavanmusic.com/nyah.html for a list of all events and their location