Travel hub

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 travelling around Britain. Now we’re home, but the travel bug is still there. Join us for the occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint. This post is from Nicola

Here’s a pic of some of my MA students from the University of Middlesex who have also worked on internships at Friends of the Earth – Papatya, Muge, Emily and Alia pose with Lola and Nell. They are respectively from Turkey x 2, China and Egypt.

I know getting on planes is bad for climate change (though better if you stay for months like these students) but I do love meeting people from other countries and the genuine surprises one gets from finding more out about them.

Here's an example: in Turkey you call sleepyheads chicken, because hens go to bed so early...

Recently we’ve started video conferencing at my Friends of the Earth job for our Monday team meetings (so London staff can see the boss in Leeds) and it works really well. Now if someone could just organise video conferencing parties I think we could crack our restless need to travel the world and tick off all those places that must be seen...

Saving Brass in Leeds

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Essential Leeds – a tourist guide available from www.visitleeds.co.uk – offers a guide to 24 hours in the city either splashing out or reigning in. Inspired I adapted the reigning in version – which involved a lot of eating plus strolls in Roundhay Park and late night live music at The Cockpit, Swinegate – for daytime with kids.

The bus station (a 30min ride in from Wakefield) is right by Kirkgate Market which has more than 800 stalls. I knew it was good but was stunned by the range of goodies sold. It feels very continental – a Sunday in Lille even – wandering around the market where we goggled at fruit, African home foods, a Polish deli, baji stall, cheese counters, olive and nut emporiums, embroidery kits and wrapping paper. Did we buy? Yes three buttons (at 25p each) and two 100g bags of sweeties for 80p each. It’s all on line now too, so you can visit virtually if you want to at http://www.leedsmarket.com/.

Next stop was Friends of the Earth’s Leeds office , also in Kirkgate, which provided a nice cup of tea and directions to Leeds Art Gallery. Here we slithered across the grandest tiled hall (lost for 50 years behind bookshelves and now a cafe); used the free internet access at next door’s library and enjoyed the collection of pictures. The girls particularly liked Anthony Gormley’s bigger than lifesize figure made out of bricks and then did their own abstract works at the art cart area upstairs. Next door is the Henry Moore Institute with an excellent craft shop – it's one of the venues where you can buy real art by real artists from as little as #45.

On our way back to the bus we were entertained by buskers near Albion Street and then spent a happy quarter of an hour washing and rewashing hands at Lush.

Total cost of day: return bus tickets #7, mementoes (those buttons!) 75p, grapes #1.40 = happiness for less than a tenner. We are also very lucky at the moment to be staying in a lovely house in Wakefield gratis (though we would like to do some babysitting!), many thanks to Mary & Adrian.