Air Travel in Italy
The price of flying within Italy is often comparable to the cost of train travel, although be sure to factor in the expense of getting to and from the airport. When flying out of Italian airports, always check with the airport or tourist agency about upcoming strikes, which are frequent in Italy and often affect air travel.
Booking Your Flight
When you book, look for nonstop flights and remember that “direct” flights stop at least once. Try to avoid connecting flights, which require a change of plane. Two airlines may operate a connecting flight jointly, so ask whether your airline operates every segment of the trip; you may find that the carrier you prefer flies you only part of the way.
Carriers to Choose from
When flying internationally, you must usually choose between a domestic carrier, the national flag carrier of the country you are visiting (Alitalia for Italy), and a foreign carrier from a third country. National flag carriers have the greatest number of non stops. Domestic carriers may have better connections to your hometown and serve a greater number of gateway cities. Third-party carriers may have a price advantage. On international flights, Alitalia serves Rome, Milan, and Venice. The major international hubs in Italy are Milan and Rome, served by Continental Airlines and Delta Air Lines. American Airlines flies into just Milan. US Airways serves only Rome.
Alitalia and British Airways have direct flights from London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports to Milan and Rome. From Manchester, British Airways has daily flights to Milan and Rome. Smaller, no-frills airlines also provide service between Great Britain and Italy. EasyJet connects Gatwick with Bologna. British Midland connects Heathrow and Milan. Ryanair, departing from London’s Stansted Airport, has daily flights to Milan, Rome, Pisa, and Venice. Meridiana has two or three direct flights each week between Gatwick and Olbia on Sardinia in summer, and daily flights to Rome and Florence throughout the year. From its hub in Brussels, Virgin Express files to Milan, Catania, and Rome.
Alitalia connects Canada and Italy. Air Canada flies to Munich for connections to Rome, Florence, and Milan via Lufthansa. Qantas flies from various cities in Australia via Bangkok, arriving in Rome. Alitalia and New Zealand Air fly from Auckland to Rome with a stop in London. Another option if you’re coming from Australia or New Zealand is Thai Airlines, landing in Rome via Bangkok.
Tickets for flights within Italy, on Alitalia and small carriers such as Meridiana and Air One, cost less when purchased from agents within Italy. Tickets are frequently sold at discounted prices, so check the cost of flights, even one-way, as an alternative to train travel.
If you are looking for cheap holidays and cheap flights, contact Escape Travel.
Sphere: Related ContentShopping in Southern India - What to Buy
South India has a multitude of beautiful things to buy. The region produces fabulous textiles including the famous Kanchipuram silk. It’s also known for woodcarving, especially sandalwood, and various forms of metalwork. Fort Cochin in Kerala has one of India’s foremost antique bazaars. Orissa has a wide selection of handicrafts. Some of the best devotional kitsch in the world is available from temple bazaars.
Every town has a bazaar, and big cities such as Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai have many bazaars that seem to merge into each other. Bazaars are like a world apart, with specialist areas set aside for particular goods (shoes, saris, jewellery etc).
For the traveller, bazaars are more about looking than shopping. Here you’ll see acres of unbelievable plastic kitsch alongside fine silks and cottons as well as mountains of cooking implements. In many towns Tibetans have set up their temporary bazaars of woollen clothing. These are especially popular around the hill stations. In all the tourist centres, Kashmiri vendors sell nearly identical wares of carpets, sandalwood elephants and lurid batik and tie-dyed cloth. Much of it is mass-produced and tacky, but if you persist they often have better stuff stored away. Pilgrimage towns have shops selling religious artifacts to Indian tourists, including beads, statues, ash paste and amazingly bright posters. The food stalls present an olfactory as well as a visual delight.
Official emporiums can be found in major cities and usually stock a large range of local crafts. Prices are fixed and are a little higher than you would pay in the bazaar, but for novices who don’t know the going rates for crafts or who are inexperienced in judging quality, the emporiums are a reasonably safe bet.
