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Something To Declare: France from London City; Eclipse on Easter Island; Return to Cancún
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Your support makes all the difference.Routes of the week: France from London City
This summer, London City airport is bidding to become the upmarket holiday gateway for south-east England. Last month, BA (0844 493 0787; ba.com) started flying from the Docklands airport to Ibiza and Mallorca. This week CityJet (0871 666 5050; cityjet.com), flying on behalf of Air France, follows suit. It has new links from London City to the belle époque resort of Deauville in Normandy (from £107 return) and to a new airport at Brive-la-Gaillarde in south-west France (from £98).
Deauville, traditionally known as Paris's "21st arrondissement", has seen several recent enhancements including the O2 Sofa Bar at the Barrière casino and the revamped Manoirs de Tourgeville. Flights, operating four days a week, begin on 24 June.
The following day, flights start from London City to Brive, which is particularly well located for the upper stretches of the Dordogne. The new CityJet service augments existing services on other airlines to Bergerac, Limoges and the more distant Toulouse.
Destination of the week: Eclipse on Easter Island
The World Cup final is not the only global event on 11 July; a total solar eclipse will sweep across the south-east Pacific on the same day. The best viewing location is Easter Island.
Yet even though this beautiful island is so remote and heavily booked, there are still packages available at sensible prices. The adventure operator Explore (0844 499 0901; explore.co.uk) still has one space available on the nine-day tour, for £3,895 (subject to possible changes in airfare). Availability is slightly easier on the 15-day Easter Island and Chilean highlights tour (£4,845), which includes the World Heritage Site of Valparaíso, the Andean Altiplano and the Atacama Desert.
The similarly named astronomical specialist Explorers Tours (0845 609 1590; explorers.co.uk) has no space left for its 11 July tours, but other cosmological phenomena are on the agenda: new Northern Lights trips to Iceland in February and March, and the next total solar eclipse, over Australia in November 2012.
Tip of the week: Return to Cancún
British Airways resurrects the Gatwick-Cancún route, which was axed in 2002, from 3 November. Flights (on Wednesdays and Saturdays) can be combined with the Heathrow-Mexico City route to allow "open-jaw trips" for £632.
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