How to avoid travel disruption across air, rail, road and ferries this weekend
Friday will be the busiest day of the year so far for flights from UK airports: 3,255 departures are scheduled, carrying 556,000 passengers.
Rail travellers face a range of disruptions, from crowded trains to engineering works.
On the roads, the RAC warns: 'The 'end of summer term' getaway weekend will be classically busy.'
Motorists heading for France via LeShuttle through the Channel Tunnel to Calais will face the biggest crowds on Friday, while the CEO of the Port of Dover has asked motorists not to arrive more than two hours ahead at the UK's busiest ferry port.
The Independent has conducted in-depth research to identify the key pressure points for travellers.
Air
Most airports are reporting record figures. Friday 25 July is expected to be busiest day of the year at Birmingham; at Luton, it will be Sunday 27 July.
Fridays in late July and August see the biggest crowds at five top airports. At London Gatwick, landings and take-offs will be just 65 seconds apart on key dates.
A four-day strike by ground handlers at Portuguese airports – including Faro, Madeira, Lisbon and Porto – could cause problems for some holidaymakers between Friday and Monday, with further strikes threatened during weekends in August. But easyJet, Ryanair and Tui say their flights will be unaffected. The Independent has asked British Airways and TAP Portugal if their passengers could be hit by the strike.
Air-traffic control (ATC) delays are impacting thousands of flights across Europe each day – to the extent that Ryanair, Europe 's biggest budget airline, has taken to sending emails to affected passengers headlined 'ATC delayed your holiday'.
Eurocontrol, the pan-European coordination body, said that over the past week, 'network hotspots saw 31 per cent of network delays generated by France [due to] capacity and staffing issues compounded by adverse weather".
Operations over Germany and Spain were also affected by 'weather and some capacity issues'.
Airspace is constrained across Europe by the closure of Ukrainian skies to all passenger aircraft and Russian skies being off limits to most airlines.
In addition, President Trump's visit to Scotland from 25 to 29 July is likely to cause airspace restrictions at Prestwick and Aberdeen.
Rail
After a week that has seen some extreme delays and cancellations, including at London Waterloo, train operators are hoping that Network Rail infrastructure will cope with the pressure over one of the busiest weekends of the year.
Rail passengers face a combination of crowds, especially to the seaside, and engineering work that will close links including Crewe to Shrewsbury, Nuneaton to Leicester and halt all trains through Huddersfield.
Eurostar is advising all but 'Premier' passengers to arrive at London St Pancras International for trains to France, Belgium and the Netherlands 75 minutes ahead of departure.
The cross-Channel train operator says: 'To ensure you have enough time for all pre-departure steps, please come to the station at the recommended time and not just before the gates close.' Eurostar Premier passengers can allow just 45 minutes.
Roads
The RAC is warning motorists that 'Frantic Friday' on 25 July will see extremely busy motorways until around 7pm, as holidaymakers jostle with regular commuter and commercial traffic.
The motoring organisation says that the worst affected roads on Friday will be the M5 between Bristol and Devon and the M25 around London – particularly the southeast quadrant approaching Dartford Crossing. The best time to travel will be after 7pm.
The highest number of holiday journeys over the weekend are predicted to be on Saturday, with three million motorists on the move.
Congestion is expected to be worst between 10am and 5pm. The M6 northbound through the West Midlands, from the M42 junction near Coventry to the M54 turn-off past Wolverhampton, is expected to be particularly busy, as is the A82 from Glasgow to Loch Lomond.
An additional 2.7 million trips are expected on Sunday 27 July, The optimum time to reach a UK destination is before 11 am. From then onwards many motorways and trunk roads will be busy all day to 7pm, with the worst congestion predicted southbound from Wigan (junction 27) to the Stafford turn-off at junction 13.
Ferry/Eurotunnel
At the Port of Dover, drivers are being urged not to arrive too early for the key getaway ferries to France between 5am and 1pm.
