This is a minor single track railway, and the unstaffed station at Retretti is as small as they come. On the platform stands an oversized sculpture, an apt welcome to a community, hidden away amid the lakes and forests, that is utterly devoted to art.

Matti Kalkamo’s "Silent Dialogue" sculpture (2006) being installed at the Retretti Arts Centre

The Art Centre

The Retretti Art Centre is in the premier league of European galleries. And it is unique in that the majority of its display space is underground in a series of caves.

It is a chance to immerse oneself in art in a space that is distanced from the here-and-now. Over the years the Retretti summer exhibitions have featured such celebrated artists as Ilya Repin and Marc Chagall.

The 2011 season

Retretti’s 2011 season kicked off last week with a summer program featuring artist-couples from the mid-19th to the early-20th century, so covering the heyday of Finnish Romanticism through to early Modernism. “Masters and their spouses,” you might say for in most cases it was the husband who enjoyed the premier reputation of the two.

Also at Retretti this summer are lithographs of Carl Barks’ Donald Duck comic strip, a children’s art workshop with African flavors and many other displays and installations. In a sneak preview last month, we were especially impressed by glassware from the avant-garde Kyösti Kakkosen collection and the striking photographic installations of Maija Pirilä and Petri Nuutinen.

Art apart

Retretti stays open until August 28. Art apart, the surrounding lake and forest landscape is magnificent. If you are bound for Savonlinna, famous for its summer opera festival, then definitely make a stop at Retretti. It is four hours by train from Helsinki to Retretti, and from there just a further half hour on to Savonlinna. There is also a useful boat connection from Retretti to Savonlinna that operates when the arts center is open.

Where to stay

As to accommodation, you will find more choice in Savonlinna than immediately around Retretti. When we were in the area last month, we stayed at the Hotel Hospitz on the shore of the lake in Savonlinna. Get one of the lake-view rooms with a balcony if you can (they only have two). It is a first-class location, just a short walk to Savonlinna’s imposing castle.

Savonlinna in summer is Finland at its very best. Throw in Retretti too, and you have a first-class destination.

Air links

The train journey from Helsinki to Retretti and Savonlinna is a very fine introduction to Finland. At one point it skirts the Russian border. But if it sounds too remote, Savonlinna does have its own airport, with Finncomm Airlines offering twice daily direct air service from Helsinki in just 85 minutes.

The post Art in the Finnish Forest: Retretti appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

France has no low-cost airlines of note, but there are several budget airlines that serve Paris. Here is an airport-by-airport examination of which low-cost airlines serve which destinations from the three airports of Paris.

This list of destinations reachable by budget airlines from Paris is notable for its geographic range. For many tourists, these links facilitate travel between Paris and other corners of Europe at a price point far lower than anticipated.

1. Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle, the big daddy (Grande Dame?) of airports in France, sees traffic from several budget airlines (Air Baltic, Blue1, Bmibaby, easyJet, Flybe, Iceland Express, Jet2, Niki, and Vueling) to over four dozen destinations across Europe and northern Africa.

* Air Baltic flies to Riga and Tallinn.

* Blue1 flies to Helsinki.

* Bmibaby flies to East Midlands.

* EasyJet flies to Agadir, Ajaccio, Barcelona, Bastia, Belfast, Biarritz, Brest, Bristol, Casablanca, Catania, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Helsinki, Ibiza, Krakow, Lisbon, Liverpool, Ljubljana, London Luton, Madrid, Mallorca, Malaga, Marrakech, Milan Malpensa, Newcastle, Nice, Porto, Prague, Split, Tangier, Toulouse, Venice, and Zagreb.

* Flybe flies to Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Exeter, Glasgow, Jersey, and Manchester.

* Iceland Express connects Charles de Gaulle to Reykjavík.

* Jet2 flies to Leeds Bradford.

* Niki flies to Vienna.

* Vueling connects Charles de Gaulle to Alicante, Granada, Lleida, Madrid, and Santiago de Compostela.

2. Orly

Five budget airlines (Air Berlin, easyJet, Norwegian, Transavia, and Vueling) connect Orly to around 50 destinations.

* Air Berlin flies to Berlin and Dusseldorf.

* EasyJet flies to Athens, Berlin, Budapest, Dubrovnik, Faro, Geneva, Milan Linate, Mykonos, Naples, Nice, Olbia, Palermo, Pisa, Rome Ciampino, Toulouse, and Venice.

* Norwegian connects Paris-Orly to Aalborg, Bergen, Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stavanger.

* Transavia France flies to Agadir, Antalya, Arrecife, Catania, Djerba, Féz, Funchal, Heraklion, Hurgada, Izmir, Krakow, Las Palmas, Luxor, Marrakech, Monastir, Oujda, Palermo, Porto, Reykjavík, Rhodes, Seville, Tenerife South, and Tozeur.

* Veuling connects Paris-Orly to Barcelona, Ibiza, Malaga, Rome Fiumicino, Seville, and Valencia.

3. Beauvais

To and from the all-budget airport of Beauvais, three airlines (Blue Air, Ryanair, and Wizzair) connect to over 40 destinations.

* Blue Air flies to Bacau and Bucharest.

* Ryanair flies to Alicante, Barcelona, Bari, Bologna, Bratislava, Cagliari, Dublin, Edinburgh, Faro, Girona, Glasgow Prestwick, Kaunas, Madrid, Malaga, Marseille, Milan Bergamo, Oslo Rygge, Pau, Pisa, Porto, Reus, Rome Ciampino, Shannon, Stockholm Skavsta, Trapani, Treviso, Valencia, and Zaragoza.

* Wizzair connects Beauvais to Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Gdansk, Katowice, Poznan, Prague, Sofia, Timosoara, Warsaw, and Wroclaw.

More information

For more information about airports in Paris, including ground transportation into Paris’ city center, please see the profiles of Charles de Gaulle, Orly, and Beauvais Tille in our flights section.

The post Finding budget flights to and from Paris appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.