Q A friend who lives in Canada is coming to the UK in June. After visiting family and friends she would like to tour Scotland and possibly Ireland with me. She prefers a guided tour, but has not found any that do not include flights from Canada. Are there any such tours that start in the UK?
Heidi Chotti, via email
A June is a great month to visit Scotland and Rabbie’s (rabbies.com) has a wide selection of reasonably priced escorted tours with a maximum group size of 16, including a five-day Isle of Skye and the Highlands trip that starts in Edinburgh and costs £325pp for the basic itinerary. Accommodation, ranging from hostels to comfortable hotels, is extra. If you opted for a twin room in a B&B, it would cost about £40pp per night. The company also has tours to Ireland in June that last from three to five days, all starting in Dublin, including the four-day Ring of Kerry, Killarney and Cork tour starting at £280pp, plus accommodation.
Alternatively, Prestige Holidays’ (prestigeholidays.co.uk) new escorted tours this year include the eight-night Country Roads of Scotland, with Edinburgh, Loch Ness, Orkney, the Isle of Skye, the remote Eilean Donan castle and the Valley of Glencoe on the itinerary. It starts at £1,950pp, including door-to-door transfers, return flights from London, breakfast and six dinners, plus excursions with entrance fees.
Q We are a family of five (our daughters are 13, 12 and 9) who would like to go biking this October half-term. We are happy with an organised or self-guided trip, UK or abroad, catered or self-catering, but we don’t want to fly for more than five hours.
Alice Kitching, via email
A You could try Saddle Skedaddle’s (skedaddle.co.uk) new self-guided, seven-night family cycling holiday Lake Garda Explorer. Beginning in Peschiera, you’d pootle along quiet lanes, past vineyards and kiwi plantations on a circular route through Castellaro Lagusello and Solferino. There are several amusement parks in the area and you could go windsurfing on Lake Garda or tackle the Via Ferrata in the Dolomites. It costs £1,135pp, with a 25 per cent discount for children under 15. This includes B&B in hotels, detailed route notes, local support and transfers. Bike hire and flights are extra.
Advertisement
Alternatively, Freedom Treks (freedomtreks.co.uk) has a six-night family self-guided trip along Lake Constance, riding through Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It starts and finishes in the historic city of Constance and you’d take a ferry across the lake and cycle along the eastern and southern shores on safe and well-marked cycle routes, sleeping in a different hotel each night. Prices start at £387pp, B&B. Bike hire is extra (£67 for adults, £34 for children), as are flights to Zurich and transfers.
Q My wife would like to spend a week over Christmas in Austria or Switzerland, but neither of us skis and we do not want to go to a large ski resort. I cannot find anything suitable.
Robin Giles, via email
A I suggest you stay in one of Austria’s small ski resorts such as Zell am See, which has plenty to keep non-skiers entertained, including a Christmas market, while Salzburg is an easy day trip by train. Stay at the Tirolerhof, run by the Posch family, which has wonderful food and a great spa. A week departing December 23 would cost £1,489pp with Crystal (020 8939 0726, crystalski.co.uk), including half board, flights and transfers.
Don’t put up with this: Caught between two French agencies
I made a booking with Voyages-SNCF for ten return tickets to Biarritz at the end of last May. Unfortunately, the Eurostar train developed faults and it was almost midday when we arrived at Gare du Nord (we were due at 11.17am). We arrived at Montparnasse minutes after our train to Biarritz had left. The next train was two hours later and very crowded — only four of us managed to get seats. We arrived at our holiday home after 8pm, so weren’t able to buy basic provisions. On my return I contacted Voyages-SNCF, which told me to contact Eurostar direct, because it was only the agent. Eurostar told me it couldn’t process the claim because my contract was with SNCF in France.
Carol Stringer, via email
Advertisement
It took some time to to sort this out, partly because Voyages-SNCF, the agency you booked through, and SNCF don’t share the same customer service department. Eventually SNCF wrote to you in French, asking you to send the tickets so it could investigate; Voyages-SNCF provided a translation. You have now received a refund of €845 (£736). A Voyages-SNCF spokesman said: “As the problem was experienced on the journey and not while making the booking, the case needed to be handled by the the individual carriers. [We were] able to assist Mrs Stringer to claim compensation . . . by working closely with the operators involved.”
Contact us . . .
If you have a gripe, suggestion or question about holiday travel, write to Travel Doctor, The Times Travel Desk, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF, or email traveldoctor@thetimes.co.uk. Please include contact details. If you have a dispute with a travel company, try to resolve it before contacting us. Do not send us original documents. Unfortunately we cannot reply to every inquiry.
