Chunnel Shut Down; Eurostar Services Halted

London-Paris-Brussels rail connection uncoupled

"Indefinitely" is a word that has been in the news lately. Tiger Woods is suspending participation on the PGA tour "indefinitely, and now the Eurostar train between London and Paris has suspended service "indefinitely" too -- at least through Monday, at last report. On Friday, five trains carrying some 2,000 passengers were standed in the Chunnel, the tunnel under the English Channel. Some passengers reportedly were stuck underground for more than 15 hours without food or water. Also, it was reported that there was little or no communication to passengers explaining what was happening. Reports didn't cover how bad those passenger cars must have smelled after 15 hours.

Eurostar blamed "acute weather conditions" for electrical problems that plagued their trains. Three test trains seem to have used the Chunnel without incident on Sunday, but the test runs also indicated that heavy snow in northern France was somehow being sucked into the trains' power cars. The incident was unprecented and unexpected in Eurostar's 15 years of service. The rail fleet is reportedly being modified and further test runs are to be made early in the week. According to the latest BBC report, there will be no Eurostar service on Monday.

With peak holiday travel beginning, 31,000 people in Britain, France and Belgium had canceled their train travel plans on Saturday, and another 26,000 were expected to cancel by the end of Sunday. Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown warned that services might not return to normal for days. Cross-channel travelers had few options. Nearly half of all flights out of Paris's Charles de Gaulle and Orly asrports were cut on Sunday, and air service in Brussels also was impacted. And does anyone take a terry anymore?

Travel Tumbnail: Clear Creek Historic Park in Downtown Golden

Outdoor museum a short stroll from Golden's quaint downtown

Close to Denver and closer to Boulder, Golden is an appealing destination with plenty to do and to see. I have taken visitors to the town's three guidebook-variety attractions: the free tour of the enormous Coors Brewery, Colorado Railroad Museum and Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave, which recently installed a new permanent exhibition.

Still, it has been a while since I spent any time in downtown Golden, which nurtures its small-town, Old West ambience -- street-spanning arch and all. Turns out that Golden has a total of eight museums. Over the years, I have been to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, the historic Astor House Museum,  the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum which means I have a lot more to explore in the future. This week, the local chapter of the Society of American Travel Writers held its holiday party at the Golden Hotel, and a handful of us arrived early to take a brief walking tour.

Clear Creek runs through the heart of Golden, and like many communities in Colorado, the town has reclaimed its banks. There are now parks, recration paths and a well thought-out vehicular and pedestrian bridge. Interpretive signs and seating make this a pedestrian-friendly bridge.

Volunteer and staff historians unlocked some of the pioneer buildings that have been relocated to Clear Creek History Park. This creekside park is open year-round, but in winter, the one-room schoolhouse and cabins are normally opened just for school groups -- or groups like ours. In summer, heritage vegetables are grown in a small kitchen garden, a beehive produces honey and chickens peck around in their little fneced-in yard.

Looking from a bridge across Clear Creek toward the west is Mt. Zion. It is emblazoned with a distinctive M, a mountain monogram for the Colorado School of Mines that's difficult to see on the snow-dusted hillside.

We walked back to the main street along the creekside path, passing bronze sculptures that dot the downtown and trees decorated with holiday lights that went on as the sun set but were beyond my camera's ability to capture.

Golden was Colorado's territorial capital, but with statehood, it was moved to Denver. Golden hasn't quite forgotten or forgiven. The Old Capitol Grill, the building where the territorial legislature met, is named in its honor. It was badly damaged in a fire a few years ago. It has been rebuilt and remains a warm, welcoming Cheers-style bar, but without the patina that once existed.

For information on all the attractions, shops, restaurants and more, stop at the GoldenVisitors Center, 1010 Washington Avenue (on the north side of Clear Creek).

Flight Attendant's View of Life in the Air

Air travel is hard on passengers these days -- and on flight attendants too

What's the quotation about not judging a man until you have walked a thousand miles in his shoes? Michelle Higgins, who writes "The Practical Traveler" column for the New York Times, did just that. "In a behind-the-scenes look at the other side of air travel, I donned a navy suit and starched white shirt earlier this summer and became a flight attendant for two days," she wrote. "With the cooperation of American Airlines, I first went to flight attendant training school at the company’s Flagship University in Fort Worth, Tex....I then flew three legs in two days: a round-trip journey between Dallas and New York, and then back to New York the next day. And though the other flight attendants knew I was a ringer, the passengers did not. Thus I got a crash course in what airline personnel have to put up with these days — and, after just one day on the job, began to wonder why the phrase 'air rage' is only applied to passengers."

