Szeged in Hungary, Bergamo in Italy, and Lund in Sweden all ooze that distinct welcoming feeling. They are spots where you roll up expecting to stay just one night and three days later you are still in town.

A Finnish revelation

Tampere in Finland is another such town. We arrived in Tampere on a summer evening, the dipping sun reflecting from the windows of the city’s striking red brick mills. It is an instantly appealing place, with the city center gathered around the fast-flowing Tammerkoski waterway. River walks, some strikingly well-preserved industrial landscapes and spacious parks and boulevards all contribute to Tampere’s magic.

Industrial heritage

Where other cities have ripped out abandoned industrial buildings, Tampere’s city fathers had better ideas. They left them in place, redeploying them to new uses, creating stylish space for cafés and bars, museums and a galaxy of workshops and studios that now underpin Tampere’s buoyant arts scene.

The town exudes some of that same slightly Bohemian urban buzz that makes Manchester so appealing. No surprise perhaps that in its industrial heyday, Tampere was often dubbed “the Manchester of the North.”

The Tampere Theater in the city center.

The city’s status as Finland’s industrial powerhouse was due to one man, a Scottish Quaker industrialist named James Finlayson, who had established mills in St. Petersburg. In 1820 Finlayson was encouraged by Tsar Alexander I to expand his business to the Grand Duchy of Finland — which was then part of Imperial Russia, as indeed it remained until the Bolsheviks granted Finland its independence shortly after the October Revolution in 1917.

Socialist credentials

Tampere happens to have played a star role in Europe’s socialist history. Lenin decamped to the town after the 1905 Revolution and Tampere hosted a number of early meetings of the Bolsheviks, including the late 1905 meeting when Lenin met Stalin for the first time.

The town’s Lenin museum recalls those heady days and provides a very fine account of the importance of Lenin’s thought in advancing the political development of Europe.

The post Tampere, Finland: A town with a buzz appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Exploring Allgäu from “Munich West”

Canny Cheapos know that Germany’s Frankfurt Hahn airport is nowhere near Frankfurt. Likewise, one discount airline has now decided that the name “Memmingen Allgäu” airport just does not have the necessary appeal, so styles the airport “Munich West”—slightly to the surprise of folk locally who are all too well aware that their regional airport is not near Munich at all.

The cachet of a big city name has become important. So much so that it obscures the fact that the communities which lie on the very doorstep of those airports are interesting destinations in themselves. The name “Munich West” is misleading, and hides the fact that the Allgäu region, so close to the airport, is a stunning area of Germany well worth visiting.

Discovering lesser known gems in Germany, Italy, and beyond

Girona Airport. Photo: Lorentey

But as airlines and airports create their own mysterious cartographic realities, sensible travellers exploit these secondary airports to visit spots that really are well served by them.

If you fly to what Wizz Air or Ryanair euphemistically call “Hamburg-Lübeck” airport, you will land a long way from Hamburg but happily very close to Lübeck. The medieval center of one of northern Germany’s most historic and engaging towns is just an eight minute train ride away from the airport (which has its own rail station).

And the same argument holds for other secondary airports across Europe. If you are bound for Barcelona, don’t be seduced by the publicity that suggests that Barcelona Girona Airport is close to Barcelona. It is not! But Girona, just twenty minutes away on the bus, is really worth a visit in its own right. It boasts a particularly well preserved medieval Jewish quarter.

Few of those who jet into Orio al Serio airport near Bergamo, Italy have any intention of visiting Bergamo, just a ten minute bus ride from the airport. No, the airlines market the airport for its rather remote proximity to Milan. Yet Bergamo is an absolute gem, and for first-time visitors to Italy an infinitely better introduction to the country than Milan.

Exploit the system

So does anyone really fly to Frankfurt-Hahn on purpose? Well, they should. The out-of-the-way airport, utterly inconvenient for Frankfurt, is just ten miles east of the most beautiful stretch of Germany’s Moselle Valley.

For those in the know, the wayward cartographic fictions of Europe’s discount airlines throw up a few unusual travel opportunities.

The post Europe’s minor airports offer interesting travel opportunities appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.