A long weekend in Lake Annecy: high thrills and haute cuisine


Catherine Henderson enjoys high thrills and haute cuisine in Lake Annecy – arguably one of France’s most beautiful areas

Spotlight on San Francisco

Ahead of the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th birthday on May 27, San Francisco has never looked more golden writes Kaye Holland. Read her guide to the city with its head in the clouds, here

Defra Pet Travel Scheme

From the website:

“This site explains what you have to do to bring your pet dog, cat or ferret into (or back into) the UK through the Pet Travel Scheme (or PETS for short) without putting it into quarantine. It also explains the requirements for bringing many other types of pet animals into the UK. This site also tells you about quarantine in the UK for animals that don’t qualify for PETS. Printable factsheets are available for both vets and the public.”

Santa Specials

Becoming a traditional feature of Christmas, almost as traditional as panto, has been the Santa Specials that steam railway companies put on in December. Some even start as early as November.
Press releases have been coming into the CD-Traveller office so we have put together a list (with a click-through link) to their websites plus the dates that they are running. There are 36 listed, but if you know of others please let us know.

Pst. Want to Buy a Castle?

Heritage tourism has been one of the growth areas during the recession. Our love of visiting our past has held up well as those owning castles have been saying. Now here’s your chance to own your own “castle” and at a knockdown price.
That’s the problem, “knockdown” or rather falling down.

Open for Tourism?

Yesterday the National Museum in Baghdad re-opened after six years of closure. After the invasion in 2003, there were exaggerated reports of the museum being ransacked whilst US troops were nearby. It appears 15,000 artifacts out of hundreds of thousands were removed, some, it is thought, as a result of organised crime. Items turned [...]

Compensation For Flight Delays

Sturgeon versus Condor and Bock & Others versus Air France isn’t on your bedtime reading list but if you fly you should be aware of them. A European Court of Justice ruling on Thursday confirmed that if your flight is delayed 3 hours or more you are entitled to compensation. Although there are 73 clauses in the judgement it can be summarised fairly easily. But the interpretation wrapped around the words still requires you to probably seek expert guidance.