Departure gate

Your passport to the latest destinations and airline promotions

Paddlers descend on UK beach

Paddle Round the Pier, Europe's largest annual free beach festival, returns to the Brighton & Hove beachfront on the July 2nd weekend. The 2011 edition is set to be bigger than ever, with more than 84,000 sq m of sea, land and air sports, exhibitions, retail stalls, live music and the internationally-recognized 'Paddle Round the Pier' on the Sunday afternoon. The annual charity festival hopes to beat previous attendance records and attract more than 50,000 visitors over the two days. The participation fee of five pounds (about $8) is donated to various British charities. (www.paddleroundthepier.com)

Italy's birthday specials

Italy is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Risorgimento, the unification of the former patchwork of states up and down the peninsula. Cities will host a bevy of cultural events - dinners, concerts, museum shows in Turin; a scholarly walk in Rome - but a couple of hotels on the Amalfi coast are also celebrating with deals for travelers.

Tour operators are also offering good deals. ItalyVacations.com will take $150 off trips to Rome, Florence or Turin for travelers booking with the promotional code 150YEARS.

Eco-hotel carved into the rock

Taking a page from the design manuals of the houses of Cappadocia in Turkey and the fabled city of Petra, an architectural firm has created an eco resort built into the sandstone cliffs of Jordan's Wadi Rum desert, the BBC reported.

Chad Oppenheimer's 47 desert lodges carved directly into the cliffs for the Wadi Rum Resort are set to open in 2014.

Traditionally, tourists visit Wadi Rum and stay in tented camps under the stars, Bedouin-style. Oppenheimer Architecture + Design wanted to keep the same relationship with nature. Many of the guest spaces will be hewn from natural hollows in the sandstone cliff and walled with glass. Other areas and structures are to be made from earth, cement and the local red sand. Because temperatures inside the rock are much cooler, this will mean there is less need for traditional energy-sucking cooling and ventilation. Rainwater will be held in underground cisterns and grey water will be recycled.

Furrow-ploughing fun times

The 58th World Ploughing Championships will be held in mid-May in the agricultural province of Ostergotland in Sweden. The event, some 200 km southwest of Stockholm, also hosts the Swedish National Championships in Horse Ploughing and Veteran Tractor Ploughing.

Farmers from 30 nations will test their skills in ploughing accurately, deeply and in good time. Lindevad's Manor is the venue for an event which Sweden has staged three times previously.

A display of historic tractors, local culinary specialties and a petting zoo for children makes it an event for the whole family. A day pass costs between 11 and 14.50 euros (around $16 to $21), with discounts given for advance bookings. (www.worldploughing.org)

World's largest model airport

It took six years to build, but the incredible new miniature Knuffingen Airport has finally opened its doors to the public. This airport miniature is based on Hamburg's airport, and is on display at Miniatur Wunderland, in Hamburg.

It features 40 aircraft that can take off and land and 90 vehicles that trundle around the runways automatically. Making something this small and perfectly formed doesn't come cheap. It cost 3.5 million euros - but the result is plane-ly amazing.

Airline news and deals:

First flight between the Yangtze River Delta and Africa: The first flight from Hangzhou to Africa was launched on May 3 by Ethiopian Airlines. The route goes to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, with a transit in New Delhi, India. There are five flights daily except on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Discounted tickets: Tianjin Airlines is offering discounts on its new Nanning-Changsha-Ningbo route. The segment will start May 12, three times a week on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

New routes opened: Sichuan Airlines starts two routes to Saipan - Chengdu-Shanghai-Saipan and Chengdu-Guangzhou-Saipan on May 8 and 9. Both routes will be carried by A330 planes.

China Daily - Agencies

(China Daily 05/08/2011 page16)