Be careful when buying items that include delivery to Australia. You may be told that the price includes home delivery and all customs and handling charges. Sometimes this is not the case, and you may find yourself having to collect the item yourself from your main port or airport, pay customs charges (which could be as much as 20% of the item’s value) as well as handling charges levied by the airline or shipping company (up to 10% of the value). If you can’t collect the item promptly, or get someone to do it on your behalf, exorbitant storage charges may also apply.
Metalwork
Bidriware is a craft named after the town of Bidri in northern Karnataka where silver is inlaid into gunmetal. Hookah pipes, lamp bases and jewellery boxes are made in this manner. Bidri employs the technique of sand-casting. Skilled artisans make a mould from sand, resin and oil and then pour in the molten metal.
Small bronze figures of various Indian Gods are available in Tamil Nadu, especially in and around major temple towns. The bronze makers still employ the centuries’ old lost-wax method of casting, a legacy of the Chola period when bronze sculpture reached its peak in skill and artistry.
A wax figure is made, a mould is formed around it and the wax is melted and poured out. The molten metal is poured in and when it’s solidified the mould is broken open. Figures of Shiva as Lord of the Dance, Nataraja, are among the most popular. Small copper bowls, cigarette boxes and paan containers are still handmade in Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh), Bell metal lamps are a good buy in Thrissur (Kerala).
Jewellery
South India’s most important jewellery-making centres are Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mysore, Ooty and Thanjavur. Hyderabad is a major centre for cultured pearls. Cuttack in Orissa is a centre for delicate silver filigree jewellery andornaments. Tirunelveli in southern Tamil Nadu is a centre for many types of jewellery, particularly large chunky pieces. South Indian jewellery is generally distinguished from that made in the north by its use of motifs inspired by nature -lotus buds, flowers, grass stalks and in Kerala. birds.
Woodwork
Mysore (Karnataka) is South India’s main centre of sandalwood carving, and while sandalwood was once reserved for carving deities, these days all manner of things are made, from solid pieces of furniture to keyrings and ornate fans. Rosewood is used for making furniture and carving animals. Carved elephants are a speciality of Kerala.
If you’re looking for inexpensive international flights visit studentflights.com.au. Student Flights have outstanding round the world flights travel packages that means value-for-money travel for young people and the young at heart. STSF3010084
Sphere: Related ContentEating in Southern India
Australians on holidays love a big breakfast to get them ready for the day’s adventures. Many Australians also adore Indian food. In South India breakfast foods also appear at other times during the day as snacks. Everywhere in the south you will come across idlis (spongy, round, fermented rice cakes), which are accompanied by chutney (chatni, often coconut) or sambar and frequently both. Usually, idlis are served in portions of two to three at a time.
Also popular, and often eaten with idlis, are vadai, which are deep-fried dhal and vegetable cakes (sometimes called ulundu vadai in South India). These come with a sambar and fruit chutney. Less common is uppuma, which is a savory dish made from semolina, pounded rice, vegetables and spices. Puttu is a sweet breakfast dish made of pounded rice and coconut.
Equally popular throughout southern India, eaten as lunch or breakfast, are the wafer-like pancakes called dosa. Dosas come in a number of different forms: masala dosa (a lentil-flour pancake stuffed with a potato masala); uttapam (a thicker dosa topped with chopped spiced vegetables); and paper, or semolina, dosa (lacy, thinner than other dosa and with no filling). Dosas usually come with coconut chutney and a sambar, and are generally about the size of a dinner plate, but sometimes they are larger. Think of them as southern India’s answer to pizza ! Udipi in Karnataka is considered the home of the masala dosa.
In Kerala especially you will come across appams, which are pancakes made from fermented rice flour and coconut. The final product is crispy at the outsides and rather like a pancake in the middle. Appams are often accompanied by a hard-boiled egg in a curry sauce and this is a snack you’ll find in chai shops everywhere. Idiyappams come in vermicelli strands which are often served with milk and sugar as a dessert.