Doug Bannister, chief executive of the UK's busiest ferry port, told The Independent 's daily travel podcast: 'Certainly it's going to be very busy on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and into Sunday. Those are our peak travel days of the year.'
More than 10,000 cars are expected to pass through the port on both Friday and Saturday. Dover's CEO said: 'Please don't turn up earlier than two hours before you're sailing.
'We know the sailings and we know the bookings on the sailings and if they all come through in an even rate then we can get on top of it.'
LeShuttle, carrying cars through the Channel Tunnel, will see its busiest day on Friday 25 July.
A spokesperson for Getlink, which owns the tunnel and runs LeShuttle, said: 'We wish to reassure our customers that we've closely analysed travel patterns, identified high-demand days, and taken a comprehensive approach to capacity management to help everyone travel with confidence this summer.
'We advise checking in at least one hour before departure, and no more than two hours before, to allow time for border checks and boarding.'
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘Unlike anywhere else in Britain': in search of wildlife on the Isles of Scilly
At Penzance South Pier, I stand in line for the Scillonian ferry with a few hundred others as the disembarking passengers come past. They look tanned and exhilarated. People are yelling greetings and goodbyes across the barrier. 'It's you again!' 'See you next year!' A lot of people seem to be repeat visitors, and have brought their dogs along. I'm with my daughter Maddy and we haven't got our dog. Sadly, Wilf the fell terrier died shortly before our excursion. I'm hoping a wildlife-watching trip to the Isles of Scilly might distract us from his absence. One disembarking passenger with a cockapoo and a pair of binoculars greets someone in the queue. 'We saw a fin whale,' I hear him say. 'Keep your eyes peeled.' This is exciting information. The Scillonian ferry is reputedly a great platform for spotting cetaceans and it's a perfect day for it – the sea is calm and visibility is superb. From the deck, the promontory that is Land's End actually seems dramatic and special, in a way that it doesn't from dry land. There are several people armed with scopes and sights who are clearly experienced and observant. The only thing lacking is the animals. Not a single dolphin makes an appearance, never mind the others that make regular summertime splashes: humpbacks, minke, sunfish, basking sharks and, increasingly, bluefin tuna. Arriving in Scilly by ship is worth the crossing: wild headlands, savage rocks, white sand beaches, sudden strips of transcendentally turquoise ocean interspersed with the bronzed pawprints of kelp. Of course, it can be thick mist and squalls, but we're in luck, the islands are doing their best Caribbean impersonation. Hugh Town, the capital of St Mary's, is built on the narrow isthmus between two rocky outcrops. It's a quirky, independent town with the kind of traffic levels our grandparents would recognise. Up the hill, from the terrace of the Star Castle Hotel, we can see all the islands spread out around us, and handily there's a lady with a friendly labrador who gives us a pithy summary of each. St Martin's: 'Beach life.' Tresco: 'The royals love it.' St Agnes: 'Arty.' Bryher: 'Wild and natural.' Bryher is our big wildlife destination because the plan is to rent kayaks there and paddle to the uninhabited Samson island, which is a protected wildlife area. I'm banking on Samson for wildlife now that the whales didn't show up, but first we're going to explore St Agnes with Vickie from the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust. After a short ferry ride from St Mary's quay, we stroll around St Agnes and across a short sand spit, a tombolo, to its neighbour, Gugh. Vickie leads us up a heather-covered hillside next to an impressive stack of pink granite boulders. 'St Agnes and Gugh used to have a rat problem,' she tells us. 'There were an estimated 4,000 that had destroyed the breeding populations of both Manx shearwaters and storm petrels. We're pretty sure we've eradicated them now and the bird populations are rising fast.' She leans over a small burrow under a lichen-crusted rock, and sniffs. 'Yes, that's storm petrel – they have a distinctive aroma.' Using her phone, she plays a series of cackles and squeaks down the hole. No response. I ask Vickie about the archipelago's endemic species. The Scilly bee? 'Hasn't been seen for many years.' She chuckles. 