Lonely Planet's Tom Hall answers your questions on worldwide travel. This week: is Colombia really a safe destination and can you do Cairo in a day?

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Why is it that we hear so little about Colombia? I know that they had trouble years ago with drug gangs etc, but I've heard that it's settled now and is an absolutely beautiful country. A couple of friends have travelled away from the usual coastal areas to the main coffee area around Armenia and said the Andean scenery was stunning. I'm thinking of going in the summer and would like to go to the central area, not the touristy coast. Can you help?
Name and address supplied

Once the South American country to avoid, Colombia is continuing a recent come-back, and is now far safer with a wild mix of destinations that take in the Andes, the Caribbean, the Amazon and the Pacific. The Guardian listed it as one of the destinations of the decade, and its South America correspondent only warned against the remote areas.

One of the great Andean destinations, actually, is Bogota, one of South America's most engaging capitals. The cobblestone core of La Candelaria is a student-filled area with a wonderful free museum of Botero's plus-sized sculptures and cafes selling canelazo tea (spiked with aguardiente), and the sushi bars and salsatecas around northern neighborhoods like Zona Rose and Parque 93 are for the dress-up crowd.

The classic Colombian route still hugs the coast, taking in Cartagena, Caribbean beaches and then hitting an island or two. If you'd rather take in the attractions of the interior, you could do a loop out of Bogota first heading north via colonial towns like Barichara and Mompos (or Mompox) to Cartagena. If you want to do the jungle trek to Ciudad Perdida (the Lost City), then you can head north-east from here to Santa Marta to arrange the hike. Then you can head back south to Medellin to explore the Zona Cafetera – the coffee lands that your friends were rightly raving about - and the nature reserves around Manizales and the Valle de Cocora outside Salento. You can reverse again at Cali, after you've visited the archaeological ruins at Tierradentro and San Agustin, before returning to Bogota via the striking landscape of the Tatacoa Desesrt. Ciudad Perdida is an ancient Tayrona site you trek in to over three days.

Provided you don't go too far off the beaten track, you're likely to come away thinking Colombia feels as safe as anywhere else in South America, though frequent military checkpoints are a reminder of a less stable past. Apart from the Colombian tourism authority's snappy assertion that "The only risk is wanting to stay", the main concern is of theft when out and about in big cities. Take taxis after dark and seek local advice on any no-go areas.

Are there any Buddhist monasteries near Nara in Japan that people can visit and then stay the night? If so, can you recommend an authentic one?
Marie Hynes, Ireland

Here are a few authentic options to try near Nara, recommended by the Japan National Tourist Office
• The temple at Hosenji, 40 miles and a couple of hours by train.
• Closer is the Soto International Zen Center at Nanyoji, 10 miles from Nara.
• Taizoin is located in north-west Kyoto but gets good reviews.
• The Temple Lodging in Japan website lists a number for Nara.

I am travelling to Cyprus in May and was considering going to Cairo on a daytrip. Is it safe for westerners and can you recommend a tour company?
James Mullaney, by email

These tours take advantage of Cairo's proximity to Cyprus – flying from Pafos takes less than an hour. It's a pretty breathless day, requiring an early start and taking in the Pyramids and the Sphinx before lunch. After a bite to eat, usually in a centrally-located hotel, it's off to the Egyptian Museum, sometimes with time for a quick Nile cruise and a couple of compulsory stops at shops for "demonstrations" of their wares. You'll get back to your hotel in the small hours. The trips run during the summer season. Cairo is a safe and exciting city and there's certainly no risk involved other than frustration at the time you spend stuck some of the Egyptian capital's traffic jams and not having longer to explore further. Regency Travel is the main company running this tour, charging around £324 for the all-inclusive day trip, but I don't have any experience of using them. If any readers do, please get in touch.