Other snacks that you’ll find in chai shops everywhere are samosas (triangular pastries stuffed with curried vegetables), namkin (spiced nibbles), bhaji (bite-sized pieces of vegetable dipped in chickpea flour), bonda (spiced potato or vegetable balls dipped in batter and deep fried), pakora (deep-fried vegetable cakes), sundal (spiced whole chickpeas), purr (deep-fried rounds of bread usually served with spiced potatoes) and paratha (flaky, pan-fried bread usually served with spiced vegetables including onion),
For the Meat-Eater
Although South Indians are predominantly vegetarian due to the expense of meat, carnivorous meals are widely available, eaten mainly by the Muslim and Christian communities. Goat (known as ‘mutton’ since the days of the Raj even though it isn’t sheep), lamb and chicken are the mainstays (religious taboos forbid Hindus from eating beef and Muslims from eating pork).
You’ll find biryanis (rice-based dishes made with meat, dried fruits, nuts and with added spices), kebabs, chicken tikka (succulent pieces of marinated chicken on a skewer) and the ubiquitous tandoori chicken (marinated with a blend of spices called tandoori masala and cooked in a special clay tandoor oven). In Mumbai, you can sample the Parsi’s signature dish, dhansak (a one-pot wonder consisting of meat and vegetables in a spicy puree of several dhals).
Goa, with its Portuguese and Christian influences, is famous for the eye-watering vindaloo, a pork curry made in a marinade of vinegar and garlic. Be warned it is hot. And remember there is a difference between Indian hot and Australian hot!
Other pork specialities include chourisso (Goan sausage) and a pig’s liver dish known as sorpotel. Xacuti, a spicy chicken or meat dish, is another Goan speciality. Chicken sukka is made with grated coconut and coconut milk.
You will never run out of interesting foods to try in India. It’s imaginative, affordable and very, very tasty.
If you’re looking for inexpensive international flights visit studentflights.com.au. Student Flights have outstanding round the world flights packages that means value-for-money travel for young people and the young at heart. STSF3010083
Sphere: Related ContentThe Thames River, London
Thirty million years ago, before Britain was an island, the Thames river was a small branch of the Rhine. By A.D. 50 it had changed course and it gave Britain its capital after the invading Roman armies established Londinium as a port at the highest point of the tide. (it now reaches farther inland due to rising sea levels and the fact that Britain is sinking into the sea at a rate of 15 centimeters every 100 years.)
The Romans consolidated the river as an international port (trade with the Continent had started in the Bronze Age), constructing mills, wharves, and bridges. The iconic London Bridge was the first water crossing, lined with houses and shops; it has been replaced several times, most recently in the 1960s when the previous one was taken apart and shipped to the USA. There are now 14 bridges in central London, the most recent being the Golden Jubilee footbridges built in 2002.
About 100km (60 miles) from the sea, the Thames becomes tidal, flowing “the wrong way” toward its source twice a day as the sea pushes up the estuary. As the tide falls, the riverbed is disclosed, and in the mud and slush you can discover fascinating clues to London’s past, including clay tobacco pipes and pottery fragments.
The Thames was most splendid under the Tudors and Stuarts, when the river-loving Kings and Queens lived in lovely waterside residences at Hampton Court, Kew, Richmond, Whitehall, and Greenwich, using the waters as a “royal highway.” Fittingly, the Thames saw many monarchs’ final journeys in the form of stately funeral ceremonies, including that of Elizabeth I in 1605, and that of Henry VIII in 1547. Its said that during the overnight stop at Syon House his coffin came apart and dogs licked at his body.
Today you can travel the same waters on passenger ferries or tourist vessels from Westminster upriver to Hampton Court via Richmond and Kew, or downriver to the glittering stainless-steel Thames Barrier via Greenwich. Alternatively, you can walk all or part of the Thames Path from the river’s source at Thames Head down to the Thames Barrier, or meander along the South Bank with its riverside attractions, restaurants, pubs, and shopping malls. (Note that a walk along the Embankment on the other side can be frustrating for little kids because of its high walls.)