Her piece is called "Flying the Unfriendly Skies," a title many of us writers have used in many ways but not with such grueling,in-the-trenches research. One of the cabin crews that she flew with comprised three veteran flight attendants with some 70 years of experience among them. "Is there a less-enviable, more-stressful occupation these days than that of a flight attendant? Just the look on their faces as they walk down the aisle — telling passengers that no matter how many times they try to squeeze them in, their suitcases are not going to fit into the overhead bin, or explaining yet again that they will not get a single morsel of decent food on this three-hour flight — tells you all you need to know of their misery," she continued.

The decisions made by airline executives that have resulted in increasingly crowded airplanes, usurious surcharges for everything from peanuts to pillows to pets in the cargo hold are not the flight attendants' fault, and neither is an air traffic control system, congested airports or weather that results in delayed or canceled flights. Imagine the air-travel mess today with Hurricane Ike slamming into the Texas Gulf Coast, including Houston, the seventh-busiest airport in the US and Continental's main hub.

So next time you fly, don't take your frustration out on the flight attendants, or the gate agents for that matter. They are coping with the same air-travel mess you are -- day after wearying day. The article is a good read, and it's a good reminder to display a bit of empathy next time you travel.

Big British Tour Operator Goes Belly-Up

Moral: Read the fine print and buy travel insurance before you travel

Percentagewise, British travelers are more likely to book their vacations (or holidays, in UK-speak) through tour operators than are American travelers. Still, it was quite a shock to travel interests on both sides of the Atlantic when XL Leisure Group, reportedly the Britain's third-largest tour operator, became a casualty of high fuel prices and a looming recession in the UK.

The company canceled all of its flights and stranded what Britain's Civil Aviation Authority estimated were between 85,000 and 90,000 travelers somewhere on the planet. Of these, some 50,000 travelers were abroad on trips booked through one XL's tour companies, 10,000 had simply flown on XL Airways and 25,000 had booked though tour operators that used XL Airways flights. XL's failure also threw into turmoil the plans of something on the order of 200,000 travelers who had booked upcoming trips.

XL Leisure's operated under such names as Kosmar Holidays, Cruise City, Excel Holidays, The Florida Skytrain, Transatlantic Vacations, Travel City Direct, Travel City Direct, Freedom Flights, Aspire Holidays and medlifehotels.com -- and XL Airlways. The company's home page currently includes instructions on what stranded travelers with various of these companies should do now. Meanwhile, Straumur-Burdaras Investment Bank of Iceland acquired XL's French and German subsidiaries, which will continue to operate.

American travelers planning booking package tours -- for value, convenience or both -- might want to check the U.S. Tour Operators Association website for some general advice on the protections they should expect if they are traveling with a tour operator that fails. The website states, "From the association's inception in 1972, chief among USTOA's goals has been to help protect you, the consumer, against loss arising from bankruptcy, insolvency or cessation of business of an Active Member tour operator. To help provide travelers with a solid financial safety net that protects their vacation investment, the USTOA has always maintained a consumer protection program, in which every USTOA Active Member must participate." The site details USTOA's $1 Million Travelers Assistance Program.

And, in these unsure times for travelers, you might consider purchasing travel insurance.

Temple of Isis Pylon Raised from Sea Floor

Alexandria retrieves a centuries-old treasure from the days of Cleopatra

Having visited Egypt earlier this year, I felt a connection when I read today's wire service report datelined Alexandria about archaeologists who raised a nine-ton, 7-foot-tall pylon from the bottom of the Mediterranean (AP photo below). The massive quarried stone once was at the entrance to a Temple of Isis that is believed to have fallen into the sea following fourth-century earthquakes that also destroyed the famous Alexandria Lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Divers have discovered the remnants of a city beneath the waves. 

Egypt has planned an ambitious underwater museum to showcase the sunken city.The temple and also Cleopatra's palace complex are part of this underwater realm. The pylon was part of a Ptolemaic palace where Queen Cleopatra courted wooed the Roman general Marc Antony  in the first century. The lovers committed suicide after they were defeated by Augustus Caesar. Remember the asp?

The palace complex as next to the Temple Isis, a goddess of fertility and magic. These buildings are believed to have been built is at least 2,050 years ago -- perhaps much earlier. Archaeologists believe the pylon came from red granite quarried in Aswan, some 700 miles to the south. A single standing column is Alexandria also came from the Aswan area.