Your help would be hugely appreciated to plan our summer holiday. We would like to spend two weeks in Austria over the summer. A rough itinerary would be Vienna or Salzburg for two-three days, around eight days hiking (with some rest days in between) and then finish up in a really nice hotel for three days for some well needed R&R. For the hiking, we would like to see the best that Austria has to offer - stunning mountains, lakes, meadows, rural villages etc. We are both quite fit but don't want any hiking that would involve a lot of experience or technical climbing skills. We would like to stay in authentic Austrian B&Bs with homely food or stunningly located serviced mountain huts. What areas/rough itineraries would you recommend?

Also, do you have any recommendations for companies that transfer your luggage, as this is on option we are seriously considering? And we would like to finish up in a really nice hotel with spa and excellent food in a gorgoeous location ...
Carol Houlihan, by email

I asked Austria expert and guidebook author Neal Bedford for a few suggestions. He says:

"If they're looking for lakes and mountains, then they have the choice between Carinthia or the Salzkammergut. Both will be busy in July. The Salzkammergut is easily accessible from Salzburg, and offers some great hiking, for instance around Dachstein (near the former celtic settlement of Hallstatt), where there are cable cars to high altitudes and mountain huts all around. Or, if they're travelling by car, they could traverse the Grossglockner road in Osttirol, while heading from Salzburg to Carinthia, and end their drive at Weissensee."

The location, with a lake at 995m and chairlifts into the mountains with hiking all around is both fit for your purpose and and very traditionally Austrian.

"From there, they could drive east to Styria/Burgenland and the region's thermal spas. Bad Blumau was designed by noted Austrian architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser and is a pretty funky place, but cheaper options include spas at Loipersdorf and Bad Waltersdorf. From there, it's an easy couple of hours by car or train to Vienna."

For more on Austria, visit: austria.info/uk

• Colombia
• Austria
• Cairo
• Egypt
• Walking holidays

Tom Hall
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A metre of snow fell in the Pyrenees leaving 6,000 travellers stranded and blocking up to 40 roads
In pictures: Barcelona in the snow

Nearly a quarter of a million people in north-eastern Spain were without power yesterday after the heaviest snowfall in decades brought major disruption to the region.

A metre of snow fell in the Pyrenees leaving 6,000 travellers stranded and blocking up to 40 roads on the border between Spain and France. Barcelona recorded its heaviest snowfall since 1962 causing road, rail and flight chaos.

Catalonia's interior minister, Joan Boada, said the power cuts, caused by a fault in a high-tension cable, were affecting the area around Girona, 60 miles north of Barcelona.

Spain's border with France at La Junquera was closed causing 30-mile traffic jams while 170,000 pupils had the day off as schools were shut, local newspapers reported. About 3,000 people were put up in a town hall overnight and many others stranded in their cars as railway lines and roads became impassable, Boada said.

Tens of thousands more were unable to get home after snow fell at lunchtime and many left their offices to photograph the rare scenes of central Barcelona and its beach lying under a blanket of snow.

"I've never seen anything like this here in all my life," said Barcelona resident Raquel Lasmarias, 35.

The Catalan regional president, José Montilla, toured the affected areas admitting things would not get back to normal as quickly as might be hoped. "Some things cannot be repaired in hours," he said.

Girona, where 50cm of snow fell, was effectively cut off from the rest of Catalonia with most roads and rail lines blocked and only five of the scheduled 31 departures leaving its airport. The Catalan meteorological office said conditions would slowly improve but warned that unusually cold conditions would continue with widespread frost and ice.

In the Aude region of southern France, firefighters brought hot supplies to 1,800 passengers stuck on trains, AFP reported.

"In Perpignan, passengers were able to bed down on a sleeper train, but we spent the night sitting up and didn't even get blankets until 3:00 am," complained Jean-Marc Rossignol, escorting his 75- and a 82-year-old parents to Toulouse.

• Spain
• Natural disasters and extreme weather

James Sturcke
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The Living New Deal project was first conceived to mark the 75th anniversary of the New Deal. The driving force behind it, California academic Gray Brechin, likens it to a society-wide "archeological dig".

British Airways cabin crew warn walkout is looming, with Easter weekend the likely target for rail workers

Industrial action is threatening to disrupt the travel plans of millions of rail and air passengers over the next month as disputes at Network Rail and British Airways move towards strike action.

