Here’s a little Beetle quiz based on airport codes.
See how many you get right! Go on, have a guess!
Which cities are served by airports with the following
codes:
For the answers, see at the end of
the e-newsletter.
If you were thinking of visiting Spain’s beautiful
north western coast, your walks along the beach may be spoilt and it may be an
idea not to order locally caught fish. A 35m gash in the side of a Greek owned
oil tanker, the Prestige, has caused a major oil spill, about 1,500 tonnes of
oil so far.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) warns that if all
77,000 tones of the Prestige's cargo were to leak, the spill would be twice
the size of the catastrophic Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska.
Floating barriers and pumping systems have been in place to
try to contain the spill, but nonetheless, thick patches of oil have been
washing up along a 40-kilometre stretch of coastline.
Terrorism fears have prompted the Japanese Government to
issue a travel warning for Japanese subjects about Australia. Government to
Government discussions are now underway in Japan and efforts to sell the image
of a safe Australia to the Japanese public are also being stepped up due to a
multi-billion dollar tourism industry at risk.
Many of the London hop-on-hop-off buses throw in a free
river cruise – often to Greenwich,with the ticket. And even if you are
not doing that, a visit to Greenwich can make a good day out.
The Beetle’s favourite way of getting there is to go
on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) to Island Gardens and to walk through the
foot tunnel to Greenwich. There are some fab views, particularly in Winter,
looking south, across the river.
Once in Greenwich, there’s quite a bit to do: visit
the Royal Observatory, the Cutty Sark and the National Maritime Museum - and
it’s free!
The museum building itself is quite interesting: it used to
be an asylum building (i.e. what was referred to as a mad house) and then it
was a hospital school.
What’s there to see? In the museum, you will find a
collection of all things relating to the history of Britain at sea. But this
has been updated to include the dangers of sea pollution and ecology, as well
as Nelson’s seafaring antics.
The collection dates back to 1823 when a National Gallery of
Naval Art was established, featuring some 300 portraits, paintings and
artefacts.
The National Maritime Museum opens daily 10:00-17:00
Sun-Mon. Closed 24-26 Dec 2002. Train: Greenwich Train Station. Enquiries: 020
8858 4422 Entrance: FREE.
Canada and the European Union have joined Australia and
indefinitely closed their diplomatic missions in the Philippines after
receiving information about an “imminent” terror attack.
The move came after Australia said it had received
“credible and specific” warning of the attack by Islamic militants on
its embassy in the capital Manila within the next few days.
“It is not only location specific, targeting the
Australian embassy itself, but also it's time specific,” Australian
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Australian radio without giving any
further details.
The FCO said early November: 'Following the terrorist
attacks in Bali… in which Western tourists were deliberately targeted, the
threat to British nationals in Thailand, including popular tourist areas, the
island of Phuket in particular, has increased significantly.'
This statement has enraged not only the Thai and other South
East Asian tourism authorities, but ABTA, that venerable travel industry
association who have asked for greater clarity in the travel advice issued by
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Keith Betton, head of corporate affairs at ABTA, said:
'Surely they should tell us if they have had a specific threat about
Phuket.' He added: 'The advice they have given has scared people and we
have no idea whether it is reasonable. As far as we can tell Thailand is as
dangerous for the 6,000 or so Britons there as London was for Americans when
the IRA was bombing here.'
In response, an FCO spokesperson said: “We would not
mark out Phuket just to be on the safe side. Our advice is drawn from a number
of sources, including intelligence officials”.
Tour operators have been calling customers with bookings to
Thailand, or travellers in Thailand, apprising them of the FCO advice and
allowing them to postpone or alter their holiday plans. Airtours has dropped
Thailand, and Thomson Worldwide says bookings have dipped.
Early November, the FCO updated its advice on 12 countries -
including Honduras, Seychelles, Gibraltar and the Marshall Islands in the
Pacific - advising travellers to be 'aware of the risk of indiscriminate
attacks on civilian targets in public places' although no one at the FCO
could explain what this risk is, and it has promised to discuss the
practicality of its warnings with the Travel Advice Unit.
