Category Archives: Europe holidays

All quiet in Ibiza as super-rich hide away and young Brits chill by the pool

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With its near-deserted streets and laid-back vibe, the Spanish island is a world away from its pre-pandemic party scene

On the first day of lockdown in Britain, 48 private planes flew into Ibiza. While the island has only officially been open to tourists since the beginning of July, following one of Europe’s strictest quarantines, the super-rich have been making the most of a Balearic summer that hasn’t been this quiet for decades. Actor Emma Watson has been spotted in town and musician James Blunt has been living permanently in his villa in Santa Gertrudis, dubbed the island’s Notting Hill.

Exclusive boutique hotels, luxury villas and the island’s most expensive restaurants have reported an unexpected boom in business. Many are already full for July and much of August and say that wealthy customers are staying longer and spending more than the same period last year.

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‘Go Ape gone Viking’ – Denmark’s newest treetop attraction

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In the Danish town that is home to Lego HQ, Wow Park is a forest wonderland of swings, ziplines and treehouses immersed in nature

The birdsong is louder 14 metres up and there’s a citrusy tang of pine in the air. Scrambling to the top of a conifer with a six-year-old who suffers from vertigo wasn’t top of my post-lockdown bucket list, but after staring at the same four walls for weeks on end, there’s a welcome sense of perspective to spending time in a forest of 7,000 trees.

This is Wow Park in Billund, the Danish town that’s the home of Lego HQ, and that calls itself the “Capital of Children” – with ambitions to become the most child-friendly place in the world to live and work. Billund’s newest attraction is a treetop wonderland, the largest of its kind in the country, including suspension bridges, nets in the sky, giant bouncy balls, swings and ziplines; all crafted around the trunks of giant trees. It’s like Go Ape gone Viking, with a rough and ready, hand-whittled feel.

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UK travellers unable to fly to Greece as country reopens

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Ban on air travel between Britain and Greece to continue until June 30, unlike other countries

It was meant to be the moment when Greece “welcomed the world”. But in another about-turn, travellers on flights from the UK will not be accepted when the Mediterranean country reopens to tourism on Monday.

Bowing to new advice from the EU, Athens announced on Friday that the suspension of air links with Britain, in effect since March, will continue to be enforced until 30 June.

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Which European countries are easing travel restrictions?

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As some countries in Europe restart tourism, we round up lockdown-easing measures and restrictions country-by-country. Information will be updated as the situation changes

The UK Foreign Office (FCO) is currently advising against all but essential international travel for an indefinite period. However, countries across Europe have begun to ease lockdown measures and border restrictions, and to prepare for the return of domestic and international tourists.

At the UK border, all arrivals must self-isolate for 14 days from 8 June, or face a £1,000 fine. Arrivals must also provide contact and accommodation information, and the authorities have said they will carry out spot checks. Failure to supply an address may result in a £100 fine. They will also be strongly advised to download and use the NHS contact tracing app.

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‘We need the Brits’: Benidorm banks on August tourist surge

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Spanish resort ‘like a ghost town’ as UK’s Covid-19 lockdown keeps its best customers away

There’ll be no craic at the Shamrock tonight, says Lisa Griffin, who has run the Irish pub in Benidorm for 25 years.

Griffin’s 15 staff, who include a four-piece band, are on furlough and no one knows what will happen when the Spanish government’s scheme comes to an end on 30 June.

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Barcelona without the tourists: ‘We’ve reclaimed our city but inherited a ghost town’

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Last year Barcelona received 30 million visitors – now there are none. Emerging from Europe’s strictest coronavirus lockdown, how do its tourist-weary residents feel about getting their city back?

For six weeks, the streets of Barcelona were deserted. Not a soul except the Deliveroo and Glovo riders and the occasional shopper, masked and gloved, making a foray to the nearest supermarket before scurrying back home. In a city with one of the highest population densities in Europe, there was no one to be seen.

Throughout this time, people here have shown an extraordinary and perhaps unexpected degree of discipline, stoicism and collective spirit in sticking to the rules of one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns.

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‘I live alone at sea. Here’s how to be happy in isolation’

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Our lives have changed radically but we can adapt, says a former Guardian journalist who has lived solo on a boat for three years – and learned to love it
Living alone in the wild

‘I want to reassure people,” I announced grandly on Instagram the other day, “that it’s easier to change behaviour than you think.” With anxious friends facing a massive change of life in the face of coronavirus, I wanted to spread some calm.

The reason I’d started dispensing “wisdom” like some nautical soothsayer was that I gave up a much-loved job at the Guardian three years ago to pursue a simpler life on my tiny sailboat. I ended up crossing the Channel to France, sailing down the Atlantic coast to Portugal, into the Mediterranean, through Spain and Italy to Greece. It’s the slowest life imaginable, travelling at walking pace, completely immersed in nature. I sleep freely in secluded bays, by white beaches, fish and octopus swimming below me. I’ve sailed with dolphins and whales, woken to horses galloping on deserted beaches in southern Italy, and anchored by castles and cathedral-like cliffs. It is magical and it is nourishing.

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Rulantica, Europa-Park’s new indoor water world

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In Germany’s Black Forest, the country’s largest theme park is making a splash with a vast indoor complex of 17 water slides, plus a ‘mythical’ island, ‘rivers’ and ‘caves’ open year-round

I’m ushered into what looks like an upright glass coffin, told to fold my hands across my chest in the classic corpse position – and then push a green button. I’m wondering exactly what I’ve got myself into when the trapdoor falls open and I plummet into a tube of fast-flowing water. It’s up my nose, in my mouth; I can’t see and can hardly breathe for a few tumultuous seconds before the gradient of the water slide reduces from vertical to merely steep and I’m propelled around more bends and spat out at the bottom. I feel like I’ve been flushed down a toilet.

The Vildfål is one of the more extreme experiences at the new Rulantica indoor water park, which opened on 28 November. Half an hour’s drive north of Freiburg im Breisgau in south-west Germany, it’s next to Europa-Park, the country’s largest theme park. Both are owned by the Mack family, a dynasty of entrepreneurs who have been enticing visitors to this corner of the Black Forest since 1975. In building the €180m Rulantica, the family has made its biggest single investment to date.

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LGBT travel index puts Sweden top, and warns against some popular destinations

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Canada and Norway make top three of new ranking for gay and trans travellers, which also warns of ill-treatment in some countries favoured by tourists

Sweden has been named the most LGBT-friendly country in the world for travellers according to new research into gay rights in 150 countries.

The LGBTQ+ Danger Index was created by ranking the 150 most-visited countries using eight factors, including legalised same-sex marriage, worker protection and whether, based on Gallup poll findings, it is a good place to live.

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Romans revolt as tourists turn their noses up at city’s decay

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Rubbish, potholes and metro closures contribute to anger among visitors and citizens alike

As the day draws to a close in Rome, tourists are enjoying a nightcap at a bar on Piazza della Rotonda. In front of them stands the majestic Pantheon, the imposing domed temple built by Emperor Hadrian.

To their right, however, is a scene less befitting the piazza, famed for its elegance and history. A photomural of the temple covers boarding that surrounds a building under renovation and as the night gets later it is used to prop up a pile of rubbish bags and boxes discarded by nearby restaurants.

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