A walkout by BA cabin crew is possible after the airline asked for an extension to talks until tomorrow afternoon in order to consider a last-ditch offer of a 2.6% pay cut by flight attendants. The Unite trade union has ruled out striking over the Easter holidays, but a strike could be called for next week if discussions fail.

Unite's cabin crew branch, Bassa, warned members last night that a walkout was looming. "It would appear that at this stage it is also increasingly unlikely that an agreement will be reached," said Bassa representatives in an email.

Network Rail, the owner of Britain's rail tracks and stations, also warned yesterday that a national strike could follow straight after a BA walkout — with the bank holiday weekend the likely target. Maintenance workers and signallers at the RMT union are being balloted over job reductions and changes to working conditions, with the poll results due in the next week.

Robin Gisby, Network Rail director of operations, said he expected 5,500 signallers and thousands of maintenance staff to strike over Easter, in what would be the first national rail strike since 1994.

"Our guess is that it will come together this Easter weekend," he said, but indicated that the company would not back down over the changes to shift patterns and voluntary job cuts underpinning the dispute. "I cannot live with the RMT holding the whole country to ransom."

Gisby also accused the RMT of using the imminent general election to strongarm the company. "The timing of this dispute and the clinical attempt to bring together ops and maintenance issues at the same time is an obvious political move by the RMT to maximise pain for passengers over a holiday period – Easter – and to disrupt a potential election campaign."

Gisby admitted a strike by signallers would cause significant problems, possibly shutting down the busiest parts of the network, because major signalling centres would be left unstaffed. Network Rail believes it can withstand a strike by maintenance workers for a week, but anything longer could see speed restrictions imposed, with some branch lines being shut down. The RMT said the cuts would make a rail disaster an "inevitability".

Meanwhile, the BA dispute inched towards a conclusion yesterday as officials at Unite and Bassa haggled over cost-cutting proposals. Unite tabled a package including a pay cut this year and reductions in perks such as telephone allowances. Unite claimed the proposals exceeded the airline's annual savings target of £60m, but the airline was still mulling them over as the 5pm deadline for ending the talks passed. BA requested the extension, which was accepted by the trade union. If it fails to produce an agreement, a walkout could take place as soon as next Wednesday or Thursday once the union has given BA the obligatory seven days' notice. According to a poll on the Bassa website, nearly one-third of BA's 12,000 cabin crew want a strike lasting longer than 10 days.

A draft agreement between both sides, waiting to be published in the event of a deal, contains a pledge to "rebuild the trust damaged by the recent dispute". However, that will take some effort after months of increasingly bitter wrangling.

BA has drawn up plans to break any strike with 1,000 volunteer cabin crew drawn from the ranks of its 38,000-strong workforce and a fleet of 23 chartered jets. Willie Walsh, the chief executive, last week said he hoped to operate a "substantial proportion" of the airline's Heathrow long-haul operations and a "good number" of short-haul flights.

BA will operate its entire schedule from London City airport during the expected strike, and has also claimed more than two-thirds of its Gatwick-based crew will work normally.

The airline operates 650 flights a day with its 239-plane fleet, mostly from Heathrow, but has not said which routes would be kept open by the stand-in workforce. Meanwhile, the Irish national carrier, Aer Lingus, yesterday said it would have to fire a quarter of its cabin crew in order to stem losses.

• British Airways
• Rail transport
• Rail travel
• Air transport
• Transport policy
• Transport

Dan Milmo
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Brave diver puts hand outside protective cage and into great white's mouth

Signallers and maintenance workers balloted over job cuts

Millions of rail passengers face disruption to their Easter travel plans amid the threat of a first national rail strike since 1994.

Signallers and maintenance workers with the RMT union are being balloted on action over job cuts and changes to working practices, with the results due next week.

Network Rail ‑ which owns the country's tracks, signals and stations ‑ said a walkout by signallers could bring trains across the network to a halt.

