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EUROPE
- COMMUNICATIONS |
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Communications throughout northwestern
Europe are invariably excellent: public
phones are readily available and normally
work, and the postal system is reasonably
efficient and easy to use. In southern
Europe, services are sometimes less
impressive, notably in Italy and Spain
where the post is still not overly
reliable, though it has improved a lot in
recent years; and in eastern Europe the
infrastructure is still very poor and
services consequently unpredictable.
Post
For buying stamps and, sometimes, making
telephone calls, we've listed the central
post offices in major cities and
given an idea of opening hours. Bear in
mind, though, that throughout much of
Europe you can avoid the queues in post
offices by buying stamps from
newsagents and the like. If you know in
advance where you're going to be and
when, it is possible to receive mail
through the poste restante
(general delivery) system, whereby
letters addressed "poste restante"
and sent to the main post office in any
town or city will be kept under your
name at the relevant counter to be
picked up. When collecting mail, make
sure you take your passport for
identification, and bear in mind, in
some countries, the possibility of
letters being misfiled by someone
unfamiliar with your language; if there
is nothing under your surname it may
have been filed under your first name.
If you are using American Express
travellers' cheques, or have an American
Express card, you can also have mail
kept for you at the city centre office;
again, where appropriate, we've given
addresses throughout the text.
Phones
It is often possible, especially in
western Europe, to make international
calls from a public call box; this
can often be more trouble than it's
worth due to the constant need to feed
in change, although most countries now
have phone cards, making the whole
process much easier. Otherwise, you can
go to a post office , or a
special telephone bureau , where
you can make a call from a private booth
and pay afterwards. Most countries have
these in one form or another, and we've
listed their whereabouts in the text.
Wherever possible, avoid using the
telephone in your hotel room - it
costs the earth.
To dial any country in Europe from
Britain, Ireland or New Zealand, dial
00, then the country code, then the
city/area code, if there is one, less
the initial zero (except in Italy,
Russia and the Baltics, where it must be
dialled; from the US and most of Canada,
the international access code is tel
011, from Australia tel 0011 - otherwise
the procedure is the same. To call home
from most European countries, dial 00,
then the country code, then the city
code (less the initial zero if there is
one), then the subscriber number. The
exception is Russia, where you dial 8,
wait for a continuous dialling tone and
then dial 10 followed by the country
code etc; and in Estonia, it's tel 8-00
- you need to wait for a new tone after
the 8 only on old phones. For collect
calls, Home Country Direct services are
available in most of the places covered
in The Rough Guide to Europe . In
Britain and some other countries,
international calling cards available
from newsagents enable you to call North
America and Australasia very cheaply.
Most North American, British, Irish and
Australasian phone companies either
allow you to call home from abroad on a
credit card, or billed to your home
number (call your company's customer
service line before you leave to find
out their toll-free access codes from
the countries you will be visiting), or
else issue an international calling card
which can be used worldwide, and for
which you will be billed on your return.
If you want a calling card and do not
already have one, leave yourself a few
weeks to arrange it before leaving.
Mobile phones from North
America are unlikely to work in Europe -
for details of which phones will work
outside the US and Canada, contact your
provider. Mobiles from the British Isles
or Australasia can be used in most parts
of Europe, and a lot of countries -
certainly in western Europe - have
nearly universal coverage, but for all
bar the very top-of-the-range packages,
you'll have to inform your provider
before leaving home to get international
access switched on. Also note that it
will not always be possible to charge up
or replace your firm's pre-paid cards,
so again check beforehand and if
necessary remember to bring enough
credit with you. A standard two-pin
socket is used on the Continent so you
may need an adaptor for charging up.
Internet and email
Europe still lags some way behind the US
in terms of Internet access, and
surfing the Web is rather more expensive
due to the high rates charged for local
phone calls. Nonetheless, things are
improving all the time: more and more
Internet cafés and locales are opening
up, and it is becoming increasingly easy
to access the Web and send and receive email
. That being the case, a good way to
keep in touch is to open up an account
with one of the free Internet email
sites that can be accessed from
anywhere, for example YahooMail and
Hotmail - accessible through www.yahoo.com
and www.hotmail.com , so that you
can receive emails while on the road.
The media
British newspapers and magazines
are fairly widely available in Europe,
sometimes - in the Netherlands and
Belgium, for example - on the day of
publication, more often the day after.
They do, however, cost around three
times as much as they do at home.
Exceptions are the Guardian and Financial
Times , which print special European
editions that are cheaper and available
on the day of issue. You can also find
the terminally dull and self-righteous International
Herald Tribune just about
everywhere, as well as the uninspiring USA
Today ; if you're lucky you may come
across the odd New York Times or Washington
Post , but don't count on it outside
the major centres. What you will find
are Time , Newsweek , and The
Economist pretty much everywhere,
as well as a host of British and
American glossies.
It's cheaper to get your news by
tuning a radio into the BBC World
Service (still considered to have the
most reliable news of all the media),
Radio Canada, the Voice of America, or
one of the many local news broadcasts in
English. In northern France, the
Netherlands and Belgium you can pick up
BBC domestic services as well. BBC World
Service frequencies include: 6195kHz,
9410kHz, 12,095kHz and 15,485kHz on
shortwave, or in western Europe 648kHz
MW, and in southeastern Europe 1323kHz
MW (programme details at www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice
). Radio Canada can be picked up at
5-5.30am GMT on 13,755kHz, and at
6-6.30pm on 21,570kHz (details at www.rcinet.ca
). The Voice of America can be found
during the day on 1197kHz, at night on
15,205kHz, also afternoons on 1548kHz,
and evenings on 9760KHz, among other
frequencies - further details and full
schedules on their website on www.voa.gov
.
With the advent of cable and
satellite channels, television
has become more of a pan-European medium
than radio. Sky TV, Superchannel, CNN,
Eurosport and the European version of
MTV are all popular across the Continent
and normally available in the better
hotels. In many parts of Europe there
is, in any case, a reasonably wide
choice of channels (by British, if not
by American, standards), since a border
is never far away and you can often pick
up at least one other country's TV
stations. This is at its most extreme in
Belgium and the southern Netherlands,
where as well as all the satellite and
cable channels you can pick up Dutch and
Belgian TV, French TV, BBC1 and BBC2,
all the German stations, and even the
state Italian channel.
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