Something to declare: Baden and beyond; Last call for Pyongyang; Special offer from Southern Railway

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Destination of the week: Baden-Baden and beyond

Destination of the week: Baden-Baden and beyond

The former Canadian air force base outside Baden-Baden was forlorn when the military flew out in 1993, but a dozen years later it is establishing itself as a gateway to the upper Rhineland of Germany. Confusingly, the airport calls itself Baden Airpark but is described as Karlsruhe-Baden by Ryanair (0871 246 0000; www.ryanair.com), which flies there from Stansted.

The town itself boasts the new Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (00 49 7221 300 763), an impressive collection of modern art, hung in a resurrected 1909 building. But many travellers use the airport purely because of its good connections.

Bus links have recently started from the airport to Heidelberg (85 minutes, €14/£10), Freiburg (150 minutes, €20/£14) and the Europapark theme park (120 minutes, €18/ £12.50). These are designed to connect with flights arriving from Stansted. Alternatively, a €2.50 (£1.80) bus ride will drop you at Baden-Baden railway station, which is on the north-south railway line between Frankfurt and Basel.

Warning of the week: last call for Pyongyang

When Korea is reunified, you should be able to board a train in Moscow and alight nine days later in Seoul (see pages 16-17). But the current rail service from Europe to Korea may have reached the end of the line.

The twice-a-month coach from Moscow to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, is scheduled to arrive this morning after its journey of nearly nine days and over 10,000km.

But Kevin Flynn, the compiler responsible for the Russian section of the Thomas Cook Overseas Timetable, says that he cannot trace the service in Russian Railways' new summer schedules which have just come into effect. This, he says, means that travellers could miss out on a spectacular journey that includes "a somewhat leisurely nine hours and seven minutes allowed for uncoupling from one train and attachment to another at the Far Eastern junction town of Ussuriysk".

Bargain of the week: the run of the rails in south-east England

Surrey, Sussex, Kent and Hampshire enjoy an impressively dense railway network - and if you plan a week ahead, you can take advantage of hundreds of miles of track for a flat £10. That is the price of the DaySave ticket, sold by Southern Railway only through its website, www.southern-railway.co.uk; you must book at least a week ahead.

The ticket allows you to travel on the lines linking London Victoria with Gatwick airport and Brighton; Wi-Fi internet access is available on many trains on this line. You can visit Hastings, Eastbourne, Portsmouth and Southampton. It also covers the line along the South Coast, the south London suburban network and the west London link to Olympia and Watford.

For even better value, if three or four adults travel together, the total cost is £20 - as little as a fiver each. With either the individual or group ticket, you can take up to four children for only £1 each.

Trains before 10am are excluded between Monday and Friday, as are services from London in the early evening, but you can use any Southern train at weekends.