Robin Gisby, Network Rail director of operations, said he expected 5,500 signallers and thousands of maintenance staff to strike at the same time over Easter.

"Our guess is that it will come together this Easter weekend," he said, but indicated that the company would not back down over the changes to shift patterns and voluntary job cuts underpinning the dispute. "I cannot live with the RMT holding the whole country to ransom," he said.

Network Rail, which employs 18,000 maintenance workers, is cutting 1,500 posts. The vast majority of the cuts are being achieved through voluntary redundancies as new equipment and techniques transform the duties of maintenance staff.

Network Rail believes it can withstand a strike by maintenance workers for a week, but anything longer could see speed restrictions imposed in order to protect tracks, with some branch lines being shut down.

Gisby admitted a strike by signallers would cause significant problems because major signalling centres would be left unstaffed.

The result of the maintenance workers' ballot is due to be announced on Thursday, with that of the signallers at the end of next week. Network Rail has weathered local strikes in the past, but the rail industry has not endured a national strike for 16 years.

The RMT pounced on a warning by the rail regulator last week, saying it was proof that Network Rail's reforms were threatening safety. The Office of Rail Regulation ‑ which has backed the cost savings underpinning the maintenance cuts ‑ warned senior managers could be overworked under the untested proposals.

The RMT general secretary, Bob Crow, claimed the changes could result in repeats of the Potters Bar crash, which killed seven people in May 2002, and the Hatfield accident, in which four passengers died in 2000. Both were caused by track and points problems.

"No matter how they try to spin it, the maintenance cuts and the changes to safety practices involving signallers will leave the senior management at Network Rail with blood on their hands in the event of another Hatfield or Potters Bar," Crow said. "That is the issue at the heart of these disputes."

Network Rail is adamant that the changes will not endanger passenger or worker safety, and points to an accident record that has improved significantly since it took over the UK rail network from Railtrack in October 2002.

• Transport
• Rail transport
• Trade unions

Dan Milmo
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The capital's soul is harder to pin down than other cities because its musical climate can change between postcodes

If London had the grid system of Manhattan, or had been rebuilt entirely like the Paris of Haussmann, then maybe it would have a readily identifiable sound. After all, you can spot the sound of Manchester – whether it's the Hollies, Joy Division, the Stone Roses or MC Tunes – at 20 paces. London has always been more fluid, in its architecture and its population. Different eras, and different postcodes, define the sound of the city at any given time. The Barbican's forthcoming Songs In the Key of London event could have included such mismatched performers as Chas & Dave, Rod Stewart, and Dizzee Rascal on the bill and it would have all made perfect sense.

Instead, along with likely lads Suggs and Chris Difford, it features a bunch of singers who aren't even from London – Robyn Hitchcock is Cambridge to his toes, Kathryn Williams's Byker Grove accent is a bit of a giveaway. The reason they will be sharing a stage with compere Phil Daniels is that most of the great London songs have been written by outsiders and suburbanites.

David Bowie, tucked away on the fringes of Kent in Beckenham, wrote a few pre-fame songs in the 60s about moving to the big bad city: Can't Help Thinking About Me saw him on the station platform, I Dig Everything was a sarcastically joyous arrival ("I've got more friends than I've had hot dinners/Some of them are losers, but the rest of them are winners"), and, best of all, the London Boys saw the former Face on his knees, beaten down by the cold, pill-popping demands of the city; even in 1966 Bowie was ahead of the game, giving Swinging London a scornful kick. Ray Davies penned the similarly damning Big Black Smoke in the same year, though where Bowie had used a sobbing voice and Tony Hatch's foggy brass section to highlight the city's meanness, the Kinks sneered and stomped all over the smashed dreams of the arriviste country girl: "Every penny she had was spent on purple hearts and cigarettes."

With even more scorn, Sleeper's Gants Hill-born singer Louise Wener wrote a revenge song for the whole city, winningly entitled Cunt London. The fact Morrissey hates the whole city has never stopped him writing about it: Dagenham Dave may be a clunky Essex boy caricature but Come Back to Camden is entirely evocative of mouse-ridden bedsits. He sings of "drinking tea with the taste of the Thames", the only recorded complaint about the city's hard water.

