Here’s an article I recently wrote for my application to the BBC Graduate Scheme… hope you enjoy it!
Big locations… through the backdoor
Getting to Russia, Syria, Tunisia and Ukraine for less than £100? Travel for a fraction of the cost by doing a “budget flight and border hop”…
The souks of Aleppo, Syria, bewilder and beguile visitors. The few tourists who venture into the market are immediately immersed in the smells of the souk, lost among the narrow alleyways and looming arches that cross their path. Butchers, jewellers and tailors pass by, and Aleppo goes about its business in much the same way as it has done since the Middle Ages, when Saladin fought the Christian Crusaders who mercilessly besieged the town. Somewhere, deep in the market, the Ottoman hammams (thermal baths) bubble away, and the muezzin prepares for his afternoon call to prayer from the minaret of the Great Mosque.
And the price of reaching one of the most beautiful cities in the Middle East? A total travelling cost of £70, one way, from London. Admittedly, you may have to adjust to sleeping on an overnight train. You may even have to learn a few choice Turkish phrases, but by joining in the latest travelling phenomenon – “border hopping” – you’ll save hundreds, and you’ll be in good company.
Every year, thousands of savvy travellers dodge big air fares to expensive airports by catching a budget flight to a neighbouring country, before hopping over the border to their destination.
St. Petersburg, for example, is regrettably not a budget airline destination – with return flights seldom sizing up at less than £300. The fairytale capital of Tallinn, Estonia, on the other hand can be reached for as little as £25 one way, with an eight hour bus journey along the Baltic to St. Petersburg costing an additional £16.
Added up, “border hopping” your way to Russia could come to as little as £80 return – a saving of over £200. With a bit of organisation, it might even cost you as little as half a day’s travelling time, before you find yourself wandering the long avenues of the Tsars’ former capital.
Jessica Grannatt, 22, recently made the trip from Tallinn to St. Petersburg by bus and would recommend it to anyone: “When you travel on the road you get a sense of arriving at a city, which is a feeling you just don’t get on a plane.”
Border hopping needn’t be confined to bus journeys. To reach Aleppo, catch a budget flight to Istanbul before following in the footsteps of Agatha Christie and Lawrence of Arabia by boarding the recently reopened Toros Express from Istanbul’s grand Haydarpasa Station.
The train departs Istanbul at 8 ‘o clock in the morning, and you’ll soon find yourself sweeping through some of the most beautiful landscapes in Anatolia. After settling down in the sleeper carriage, passengers awake the next day in the Arab world, arriving in Aleppo early in the afternoon having dodged an expensive direct flight to Syria.
Border hopping might not be for everyone, and undeniably many travellers would pay extra to avoid the hassle. But as budget airlines continue to extend their reach, swathes of expensive locations might only be a hop over the horizon.
Make it happen
Here are four of the best border hops:
ISTANBUL (Turkey) to ALEPPO (Syria)
The Backdoor – Istanbul
Istanbul needs no introduction. The bottleneck through which invading armies from Europe and Asia have passed, it positively oozes history. There can be no better way to whet your appetite for a hop onto the Middle East than a walk through the city’s raucous bazaars.
Pegasus Airways from London Stansted to Istanbul S. Gocken start at £39 (one way, inc tax).
The Border Hop
Departing on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 8am, the Toros Express is a romantic – and notoriously unreliable – way of getting to Syria. Fortunately, overnight buses also operate from Istanbul to Aleppo via Antakya, departing daily from the Buyuk Otogar. You may have to take a thick novel, but at least you’ll be saving yourself the £400 cost of a typical return flight to Syria.
The price of bus and train tickets fluctuates regularly. Istanbul to Aleppo with bus company Hatay SAS starts at £22.
ALEPPO
Despite boasting the largest souk and possibly the finest citadel in the Middle East, Aleppo attracts comparatively few visitors. Fortunately, this means you’ll avoid the sort of hassle tourists experience in places like Cairo and Marrakech, and visitors get to explore this magical city at their own pace.
Sleep: A grand old establishment that has fallen on hard times, The Baron still displays the unpaid bill of its most famous guest – T.E. Lawrence – in the lobby. Although the rooms are rough around the edges, few can match the charm of the Baron’s faded glamour (from £15, 00963 21 210 880).
See: Crusader Knights were held in the Dungeons of the Citadel for ten to twenty years at a time without seeing daylight. Remember to bring a torch, as the dungeons remain unlit to this day.
Do: No visit to Aleppo would be complete without a trip to one of the hammams – the Turkish baths that have served as the social focus of the city for hundreds of years. Your first visit will be baffling – customers are led through a series of ante-rooms, scrubbed, massaged, steamed and dried down before relaxing with a cup of tea (from £5).
RZESZOW (Poland) to LVIV (Ukraine)
The Backdoor – Rzeszow
A sleepy little town in southern Poland, Rzeszow, with its café-lined town square, makes for an agreeable place to spend a day or two. Beneath Rzeszow, visitors can explore an ‘underground city’ of tunnels and cellars, some of which date back to the Middle Ages.
Ryanair flights from London Stansted to Rzeszow start at £25 (one way, inc tax).
The Border Hop
Rzeszow is only about 100 miles from Lviv, and there are various options for would be ‘hoppers’. Buses run from downtown Rzeszow to the Ukrainian border, where minibuses to Lviv are readily available. However the Krakow-Lviv railway line has been improved, and is to reopen by May 2009 making it easy to take a train from Rzeszow, changing at Premysl. It might require a bit of organisation, but it’ll mean you’ll avoid the £200 cost of a return flight to Lviv.