'What makes the islands special is often what we don't have. There are no magpies or buzzards, no foxes or grey squirrels. Those absences are important.' What they don't have in terms of fauna, they certainly make up for in flora. The lanes and paths of St Agnes are a ravishing spectacle: agapanthus and honeysuckle, huge spires of echium and smooth succulent aeoniums from the Canary Islands. In this frost-free environment, all kinds of subtropical plants thrive, making the islands quite unlike anywhere else in the British Isles. Dotted among all this fecundity are artists' studios, galleries, a pub and a community hall where there's a wonderful display of shipwreck souvenirs: East India Company musket parts, skeins of silk, porcelain and perfume. Back on St Mary's, we swim and spot a seal. But if we imagine our luck is changing, it's not. Next morning we are down on the quayside, bright and early for the boat to Bryher. 'It just left,' says the ticket seller. 'We did post the change last night. Very low tide. Had to leave 15 minutes early.' 'When is the next one?' 'There isn't one.' The islands, I should have known, are run by the tides. Be warned. Without any time to think, we jump on the Tresco boat. A fellow passenger offers sympathy. 'Last week we missed the boat from St Martin's and had to spend the night there. It was great.' Sign up to The Traveller Get travel inspiration, featured trips and local tips for your next break, as well as the latest deals from Guardian Holidays after newsletter promotion I relax. She is right. The best travel adventures come unplanned. The low tide means we land at Crow Point, the southern tip of Tresco. 'Last return boat at five!' shouts the boatman. We wander towards a belt of trees, the windbreak for Tresco Abbey Garden. The eccentric owner of the islands during the mid-19th century, Augustus Smith, was determined to make the ruins of a Benedictine abbey into the finest garden in Britain. Having planted a protective belt of Monterey pine, his gardeners introduced a bewildering array of specimen plants from South Africa, Latin America and Asia: dandelions that are three and a half metres tall, cabbage trees and stately palms. Just to complete the surreal aspect, Smith added red squirrels and golden pheasants, which now thrive. Now comes the moment, the adventure decision moment. I examine the map of the island and point to the north end: 'It looks wilder up there, and there's a sea cave marked.' We set off. Tresco has two settlements: New Grimsby and Old Grimsby, both clutches of attractive stone cottages decked with flowers. Beyond is a craggy coast that encloses a barren moorland dotted with bronze age cairns and long-abandoned forts. At the north-eastern tip we discover a cave high on the cliffside. Now the low tide is in our favour. We clamber inside, using our phone torches. A ramp of boulders takes us down into the bowels of the Earth, and to our surprise, where the water begins, there is a boat, with a paddle. Behind it the water glitters, echoing away into absolute darkness. We climb in and set off. Behind us and above, the white disc of the cave entrance disappears behind a rock wall. The sound of water is amplified. After about 50 metres we come to a shingle beach. 'How cool is that?' says Maddy. 'An underground beach.' We jump out and set off deeper into the cave, which gets narrower and finally ends. On a rock, someone has placed a playing card: the joker. Later that day, having made sure we do not miss the last boat back, we meet Rafe, who runs boat trips for the Star Castle Hotel. He takes pity on us for our lack of wildlife. 'Come out on my boat tomorrow morning and we'll see what we can find.' Rafe is as good as his word. We tour St Martin's then head out for the uninhabited Eastern Isles. Rafe points out kittiwakes and fulmars, but finally we round the rock called Innisvouls and suddenly there are seals everywhere, perched on rocks like altar stones from the bronze age. 'They lie down and the tide drops,' says Rafe. 'These are Atlantic greys and the males can be huge – up to 300kg.' Impressive as the seals are, the islands are better known for birds, regularly turning up rarities. While we are there, I later discover, more acute observers have spotted American cliff swallows that have drifted across the Atlantic, various unusual shearwater species and a south polar skua. Next day is our return to Penzance, and it's perfect whale-watching weather. People are poised with binoculars and scopes, sharing tales of awesome previous sightings: the leaping humpbacks, the wild feeding frenzies of tuna, and the wake-riding dolphins. Nothing shows up. I complain, just a little, about our lack of wildlife luck. Maddy is playing with a pair of terriers. 