The further the writer lives from London the more he is likely to romanticise it. Bob Merrill wrote such brainless singalongs as How Much Is That Doggie in the Window and Mambo Italiano, but on She Wears Red Feathers – a 1953 No 1 for Guy Mitchell – the singer works in a London bank where "from 9 to 3 they serve you tea" before meeting a native girl (in a "huly huly skirt") who sails back to London for a life of tea-drinking antics in Piccadilly. It's ludicrous but adorable. Another American, Nat D Ayer, wrote Dear Old Shepherds Bush when he first arrived in London – has anyone else in the world ever thought of that grizzled triangle of grass with such unabashed love?

If Ayer had spent more than a day or two in his dear old Bush he might have written quite a different song. Some parts of London are impervious to gentrification or hipness and remain defiantly unloveable. For the teenage Marc Bolan, a move from happening Hackney to tedious Tooting, where he he was no longer a mod face, was written up in the wry Over the Flats – part glam demo, part music-hall moan. Finnish band Hanoi Rocks moved to deeply unfashionable SW17 and commemorated their grim times there in Tooting Bec Wreck: "I'm the sort of case that people find hard to face/I'm the living wreck, I live in Tooting Bec/I'm the Cosmic Ted spaced out of my head." Not a great song, but still the greatest song ever written about Tooting.

You can travel a short distance and the musical climate will change completely. A few tube stops from from Tooting, Brixton has two solid London classics to its name in Eddy Grant's Electric Avenue and the Clash's paranoid but prescient Guns of Brixton, released 18 months before the 1981 riots. A mile or so east, Camberwell is only celebrated in a comical way – Basement Jaxx have paid winking respect to it three times over with I Live in Camberwell, Camberwell Skies and Camberskank while Gracie Fields's Heaven Will Protect an Honest Girl has her losing both dignity and clothing in SE5: "I pawned me shawl in Camberwell/Then me skirt and blouse I sold 'em, and went trampin' back to Oldham."

It's pretty obvious that a cool area like Brixton will inspire songs with a little more gravitas, yet that doesn't entirely explain why Brixton songs have an air of impending menace while songs about Portobello Road are almost uniformly skippy and tend to feature a whistling solo: The Spectrum (more famous for singing the Captain Scarlet theme), Cat Stevens and Caetano Veloso all eulogise London's most Trumptonesque street. I put it down to the architecture; brightly painted Georgian terraces are more likely to inspire a whistle than towering Victorian edifices. In the 60s, Portobello Road was an oasis of gaiety. Just a few yards west, Notting Hill was a grim area namedropped by Van Morrison on Friday's Child, He Ain't Give You None ("I got messed up 'round somewhere called Notting Hill Gate/I lived up there for a while and when I moved out I was in such a state") and the distressing TB Sheets, a British blues about a lonesome death in Ladbroke Grove's Rachman slums.

Architecture changes, though; Ladbroke Grove is now as chi-chi as Chelsea was in 1967. But not everywhere is upwardly mobile. It is fascinating to take a square mile of London and see how it has been recorded in song over the decades. The East End music halls filled and eulogised by Marie Lloyd with songs like The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery at the turn of the 20th century were largely wiped out by the Luftwaffe; Duncan Browne sang about post-war childhood games On the Bombsite, referencing the remnants of Garden Street in Stepney; on Play With Fire, the Rolling Stones mocked the slumming socialite who "gets her kicks in Stepney, not in Knightsbridge any more"; and in 1993 Pulp – then poverty-stricken students just down from Sheffield – lived in a tower block that was built on Duncan Browne's rubble, and wrote Mile End to commemorate their less than charming home: "It was on the fifteenth floor, it had a board across the door/It took an hour to pry it off and get inside, it smelt as if someone had died."

