Mar
12
Jumeirah Essex House New York
Filed Under Europe | Leave a Comment
Jumeirah Essex House New York
160 Central Park South,
New York,
New York 10019,
USA
Tel: +1 212 247 0300
Toll free: +1 888 645 5697
Fax: +1 212 315 1839
www.jumeirahessexhouse.com
Downtown New York hotel, located on prestigious Central Park South and walking distance from Broadway.
The hotel features 515 luxurious rooms and suites.
Rated as a 5 star hotel.
Jan
19
Most Popular Travel Destinations in the World
Filed Under France, Most Popular, Thailand, Travel Trends | Leave a Comment
Every country is beautiful in its own manner and is really worth visiting, but there are some countries that attract much more tourists than others.
There is the list of the 5 of the most visited countries of the last several years
1) France (76.7 million visitors a year)
2) Spain (51.7 million visitors)
3) U.S. (41.9 million visitors)
4) Italy (39.8 million visitors)
5) China (36.8 million visitors)
This is the data of 1998
1) France (70 million visitors)
2) Spain (47,7 million visitors)
3) United States (47 million visitors)
4) Italy (34,8 million visitors)
5) United Kingdom (25,4 million visitors)
The top 4 has remained the same since the end of the last century, but fast developing and becoming more and more popular China replaced the United Kingdom on the fifth place. You can also see that china is going to overcome Italy in amount of tourists. You can also see that the total amount of tourists has increased – people became to travel more.
Read more
Sep
21
Travel to Italy – Rome and Venice
Filed Under Europe, Italy, Venice | Leave a Comment
Where does one begin to start when discussing Italy. Well, if you intend to travel there, Rome and Venice are good places to start.
Rome
Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It goes without saying that Rome has a rather prominent past. Lets see, in Rome you will find…[deep breath]…the Vatican, Coliseum, Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Church of Saint Agnese, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps and a guy name Allassandro. Just making sure you’re paying attention. Indeed, Rome is filthy with historically significant attractions. It seems you can’t turn around without bumping into something an Emperor built, captured or destroyed. For those willing to risk potential wrath, there are also the new Divinci Code tours, which take you to the locations found in the book.
In all serious, Rome is a city you should visit at least once in your life. No article could ever do it justice, so I’ll just stop here.
Venice
I fondly refer to Venice as the floating city even though it is apparently sinking. If you’ve seen Venice is movies or televisions shows, the depictions are accurate. Piazza San Marco looks exactly the same, birds and all. The Grande Canal is, well, a grand canal with incredible houses lining it and boats putting up down this water way. Built on mudflats in a lagoon, the city doesn’t really have much room to grow. It just seems paralyzed in time.
Once you’ve conquered the tourist attractions, it will be time to get serious about Venice. The best way to do this is stand in front of your hotel or hostel, determine which direction the tourist attractions lie and start walking in the opposite direction. While you may feel like you’re driving the wrong way on a freeway for a few minutes, you’ll eventually start getting into real Venice.
An entirely different side of Venice will appear and you’ll love it. You’ll find little cafes with locals happy to talk to you [and non-tourist prices]. In fact, the Venetians will tend to hold you in high regard since you’re a tourist who is bypassing the tourist areas. This, of course, will logically lead to a whirl of introductions to this nephew, that son of a brother and so on. Next thing you know, you’ll be complaining about Italian politicians and how things used to be better in the past.
While Rome and Venice are excellent travel destinations, you can’t really go wrong in Italy. For the adventurous, set your itinerary with the old map on a wall and dart technique.
Sep
21
Venice - A City With A Sinking Feeling
Filed Under Europe, Italy, Venice | Leave a Comment
Travel to beautiful Venice this winter and chances are you may hear the screeching of the 16 city sirens that signal the return of the “acque alte”, or flood waters. Especially felt during the winter seasons between November and April these waters engulf several low-lying areas of the city including the magnificent St Mark’s Square, rise up over the canal borders and bubble up through the drains.
The city’s best defense for pedestrians thus far has been the erection of 1.
5 metre high elevated walkways which themselves offer little assistance in the event of a very serious flood.
Proper defensive action, it seems, is not far away. After a lengthy debate over the effectiveness of large mobile flood barriers at the lagoons entrance, plans to expedite them into place are at last under way. The first to benefit will be the main shipping entrance at the Malamocco lagoon mouth. It will have installed a semi-circular breakwater to knock back the high Adriatic seas from southerly winds and a ship’s lock to hold ships whilst the movable barriers are in place.
The other big issue is that the canal water is so filthy. Before the 1960s the natural flow of the Adriatic tidal current saw to it that the waste was flushed quickly out of these narrow canalways. However, after this time the canal was dredged as part of a large operation to allow tanker access resulted in a 14-m deep canal that effectively reversed the currents, trapping the waste of the city within the lagoons now very murky waters.