When you’re on the Thames, try to picture in your mind’s eye the Lord Mayor’s processions that took place from the 15th century to the middle of the 19th, in barges covered with gold leaf, some rowed with silver oars. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Frost Fairs were held on the river during winter freezes, complete with fairground amusements and stalls, performing clowns, and ox roasts.
Today, The Mayor’s Thames Festival is a fantastic family-oriented celebration of the Thames, including the transformation of part of the shore on the South Bank into a temporary urban beach. The river also hosts a variety of annual regattas, including the famous Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.
If you are looking for cheap flights to London and also flights to India, visit studentflights.com.au Student Flights have excellent tour and travel packages to your favourite destinations which means affordable travel for young people and the young at heart. STSF3010082
Sphere: Related ContentGoa - Southern India
Goa may be Southern India’s smallest state, but it’s also one of the country’s most popular travel destinations, and historically, culturally and socially it offers a lot.
The former Portuguese colony has beckoned travellers for many years with its palm-fringed beaches, liberal attitudes and tourist-friendly locals. Times are changing for India’s laid-back holiday destination, though.
Central government laws banning rock music in public spaces after 10 pm have curtailed the famous all-night rave parties, while the increase in charter and package tourism has resulted in raging development at many of the once-pristine beach resorts.
Away from the tourism, Goa has a character quite distinct from the rest of India and offers much more than just the hedonism of sun, sand and sea. Despite four decades of ‘liberation’ from Portuguese colonial rule, Roman Catholicism remains a major religion in Goa, skirts far outnumber saris, and the people display an easy-going tropical indulgence, humour and civility.
Glowing, Portuguese-style white churches, paddy fields, dense coconut palm groves, and crumbling forts guarding rocky capes make up the Goan vista. Markets are lively, colourful affairs, and siesta is widely observed during the hot afternoons. Goans love to celebrate and this is reflected in the huge number of feasts and festivals.
Farming, fishing, tourism and mining form the basis of the economy, although the last two sources of income are sometimes at odds with the first. Mining has caused damage to paddy fields, and the five-star tourist resorts, with their swimming pools, have placed a heavy strain on water supplies. Even the popular beach shack restaurants may be under threat, as rising rent and taxes are making it difficult for small business owners to make a living.
History
Goa’s history stretches back to the 3rd century BC when it formed part of the Mauryan empire. Later it was ruled by the Satavahanas of Kolhapur with control eventually passed to the Chalukyas of Badami from AD 580 to 760.
Goa fell to the Muslims for the first time in 1312, but the invaders were pushed out in 1370 by Harihara I of the Vijayanagar empire. whose capital was at Hampi. Over the next 100 years Goa’s harbours were important destinations for ships carrying Arabian horses to Hampi to strengthen the Vijayanagar mounted army.
Blessed as it is by natural harbours and wide rivers, Goa was the ideal base for the seafaring Portuguese, who arrived in 1510 aiming to control the spice route from the east. They also had a strong desire to spread Christianity.
Jesuit missionaries led by St Francis Xavier arrived in 1542. For a while, Portuguese control was limited to a limited area around Old Goa, but by the middle of the 16th century it had grown to encompass the provinces of Bardez and Salcete. The Portuguese wielded power with a high degree of religious zeal.
The Inquisition arrived in Goa in 1560, and for two hundred years its tribunal brutally imposed its will, outlawing the practice of Hinduism and murdering Christians who were suspected of being morally corrupt.
Despite this climate of fear, the fortunes made from the spice trade led to Goa’s golden age, and the colony became the seat of the Portuguese empire of the east. It’s difficult to understand these days that Portugal was a super-power. But competition from the British, French and Dutch in the 17th century led to a decline.
The Marathas almost removed the Portuguese in the late 18th century and there was a brief occupation by the British during the wars of Napoleon Wars in Europe. But it was not until 1961, when they were ejected by Indian forces under the orders of Prime Minister Nehru, that the Portuguese finally slunk away from Goa.
In 1967, Goans voted against being merged with Maharashtra, and Goa was officially recognised as India’s 25th state in 1987. For the past decade, political instability has plagued the Goan government. There were three changes of government in 1999 alone, along with a four-month period of President’s Rule, during which the Indian central government assumed power.
