Holidaymania strikes Germany as Covid travel restrictions ease

Hundreds of thousands of Germans plan to go away soon, as government reduces risk rating of favoured destinations

Germans are in the midst of holiday fever following the widespread relaxation of coronavirus restrictions at home and abroad, opening the prospect of travel again for a nation that considers the summer break to be a basic human right.

A considerable improvement week on week since May in the country’s virus incidence rate, which stood at 22 per 100,000 on Thursday, a 42% decrease on last week, a vaccine campaign that was slow to start but has picked up pace, and relaxations of rules in holiday destinations such as Mallorca, have prompted a boom in bookings.

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‘We’re desperate to dance’: Britons in Mallorca express relief over quarantine easing

Tourists slowly returning to Spain’s Balearic Islands after months-long coronavirus lockdown

Sunbathing on a deserted beach in Mallorca, Nicola Brett says she is having the “best holiday ever”.

The 31-year-old gym sales executive from York arrived on the Spanish island on a Ryanair flight on Sunday, hours after the government changed its advice against all but essential foreign travel. She was flying back at midnight on Thursday, just as the rules requiring those arriving in the UK to quarantine for 14 days were lifted.

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Hands off our treasured railway, say locals in Sóller, Mallorca

Anonymous investors have launched a hostile €25m bid for Sóller’s locally owned heritage train link to Palma

Indignant residents of the Mallorcan town of Sóller have said their railway is not for sale after a group of investors launched a hostile takeover bid.

The town has been linked to the capital, Palma, with a picturesque narrow-gauge railway since 1912. The train, with its wooden carriages, has been in continuous use ever since, climbing 200 metres and passing through 13 tunnels on its 27km journey.

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