Cornwall-Lower Saxony

[greenrook]

We may have to travel from West Cornwall to Diepholz sometime in early 2012; has anyone got a suggestion how this can be done with a minimum of changes of transport, and without costing the Earth? Our local Agents are pretty much baffled - one of them recommended Newquay-Newcastle-Munich-Hannover! Any and all help much appreciated.

[boxtops]

OH travels in Europe quite a lot. He suggests:

Fly Newquay to Gatwick
Gatwick to Munster/Osnabruck airport
Shuttle Bus to Osnabruck city
Bus/train to Diepholz

[greenrook]

Excellent suggestion boxtops - I checked this out and it's ideal, especially since our friends at the other end will pick us up from the airport, it's only about 50 miles to their house near Diepholz. Many thanks again from greenrook

[Buenchico]

There seems to be a small flaw in your plan, Boxtops. According to the Gatwick Airport website there are no direct flights to Munster:
http://www.gatwickair...flights/destinations/

The Munster Airport website also only shows flights from Stansted:
http://www.flughafen-...becc7d48ef64d1f851e39

Bremen Airport is marginally closer to Diepholz than Munster is but, again, flights are from Stansted, not from Gatwick:
http://www.airport-bremen.de/en/flights/

I don't have much faith in your local travel agent either, Greenrook, because there are no flights from Newquay to Newcastle!

Looking at the list of services from Newquay (and remembering that Air SouthWest are pulling out of Newquay after this week)
http://www.newquaycor...x.cfm?articleid=48607
and combining it with the information on the Bremen & Munster websites suggests considering Newquay to Edinburgh (with FlyBe) and Edinburgh to Bremen (with Ryanair). However I've not checked that those flights will be operating early next year ( - services from Newquay are often seasonal - ), neither have I considered any connections.

Annoyingly, the Newquay airport website shows a blank page for 'Winter Services' but Wikipedia indicates that the weekly Lufthansa flights to Düsseldorf don't operates during the winter months (and they're not currently listed on the Düsseldorf Airport website) so a direct flight to Germany seems to be ruled out.

So I'm sticking with Newquay > Edinburgh > Bremen
Bremen Airport is only 3km from Bremen rail station, with a frequent, direct tram service. From there you've got an hourly direct train service, taking just 41 minutes to Diepholz.

Chris

[greenrook]

very many thanks to you all, I'm a bit spoiled for choice but now I am better informed. Thank you all again