'The thing with Wilf was he was always content with whatever happened,' she says. I lounge back on the wooden bench on the port side, enjoying the wind, sun and sound of the sea. I'm channelling the spirit of Wilf. Be happy. Whatever. It's a lovely voyage anyway. And that's how I missed the sighting of the fin whale off the starboard side. The Star Castle Hotel on St Mary's has double rooms from £249 half-board off-season to £448 in summer; singles from £146 to £244. Woodstock Ark is a secluded cabin in Cornwall, handy for departure from Penzance South Pier (sleeps two from £133 a night). The Scillonian ferry runs March to early November from £75pp. Kayak hire on Bryher £45 for a half day, from Hut 62. For further wildlife information check out the
The Sun
2 hours ago
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The Sun
3 hours ago
- The Sun
Incredible sacrifice of tiny English village that's become a haven for dark tourism 359 years later
A LOT of historic sites are shrouded in suffering and death, but one UK town is known entirely for its tragic past. Eyam in Derbyshire suffered mass casualties during the Black Death, establishing itself as a haven for dark tourism centuries later. 4 The Peak District village lost a staggering 260 villagers in just 14 months as the plague spread across England. Given the town at the time only housed 350 residents, this loss was felt all the more by those in the area. After the spread of the Black Death in the 1660s, Eyam earned the title of "plague village". The bubonic plague first wreaked havoc worldwide in the 1300s before another outbreak in England during the 1660s. It claimed over 68,000 lives in London alone during this period. The deadly disease eventually made its way north, reaching Eyam in the summer of 1665. In a bid to shield neighbouring villages, Eyam's inhabitants bravely chose to isolate themselves after symptoms of the plague were reported within its borders. A boundary stone, which remains to this day, was erected between plague-ridden Eyam and the nearby unaffected town of Stoney Middleton. Eyam's residents would make their way to this stone to deposit vinegar-soaked money in exchange for food and medical supplies, left by Stoney Middleton's inhabitants. Today, visitors to Eyam can witness the lasting impact of the plague outbreak on the village. English seaside town to transform abandoned beach shelters into new attraction There are numerous graves scattered throughout the village and surrounding fields as families were urged to bury their deceased near their homes instead of in the church graveyard. These stringent rules were established by Reverend William Mompesson and Puritan minister Thomas Stanley. They also opted to move all church services outdoors and ensured no one could enter or leave the village. A recent visitor to Eyam shared a heartbreaking love story that has become part of the folklore surrounding the plague-stricken village. "In 1665, the plague hit Eyam and they locked down the village, separating Emmott Sydall from her fiancé Rowland Torre," the tourist said in an Instagram post. Eyam during the plague The Black Death is thought to have first arrived to the village in September 1665. Historians have hypothesised the disease was brought to Eyam via a parcel of cloth delivered from London to a local tailor. The cloth is believed to have been infested with plague-carrying fleas. During the 14-month voluntary quarantine, 75% of the town's residents passed away. One resident, Elizabeth Hancock, buried her husband and six children with her own hands within eight days. Plague cottages, where victims lived and died, still stand in the town today. "Emmott and Rowland would meet at the village boundary once a week, keeping their distance so he wouldn't contract the disease. "One day, Emmott didn't show up, when the lockdown was lifted, Rowland was among the first to enter the village in search of Emmott." A plaque indicates that Emmott was one of the village's many victims of the black death. The romantic rendezvous of the two at the village boundary has been immortalised in a stained glass image visible in Eyam's St Lawrence's Church. More on dark tourism Plus, the stunning paradise island with WW2 wrecks that has also become a haven for dark tourism. And the darkest and weirdest weekend breaks across Europe. Dark tourism has reached all corners of the globe, with many visiting suicide forests and nuclear disaster zones. Some thrillseekers even risk death in the world's most dangerous countries. 4 4