Some districts have a sound that seems to seep, unalterable, from the pavements. A few miles north west of Mile End is a leafy corner of London which drew in pastoral folkies from St Albans, Kingston, Tanworth-in-Arden and Glasgow – Muswell Hill is where you'll find a gorgeous arts and crafts pile called Fairport, and this is where a budding psychedelic band called Fairport Convention shacked up in 1967. Having settled in the Edwardian suburb, surrounded by woods and parks with jaw-dropping views over the city, their sound quickly mutated into folk rock. Living within cycling distance were the similarly wistful Sandy Denny (soon to become their singer), Nick Drake, and John and Beverly Martyn. Clearly the vistas of Highgate Wood and Alexandra Park affected the music of the locale as deeply as Ridley Road market and the semi-dereliction of Clapton and Dalston have dictated jungle/UK garage/grime narrative of the last 20 years.

Manchester denizen Anthony Wilson reckoned that London had no musical soul. The truth is that it is impossible to pin down, it shifts constantly, which is why the city continues to be a draw for talents who – whether they love the place or not – end up creating its soundtrack. Take a look on YouTube at a clip of Nico singing I'm Not Sayin'. Wandering around an unrecognisable Docklands in 1965, here's a German model singing a song written by Canadian folkie Gordon Lightfoot, produced by Hampstead public school boy Andrew Loog Oldham, yet it has the authentic feel – with its chutzpah, its minor chords, its refusenik lyric and foggy air – of something essentially, perfectly London.

Five songs about less celebrated parts of London:

New Vaudeville Band – Finchley Central
With its 20s bent and megaphone vocal, this makes for a sunnier ode to London Transport than Down in the Tube Station at Midnight: the singer is nonetheless stood up on the platform having travelled "10 long stations from Golders Green" for a fee of "two and sixpence".

Nick Nicely – Hilly Fields 1892
A veteran of just two singles, Nicely still managed to record the best psychedelic songs of the 80s with a mellotron-soaked evocation of a paranormal event at a south London beauty spot. The only building on Hilly Fields is now a music school.

Elvis Costello – Hoover Factory
"Five miles out of London on the Western Avenue/Must have been a wonder when it was brand new." For once, a Costello song is simple, pun-free and heartfelt. The now listed (and currently empty) deco marvel was in danger of demolition at the time that this was recorded; it's survival was "not a matter a life and death – but what is?"

Mott the Hoople – Waterlow
Following a divorce, Ian Hunter wrote this gorgeous cello-led song about walking around the titular Highgate park with his young son in a pushchair. Mott later gave the London borough of Croydon a much needed high five on Saturday Gigs.

Nadia Cattouse – Bermondsey
"The tide is turning now on barges in Bermondsey." The area has changed more than Belize-born Cattouse could have imagined when she sang this in 1969, just as the docks were starting to close. Cold but wise, it has a beautiful 2am feel: "On London Bridge young lovers shiver and gaze at the lamplight in the river."

• Pop and rock
• London

Bob Stanley
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Despite its wobbly beginnings, the capital's giant ferris wheel has become a much-loved symbol of London. And even urban sprawl seems beautiful from the top

Tony Blair officially opened the London Eye on 31 December 1999. But it was only after a number of technical glitches had been sorted out that the public was finally allowed aboard in March 2000 – 10 years ago this week. Since then, well over 30 million people have taken the vertiginous but breathtaking half-hour journey, in air-conditioned capsules, up and around what was, until two years ago, the world's biggest ferris wheel. That honour now belongs to the Singapore Flyer; with a height of 165 metres, it outranks the London Eye by a full 30 metres. But, while the Flyer looks like a gigantic version of a 19th-century original (the first of the breed, designed by George Washington Ferris, began revolving at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago), the London Eye is a fighter jet to Singapore's biplane. The Eye has since become as much a part of tourist London as Westminster Abbey, the Tower and Big Ben; a friendly curiosity, an urban eye-catcher, and an engineering wonder to compare with the Eiffel Tower.