If you are looking for cheap flights to London and also flights to India, visit studentflights.com.au Student Flights have excellent packages to your favourite destinations which means cheap travel for young people and the young at heart. STSF3010081
Sphere: Related ContentSouth Indian Meals: What to Have for Breakfast & Snacks?
Australians on holidays love a big breakfast to get them ready for the day’s adventures. Many Australians also adore Indian food. In South India breakfast foods also appear at other times during the day as snacks. Everywhere in the south you will come across idlis (spongy, round, fermented rice cakes), which are accompanied by chutney (chatni, often coconut) or sambar and frequently both. Usually, idlis are served in portions of two to three at a time.
Also popular, and often eaten with idlis, are vadai, which are deep-fried dhal and vegetable cakes (sometimes called ulundu vadai in South India). These come with a sambar and fruit chutney. Less common is uppuma, which is a savory dish made from semolina, pounded rice, vegetables and spices. Puttu is a sweet breakfast dish made of pounded rice and coconut.
Equally popular throughout southern India, eaten as lunch or breakfast, are the wafer-like pancakes called dosa. Dosas come in a number of different forms: masala dosa (a lentil-flour pancake stuffed with a potato masala); uttapam (a thicker dosa topped with chopped spiced vegetables); and paper, or semolina, dosa (lacy, thinner than other dosa and with no filling). Dosas usually come with coconut chutney and a sambar, and are generally about the size of a dinner plate, but sometimes they are larger. Think of them as southern India’s answer to pizza ! Udipi in Karnataka is considered the home of the masala dosa.
In Kerala especially you will come across appams, which are pancakes made from fermented rice flour and coconut. The final product is crispy at the outsides and rather like a pancake in the middle. Appams are often accompanied by a hard-boiled egg in a curry sauce and this is a snack you’ll find in chai shops everywhere. Idiyappams come in vermicelli strands which are often served with milk and sugar as a dessert.
Other snacks that you’ll find in chai shops everywhere are samosas (triangular pastries stuffed with curried vegetables), namkin (spiced nibbles), bhaji (bite-sized pieces of vegetable dipped in chickpea flour), bonda (spiced potato or vegetable balls dipped in batter and deep fried), pakora (deep-fried vegetable cakes), sundal (spiced whole chickpeas), purr (deep-fried rounds of bread usually served with spiced potatoes) and paratha (flaky, pan-fried bread usually served with spiced vegetables including onion),
For the Meat-Eater
Although South Indians are predominantly vegetarian due to the expense of meat, carnivorous meals are widely available, eaten mainly by the Muslim and Christian communities. Goat (known as ‘mutton’ since the days of the Raj even though it isn’t sheep), lamb and chicken are the mainstays (religious taboos forbid Hindus from eating beef and Muslims from eating pork).
You’ll find biryanis (rice-based dishes made with meat, dried fruits, nuts and with added spices), kebabs, chicken tikka (succulent pieces of marinated chicken on a skewer) and the ubiquitous tandoori chicken (marinated with a blend of spices called tandoori masala and cooked in a special clay tandoor oven). In Mumbai, you can sample the Parsi’s signature dish, dhansak (a one-pot wonder consisting of meat and vegetables in a spicy puree of several dhals).
Goa, with its Portuguese and Christian influences, is famous for the eye-watering vindaloo, a pork curry made in a marinade of vinegar and garlic. Be warned it is hot. And remember there is a difference between Indian hot and Australian hot!
Other pork specialities include chourisso (Goan sausage) and a pig’s liver dish known as sorpotel. Xacuti, a spicy chicken or meat dish, is another Goan speciality. Chicken sukka is made with grated coconut and coconut milk.
You will never run out of interesting foods to try in India. It’s imaginative, affordable and very, very tasty.
If you’re looking for inexpensive international flights visit studentflights.com.au. Student Flights have outstanding round the world flights packages that means value-for-money travel for young people and the young at heart. STSF3010083
Sphere: Related Content