The smart way to Europe

For a while now, the cheapest way to most destinations in Europe from the US is to fly to Dublin or London and then catch a cheap Ryanair of Aer Lingus flight to the destination. Like this blogger did:

FYI, my trip recently was Boston-London, cross London by bus to Stansted airport, fly by cheapo Ryan Air (bought on their site) to Brittany (Dinan), pick up car there, drive to apartment with wifi. This was because I got a much better deal on a ticket to London at the time, and it saved me 2 train rides and a lot of time to go via Ryan Air direct to Brittany rather than travel via Paris.
http://www.ghostweather.com/blog/2009/07/cheap-and-interesting-travel-resources.html

This is a great way to get to somewhere like Brittany. The problem, though, is getting over to Stansted (you can take a bus, as she did, or the train into London and then up to Stansted from Liverpool Street tube station). Connecting with Aer Lingus in Dublin is easier, but there are only so many US cities which fly to Dublin (compared to London). The landing fees in Dublin are way lower than Heathrow so it can be very cost-effective to connect through Dublin to go to (let's say) Nice or Krakow.

Not many people do this type of two-stage journey to Europe because you can't book it all in one itinerary on Expedia or Orbitz. So, it requires some out-of-the-box thinking to get these kinds of good travel deals. Just the thing for the recession.... I wonder why Ryanair does not publicize this technique by advertising more in the US and on US travel sites...