When it was first announced, though, it was hard not to think that the London Eye was going to be some sort of Victorian throwback, an enormous music hall-era fun-fair ride among London's new wave of challenging millennium monuments– Tate Modern, the Millennium Bridge and the Millennium Dome itself. At the time of its opening, the joke went that the Eye was a perfect symbol of contemporary British political culture, going around and around uselessly and getting nowhere in the process.

When, however, the design by the architects Marks Barfield was unveiled, most doubts were cast aside. The husband-and-wife team had come up with a striking and rather beautiful hi-tech big wheel. It wasn't just the high-spec design that drew attention, it was the bravura manner in which the Eye's prefabricated components were brought up the Thames on river barges to Jubilee Gardens, and the week-long drama during which, inch by inch, the giant wheel was raised from the river and up into place alongside County Hall. Now, every view in and through Westminster, and along the Thames, was changed. Suddenly, this spidery and beautifully resolved ferris wheel crowned Victorian terraces, filled unexpected views along avenues of plane trees and sat like a tiara atop government offices.

Perhaps its best aspect is that it also offers awe-inspiring and uninterrupted views over London. From up top on a clear day, the entire city can be peered down upon and encompassed. The patterns of London's growth can be seen spreading into subtopia and the green belt like rings marking the age of venerable trees. Rides on the Eye in rain, snow or at night offer their own haunting attractions.

Of London's deafeningly trumpeted rival millennium projects, the Eye has been, perhaps, the most endearing. The Dome was undermined by the unforgivably crass and soulless Millennium Experience exhibition of 2000; it was many years before it redeemed itself as today's O2 music venue. The Millennium Bridge linking Tate Modern and St Paul's Cathedral wobbled, and it was some while before its virtues could be discerned. Tate Modern became almost too popular for its own good, a heaving cultural souk – acutely in need of its planned extension – where art can occasionally be seen between massed heads and shoulders. Other millennium projects, such as the refurbishment of the Royal Opera House, were fine things, yet tame in terms of fresh design.

The London Eye was always a brave and daring adventure, a throwback to 1951's Festival of Britain, held on the same site – an era when Britain could still claim to lead the world (just) in supersonic-era design and engineering. It looks to the past as well as the future.

• Design
• Architecture
• Engineering

Jonathan Glancey
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I'm taking a break now till 18 March. See you then.

• Cultural trips

Charlotte Higgins
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Mat Heywood puts one local's knowledge to the test on a tour of Jordan's 'rose-red city'

Mat Heywood

Audio slideshow: a locals' guide to Petra

Photography: Lihee Avidan
Guide: Elias, Experience Jordan
Poem: Petra, John William Burgon 1845

The Adventure Company (0845 450 5316) offers a eight-day tour taking in Petra, a desert camp in Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea from £1,119pp inc flights.

Alternatively, you can stay in the town Wadi Musa, where the Amra Palace Hotel costs £65 per night for two.

BMI (0844 848 4888) flies from Heathrow to Amman from £438 rtn inc taxes

Entry to the site is £20 per person - though for more than one day there are discounts.

• Petra, Jordan
• Jordan

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BA appears not to have accepted union's offer over pay freeze and new cabin crew, almost ending hopes of a breakthrough

British Airways has raised concerns over cost-cutting proposals from trade union officials, amid fading hopes of securing a deal to stave off a cabin crew strike ahead of Tuesday's 5pm deadline.

The Unite trade union has offered a two-year pay freeze and accepted the recruitment of new attendants on different pay and conditions in talks with BA executives at the TUC headquarters.

However, BA has queried the proposals, which were made in response to the airline's request for cost-savings of at least £60m a year from cabin crew. The Unite proposal to accept new recruits on a separate fleet of aircraft, with a series of guarantees protecting current crew, has not been unconditionally accepted by BA because the airline believes it will not deliver immediate cost savings.

With concerns also emerging over the two-year pay freeze, time is running out for both sides to reach an agreement by 5pm. Representatives at Bassa, Unite's cabin crew branch, have been discussing strike dates and will renew those discussions on Tuesday. Trade unions must give companies seven days' notice of strike action, making Wednesday 17 March the likely date for the start of a walkout. Cabin crew must strike by 22 March to maintain their mandate for industrial action, which means that if they strike for just one hour next Wednesday they can stage a walkout after 22 March.

