November 29th - Airports within walking distance of the city centre
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 29 November 2022
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On a recent trip to Doha, and wrestling with the airport's rubbish wifi, I've had a think about airports and their proximity to the cities they serve. Whether it's Florence or Gibraltar, there's a host of great airports within walking distance of the city centre.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. 10 days ago, I was in |
| 0:09.9 | Doha Airport. Yes, I've been hoping to get into Qatar to soak up the atmosphere of the World Cup, |
| 0:17.0 | but that was not to be. Anyway, I needed 10 minutes worth of internet time. Now, if you've been |
| 0:24.5 | to Doha Airport and you've tried the internet, you will know that it is utterly useless. It's like |
| 0:31.2 | what you would find in, I don't know, India in 1988 in terms of internet, it's about that bad. |
| 0:41.4 | There is one place in the whole transit area of the airport where the internet is any good, |
| 0:46.3 | and that's Starbucks. They've got their own system there, and it's great. |
| 0:50.0 | Now, I only needed 10 minutes or so, and I thought, oh, I could just perch here and just sort of pretend I'm just waiting for someone and do all the stuff I've got to do and then leave. |
| 1:01.0 | Well, I didn't, I'm glad to say. I bought a very nice latte and that was entirely fair. I did my internet stuff and all was happy. But it did start me thinking |
| 1:14.2 | about acts of extreme travel parsimony where you've been very, very mean. And I've written all |
| 1:21.8 | about these in the independent. And actually, I've put something out on social media. what have you done to save money when you've been travelling? |
| 1:31.0 | And there were things like, oh yes, we put one of the small children in the boot when we're driving into a holiday park so we don't have to pay for them. |
| 1:39.4 | Right, do not try this. It is illegal and dangerous and you must not do that. |
| 1:43.9 | But then other people were just |
| 1:45.3 | talking about airports and how to avoid those extreme prices. And that led me on to think, well, |
| 1:52.1 | of course, at Edinburgh Airport, I assume everyone does this, although actually I've never |
| 1:58.3 | seen anybody apart from me do this, you just get off the |
| 2:02.5 | tram one stop before the airport, if you're going out to the airport, or you walk for about |
| 2:10.2 | 10, maybe 12 minutes out to the first tram stop from the airport, and then the price falls by, |
| 2:17.3 | I think 72% |
| 2:18.3 | um saves you nearly a fiver so well worth doing so that's what I do |
| 2:24.3 | and then it got me on to thinking about well |
... |
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