Lisbon best-value European city
The Telegraph reports on the cheapest European holiday destination, starting with the claim by Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary that the era of cheap air travel is over, reported here in August last year. The newspaper observes “How right he was”, and surveys the current offerings from various European holiday destinations.
A week’s trip abroad to Europe in the summer holidays used to be standard fare for middle-class families. A seven-night trip to Italy cost £616.68 per person on average last year, according to consumer group Which? This year that same trip would cost £757.53 – an increase of 23pc.
The travel industry was rocked by the pandemic more than any other sector and responded by tempting holidaymakers abroad with cheap deals to various holiday destinations as restrictions began to lift. But now airlines, hoteliers, restaurateurs, and travel agents, who are also feeling the effects of soaring inflation, are clawing back the lost revenue.
“The days of flights for under £100 are long gone. During the pandemic, travel companies were offering such fantastic deals to get people to book, but those deals aren’t going to be around anymore.”Seemingly within a year, travel has become prohibitively expensive for many families, whose budgets are already at breaking point from rapidly increasing utility bills and steep mortgage rates. The rise in fuel costs has made flights pricier, sky-high electricity bills have been passed on by accommodation providers, and a weak pound means Britons’ cash no longer goes as far as it once did.
A comparison of average prices for package holidays in six popular holiday destinations found a week’s break has risen by an average of 30pc from last year – to £867 per person – according to Which? The consumer group found Greece and Italy have become the most expensive destinations, with flights up 70pc or more.
According to the Telegraph, flight prices in Europe have shot up by 58pc when compared to pre-pandemic levels, quoting travel comparison site Omio, while bookings have fallen by 50%. Roughly 63pc of Britons hope to travel more this year than they did in 2022, according to research by Cofton Holidays, despite the steep rise in travel costs.
The full article can be found here
“Lisbon best-value European city”
Lisbon in Portugal was named the best-value European city in the Post Office’s annual costs barometer. Prices in the capital were up just 2pc from last year – a far smaller increase than the 35 cities included in the report. Accommodation costs rose by 5.2pc, while others surveyed had soared by as much as 50pc or more.
The report found the average price of a three-course meal and a bottle of house wine in Lisbon is just £39.01, which is less than any other city in the survey.
Tourist attractions are also made far more economical by the Lisboa Card, which costs from €20.90 per person per day (€14.25 for children) and provides free access to 35 museums and places of interest, free transport on the metro, trams, funiculars and trains to the fairytale town of Sintra and the beaches of Cascais, plus discounts on a variety of local services and stores.
Uk TVChannels
We have a home on the Island, just below Monte. We did subscribe to TV Mucho but found that it was buffering and freezing all the time. Eventually we gave up. We have a good internet signal, I work from here when away from UK with no problems. Can anyone help us please? Really miss having TV to watch.
TV Mucho is much much better recently (we used to have the same problem with the buffering here too). It works via a different system under “Pzaz TV” and you can even record for free now. Id advise giving them a go again, very rarely are there problems now
If you use a vpn to hide the Portuguese IP and makes it look like you are in the UK you can use the Freeview Play apps(BBC iPlayer, Itvx, All4 etc) to get UK tv.
Is it still reliable? The BBC and others were finding ways round this, then the VPN providers would switch “tunnels” or “locations” or whatever the correct terminology is and it became a cat and mouse game. I know when we used it before the pandemic, it became increasingly difficult. We tried various VPN providers and none of them were stable/ foolproof because of this.
Nord VPN works fine nowadays with the BBC – kept having to cahnge IP regaularly 10-15 years ago, but no longer. Strangely the National Lottery is one where you can’t easily get access from outside the UK – a good test of a VPN nowadays.
Many thanks for this info. Good to know.
We use NOS. No problem.
( IPTV ) it’s cost around £50 1 year subscription thousands of worldwide channels including all UK channels works a treat.
Depends which supplier you choose Mick. I have had a very frustrating time over the past couple of years, with user names and passwords having to be reset and cache cleared. Beffering also – even with 200Mbps internet.
Admin, your correct finding the right service provider is a real difficult task they all freeze now and then, however the one I use now are really good and reliable service much better then most I have used link below
https://fastiptv4u.store/
Thanks Mick