The Unite proposals also address the core of the dispute – unilateral staffing cuts on BA flights – by partially reinstating cabin crew numbers on some long-haul services.

• British Airways
• Air transport
• Airline industry
• Travel & leisure
• Trade unions

Dan Milmo
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British Waterways chairman Tony Hales says fear of cuts is behind move to leave state control

The renaissance of Britain's canals is one of the big regeneration successes of the last two decades. They transport the tranquillity of the countryside to the heart of the city, provide a haven for wildlife and offer a picturesque setting for some of the most desirable urban homes.

But proposals to be submitted this month by British Waterways, the guardian of 2,200 miles of canals and rivers, seek to move them out of direct state control and into the "third sector", arguing the move is the only way to safeguard their future.

The vision is for an "aquatic National Trust" galvanising the estimated 11 million Britons who regularly benefit from them – boaters, anglers, cyclists, runners, Sunday strollers and waterside property dwellers – to invest time and money to protecting them for generations to come.

"Of course there are risks. Yes, it is radical. But I believe it is a no-lose call, and something has to be done," said Tony Hales, chairman of British Waterways. "The waterways are not about to collapse overnight. But over 10, 20 years, if we don't accelerate investment, the network will deteriorate."

With public spending cuts inevitable whichever party is in power and an anticipated reduction in the grant British Waterways receives from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Hales believes the time is right. The proposals follow an 18-month consultation, and aim to bring the running of canals closer to the people using them.

Hales believes there is the goodwill to pull it off. "There is tremendous affection for the waterways," he said. "The canal boat is right up there with the postbox as one of the iconic images of British life.

"Of course, it can't be exactly like the National Trust, where you get a pass into 50 buildings others have had to pay £30 for. And we would have to completely rebrand our image. What's in it for people? A nice, warm feeling and the opportunity to get involved. There is an army of volunteers out there already clearing, restoring, maintaining."

Third-sector status would allow British Waterways to borrow for long-term investment, something it cannot do as a public corporation, while retaining a government grant on a renegotiated basis to fulfil statutory obligations for public health, safety and benefit.

Hales said: "Why does a taxpayer in Blackpool fund the Regent's canal in London? Why shouldn't people living on, benefiting from, overlooking the Regent's canal make some contribution towards it, in the form of money or volunteering, instead of it all coming from central government?

"[Canals] are a valuable asset, one that local authorities benefit from. And if I own a brand new flat in Birmingham, I'm not going to sit there and do nothing if the canal I overlook is full of floating dead dogs, or the tow paths are covered in dog shit, or the lock gates don't work, and the value of my property is going down. I'm going to get involved.""

Third-sector status would also allow British Waterways to safeguard its £500m property portfolio, which generates £45m a year. In times of crisis the Treasury's eye often alights on this asset, but so far British Waterways has resisted a sell-off.

"£500m is not much, in terms of the national debt," Hales said. Nevertheless, the Treasury, he admits, could be the fly in the ointment for the proposals.

Other fundraising initiatives being explored include the micro-generation of renewable energy, and the sale of "grey", or undrinkable, water to industry.

British Waterways has an annual income of £255m, including a £74m government grant. The grant's value has fallen by 47% in real terms since 2003. Hales expects it to fall further, and wonders if it can continue competing for the taxpayers' money required to maintain the network.

Organisations representing Britain's 33,000 boaters and three million anglers agree something has to be done.

"The risk is not getting the necessary revenue to make the whole thing work. But they have to do something radical," said Mark Lloyd of the Angling Trust.

Brian Sharpe, editor of Towpath Talk magazine, said: "There is a lot of pressure get out of this mess, and I think it is a mess. It's going to be a legal minefield.

"It could go very wrong, but then it can't be any worse than it is at the moment".

• Transport
• Transport policy
• Water transport
• Boating holidays
• Privatisation
• Regeneration

Caroline Davies
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