Foreign and Commonwealth
Travel Advice is available on 020 7008 0232/3.
Yes, you can now renew your membership or join the
Globetrotters Club on-line.
It is secure and you can pay by credit card in US $ and your
card company will convert this to your local currency on your bill.
Membership costs are as follows:
Europe (EU)
Worldwide
As a member, you will be a part of the oldest travel network
in existence and have the opportunity to make new friends who share your
interest in travel. Once you are a member, you will receive our annual
membership that lists all Globetrotter members around the world. You can
contact fellow Globies and even stay with some of them or offer to put fellow
Globetrotters from around the world up yourself!
So, just
"http://www.globetrotters.co.uk/join/join.php">click here to join and
become a Globetrotter!
To search this and past issues of our E-newsletter, just
enter a word or phrase below, select the search options and click the search
button.
"22" name="query">
value="Search" method="POST" name="SEARCH">
Rank
Airport
Total Passengers
% Change
1
ATLANTA, GA (ATL)
75,849,375
-5.4
2
CHICAGO, IL (ORD)
66,805,339
-6.9
3
LOS ANGELES, CA (LAX)
61,024,541
-8.3
4
LONDON, GB (LHR)
60,743,154
-6
5
TOKYO, JP (HND)
58,692,688
4.1
6
DALLAS/FT WORTH AIRPORT, TX (DFW)
55,150,689
-9.2
7
FRANKFURT, DE (FRA)
48,559,980
-1.6
8
PARIS, FR (CDG)
47,996,223
-.5
9
AMSTERDAM, NL (AMS)
39,538,483
-.2
10
DENVER, CO (DEN)
36,086,751
-6.9
Hartsfield Atlanta Airport is situated on the site of an abandoned racetrack
owned by a Coca-Cola magnate. The City Council took a 5 year lease on 287 acres
of land in 1925, rent free, if you can believe it, with the option to buy the
land for $100,000. They exercised the option in 1930 and the rest as they say,
is history. The airport is named after William Berry Hartsfield, the city
alderman who found the site and pushed for the airfield. Hartsfield went on to
head the city's new aviation committee and served as Mayor of Atlanta from
1938 to 1961, the year the airport terminal was built.
Information supplied by
"new">Airports Council International, the organization that represents
most of the world's airports.
"http://www.airports.org/">http://www.airports.org/
alt="" width="60%" height="36" border="0">
width="221" height="36" border="0">Everyone has heard of Dracula. Dublin born Bram Stoker (1847-1912) created
Count Dracula as a figure of fear and revulsion in his novel
“Dracula” published in 1897. Since then, we’ve had countless
Dracula versions through film, novels, TV series and even comic books. We all
know that Dracula comes from Transylvania, in Romania but is there any truth in
these myths? Did he really exist?
Popular opinion says that Dracula is based on an exaggerated account of a
man called Vlad Tepes, the prince of the Wallachia (found in the southern part
of today's Romania). Vlad Tepes was considered at the time to be a fair but
very cruel man.
Let’s call him Vlad – Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg granted
him rulership of Wallachia in 1431. The emperor gave Vlad a necklace and a
golden medallion with a dragon engraved on it. Vlad set up a mint where he used
the dragon emblem.
The name Dracula is actually a nickname and is derived from the Romanian
language that in turn comes from Latin – Drac means Devil. Vlad’s
father was called this, and the name stuck, and so Vlad became known as Vlad
Dracula. He was not a friend of the Ottoman Empire and started organising the
state, the army, the law, applying the death penalty by impaling against all
those he considered enemies: highwaymen, robbers, beggars, cunning priests,
treacherous noblemen, usurper Saxons (who tried to replace him either with
cousin Dan cel Tanar (Dan the Young) or by his natural brother Vlad Calugarul
(Vlad the Monk)).
Vlad died in 1476 in a battle at Snagov, killed by Laiota Basarab who
succeeded him to the throne of Wallachia. To experience some places in
Dracula’s life, you can visit:
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The Globetrotters eNewsletter