Some 6,000 artifacts lie beneath the sea in the harbor, with another 20,000 are elsewhere off the coastaccording to Ibrahim Darwish, who head Alexandria's underwater archaeology department. These inlcude sphinxes and pieces of what is believed to be the Alexandria Lighthouse. The pylon is the first major artifact extracted from the harbor since 2002 when removal operations were halted to prevent damage to the antiquities.

This retrieval was done with painstaking care. Dr. Zahi Hawass, who heads the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, told the media, "The tower is unique among Alexandria's antiquities. We believe it was part of the complex surrounding Cleopatra's palace. This is an important part of Alexandria's history and it brings us closer to knowing more about the ancient city." Next April, Dr. Hawass hopes to find the long-lost tomb of Antony and Cleopatra, which he believes it might be inside a temple of Osiris about 30 miles west of Alexandria.

An underwater museum, currently in the planning stages, would enable visitors to walk through underwater tunnels to see sunken artifacts. Similar underwater tunnels to view marine life exist in several cities, including San Francisco and Victoria. Such an underwater museum would be a joint project between Egypt and UNESCO. Until that happens, the Cairo Museum's display of the project gives visitors a notion of what it will be like.

Boeing 787 Dreamliner's First Flight -- At Last

Long-delayed maiden voyage of Boeing's newest plane aircraft

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner, a mid-size aircraft (290 to 330 passengers), is the first large commercial jet made of light-weight, high-strength composite materials for fuel efficiency, reduced emissions and reduced noise. It was rolled out in July 2007, with an original plan for the first flight to take place in September 2008 and for it to enter commercial service in May 2009. Fifty-six airlines had placed orders for more than 900 of these new-generation planes, which would make it the best-selling widebody, two-aisle plane in aircraft history. There were delays of various sorts (subassembly part shortages, subcontractor issues, fastener issues and other unglamorous manufacturing problems), and that, coupled with the global economic downturn, resulted the cancellation of 70 orders, but there are still Dreamliner 777 orders on the books at this writing. All the frustrations seem to have washed away two days ago when the Dreamliner took off from Boeing's airfield in Everett, Washington. Click here for the video of that first three-hour-plus flight, and then click on "webcast" on the upper right part of the screen.

Travel Blog Posting Contest

Here's a chance to win a trip around the world

Does the world need more travel blogs? Probably not. There are already way to many unenlightening "what I did on my vacation"-type blogs out there. Does the world need more informative, insightful, well-written travel postings in cyberspace? Maybe "need" is too strong a word, but armchair and actual travelers alike can never read of the latter. I applaud any medium, traditional or not, that tries to get more quality writing out there.

A British site called My Life of Travel, a searchable online, anthology of travel journal postings, seems to want to elevate the content on the site that currently includes a lot of pedestrian prose. It is trolling for more inspiring words than this sampling I just pulled up from some posts that are on the home page:

• "Annie and I left Grand Junction, CO on the 22nd of June and drove until 4:30 a.m. to get to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We spent Sunday biking with the Lohans and enjoyed ourselves as we biked past waterfalls, parks, rivers, and vagrants... (the vagrants are wild here so it is suggested that you don't feed them) :0) We then drove north to I'falls..."
• "So we headed for Mancora, a small beach resort in the North of Peru which at the right time of year is a great destination for surfing and general sun lovers! ...."
• "Well, we've done it. Exactly four months and 18,741km after arriving in Cape Town to start my African adventure, we arrived safe and sound in the bustling metropolis of Cairo."

In that context, it shouldn't be too difficult for a talented writer to come up with at least 100 well-chosen words and a photograph s/he has taken while traveling to have a shot at winning one round-the-world trip in a contest that My Life of Travel is promoting. The rules are simple:

How to Win
Create at least 1 journal entry about any location you have visited.
Your entry must contain at least 100 words.
Your entry must
contain at least 1 photograph that you have taken.
Entry Closing Date
September 26, 2008

There is a link you can click on to enter, and you must register in order to do so. My Life of Travel does not indicate who the judge(s) might be, but if my quick scan of the posted journals from the land of Shakespeare and Byron and Austen are any indication, the competition might not be too stiff. Good luck.

Site Features -- Contest or Not

The My Life of Travel site has some intriguing features, including each contributor's ability to create an interactive map to accompany his/her journal entry. And if you are planning a trip somewhere, finding what others have posted there. The search function is easy, and even if some of the prose is snooze-encouraging, you might just find useful gems there. And if you are lusting to launch to your words about travel into cyberspace, paid or not, you might explore My Life of Travel as a way to do it.