Combined bus fares to Lviv cost no more than £15.
LVIV
Regarded by many as the cultural capital of the Ukraine, Lviv can claim to be one of the last remaining hidden gems of Eastern Europe. With an old town that has become a Unesco World Heritage site, Lviv’s cobbled streets and thickly wooded parks exude old-world grandeur. But don’t be fooled: this ever-changing city boasts a vibrant nightlife and is awash with young artists, musicians and performers.
Sleep: The Kosmonaut hostel near the market square proudly proclaims itself to be the ‘new frontier of free Europe’, and visitors are surrounded by Communist memorabilia and kitsch from the city’s past (from £8 www.thekosmonaut.com).
See: Climbing the tower of the Lviv’s Town Hall is not for the faint hearted. From the top, the city’s diverse heritage is on show for all: the spires of Armenian, Greek Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox churches loom over the squares and the townhouses of the old city.
Do: Keep the revolutionary spirit alive with a visit to the Kriyvka bar – meaning “bunker” in Ukrainian. This anti-Nazi and anti-Communist themed drinking hole has become increasingly popular since Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” in 2004, when the nation peacefully rose up against the ‘rigged election’ of Viktor Yanukovych.
PALERMO (Italy) to TUNIS (Tunisia)
The Backdoor – Palermo
From the clamour of the Vucciria market to the opulence of its cathedral, Palermo’s Sicilian swagger is on show all over the city. A seaport that’s fiercely proud of its peculiar heritage – having changed hands between Roman, Byzantine and Arab armies – what better place from which to stage an expedition to North Africa?
Ryanair flights from London Stansted to Palermo start at £20 (one way inc tax).
The Border Hop
Taking the boat from Palermo to Tunis will see you retracing the route of the ancient Carthaginians who once ruled this corner of the Mediterranean. The journey takes approximately 9 hours, but will save you the £200 cost of many return flights to Tunisia.
Grimaldi Lines sail twice a week from Palermo to Tunis, with prices starting at £40 (one way inc tax). Grandi Navi Velochi sail once a week from Palermo to Tunis, with prices starting at £40 (one way inc tax).
TUNIS
Too often associated with package holidays and soulless resorts, Tunis can claim one of the finest old cities in the Maghreb. Expect to be lost in the labyrinth of alleyways that weave their way between the white washed buildings of the medina. The French quarter, with its wide boulevards and cafes, is ideal for unwinding after a hard day’s bartering with market traders.
Sleep: Built in the French colonial style, La Maison Doree is a centrally located hotel built around a courtyard. In a city with no shortage of substandard accommodation, it’s quite possibly the best of the budget hotels (from £14, 00216 71 240 632).
See: Now a suburb of Tunis, little now remains of ancient Carthage, the city that dared defy the Roman Empire and paid the price: it was set ablaze and its citizens were enslaved. Fortunately, the ruins occupy an attractive site overlooking the Mediterranean which now hosts the International Carthage Festival from June to August: a mixture of traditional and contemporary performance from the Arab world and beyond.
Do: Those who brave the markets of the medina should prepare to become very popular: the tourist touts of Tunis are some of the most persistent in the world. Bartering is a skill that requires practice, but with a little patience can be fantastic fun. Look out for the Souk El Birka – the jewellery market – and the Souk el Leffa – the carpet market.
TALLINN (Estonia) to ST. PETERSBURG (Russia)
The Backdoor – Tallinn
The most attractive of the Baltic capitals, Tallinn, Estonia – with its skyline of red roofs – has become a popular budget flight destination in recent years. Divided between the Toompea (Cathedral Hill) and the merchant’s Hanseatic town, visitors could comfortably pass a few days meandering the streets of the city before moving on to St. P’s.
EasyJet flights from London Stansted to Tallinn start at £25 (one way inc tax).
The Border Hop
Fortunately, Tallinn to St. Petersburg is a quite well trodden hop. Buses depart several times a day to the St. Petersburg terminal.
Tallinn to St. Petersburg with Eurolines starts at £16 (one way inc tax).
ST. PETERSBURG
The ‘Venice of the North’, the ‘Gateway to the East’ – no sobriquet quite does justice to St. Petersburg, a city whose imperial splendour has survived bitter wars and a bloody revolution. There is enough here for a lifetime’s exploration: over 200 museums, dozens of grand monuments, beautiful parkland and, of course, the peerless Hermitage.
Sleep: St. Petersburg was recently revealed to be one of the world’s most expensive cities to live in, so good budget accommodation can be hard to come by. Cubahostel is a small, friendly hostel located close to the city’s main street, the Nevsky Prospekt (from £10, www.cubahostel.ru).
See: Founded by Peter the Great in 1719, the Kunstkamera museum is a haphazard and bizarre collection that features, among other things, deformed human and animal foetuses. It was originally devised by Peter to debunk contemporary suspicions that deformities were caused by witchcraft.
Do: Ballet and opera performances have long featured on the itineraries of visitors to St. Petersburg, but tickets to the world famous Mariinsky Theatre can often be expensive and hard to come by. Instead, head to a recital at the Conservatory – whose graduates include Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich – to hear the country’s finest musical talents before they become famous.