More problems abound as a result of the high level of salt in these waters which is constantly eroding the city from its foundations, and despite the public outcry of several prominent figures little is being done about this looming problem.
As a result of subsidience and rising sea levels worldwide Venice has sunk by 23cms since 1900. The most alarming aspect is that by 2100 sea levels are expected to rise by a whopping 60cms which would leave Venice almost completely submerged.
Unless more action is taken by the central government in Rome to combat all these problems, Venice could end up another lost Italian beauty of the likes of Pompeii.
Sep
21
Venice: The Floating City
Filed Under Europe, Thailand, Venice | Leave a Comment
For a millennium, Venice has provided inspiration for artists and writers. This coveted city is made up of 118 islands linked by 453 bridges. Each corner of town exhibits individual architectural magnificence, the city combining as one to form a spectacular theatrical stage set.
Beautiful churches adorn the banks of the Grand Canal as she snakes her way through the city. This main artery is at the centre of a myriad of canals running throughout the town.
The lifeblood of Venice is its tourism, a magnet for over 12 million visitors a year. Catering for this influx of visitors, the cities population of 70,000 people continue their daily lives, working the bars, cafes and restaurants.
Despite all this however, it seems that Venice is slowly sinking at the rate of approximately 2 inches every century. Terrible floods in 1966 caused much doom mongering and many people feared that Venice was about to be taken off the map.
The threat to remove funding for vital restoration projects gave serious cause for concern and prompted an urgent response to save the city. It was feared imminent flooding could completely destroy the city; preventative measures were high priority.
The efforts of the past two decades have had considerable success. Reduced pollution, shipping and the restoration of natural sandbanks have all contributed to the cause.
The first settlers of Venice were those fleeing the Barbarians around 400 AD. To create solid foundations for their buildings they drove timber into the mud and began creating a community for their people.
The city’s emblem, the winged lion, derived from Saint Mark the Evangelist. The first significant church of Venice was built in the ninth century to house the relics of Saint Mark, and his emblem was soon adopted.
Venice’s trade brought great wealth and prosperity to the city and for many centuries it continued to grow. The city thrived on its colonies and invested its riches wisely. Churches and palaces became commonplace, as were museums to house many newly acquired works of art.
For the past couple of centuries however, the obvious lack of development space meant the city found it difficult to advance further. Wars with Turkey were a drain on the resources and so Venice was content to consolidate.
Despite this, Venice does not rest on its laurels. Every visit offers something new, a fresh experience to take home. Each region of the city has an individual charm, giving the sense there is always something special around each corner.
Sep
21
One of the most famous and enjoyable activity in Venice is to take a tour on a gondola. Every person who travels to Venice must take a tour on a gondola across Venice channels. But before start searching for a gondola you must know:
There are 2 types of gondolas.
There are lovely gondolas, very well decorated and cared, with nice seats and sometimes with flowers. And there are the ones which are more simple, not as lovely as the other ones. Usually the price is higher when renting the first type of them.
There are two types of tours/promenades.
The ones with serenata and the ones without it. It’s commonly said that some “gondolieri†sing a serenata while they promenade you. But this is not really true since they will increase the price if you wish a tour with serenata. If you want a tour with serenate, the best option is to book a tour in the tourism office, where they’ll give you information of the special tours on gondola.
You must haggle. Finding a good price takes time.
In general, making a tour on a gondola is expensive. But you must search a lot and ask different “gondolieri†how much is a tour. A tour of 50 minutes on the lovely gondolas costs an average of 100 € and of 30 minutes 60 €. For the more simple ones, the promenade costs an average of 80 € for 50 minutes.
The prices are higher at night.
As it is getting dark, the “gondolieri†increase their prices. Although making the tour at night can be an excellent option if you are a couple, because of the romanticism and all that, it’s better to make the tour in the afternoon, before eight o’clock, since the prices are more reasonable.
Sharing the gondola with other people is cheaper.
If you don’t mind sharing the tour with other people, it could be a nice option in order to pay less for the tour. There can be up to 6 people on the same gondola!
Have a nice tour!
About The Author
Marian Jubany is co-author of travel guides worldwide.
http://www.voyagerguide.com
Sep
19
Chartered Plane Rides
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If convenience in air travel is what you are looking for, then what better way to go about your trip than by chartering a private jet to take you places? Aside from the obvious fact that you have the plane for yourself, you can also do away with problems concerning security and the inconvenience of dealing with other people you would prefer not to encounter.
If you think about this kind of air travel as a good choice in order to experience luxury and a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel like a royalty, you have to think again. Chartering a private aircraft for the purposes of traveling from one place to another actually has disadvantages that would not have been prevalent when you had your travel as a simple couch flyer in a commuter aircraft. The obvious critique is the absurd cost, when chartering a private aircraft you actually pay convenience for the value of air tickets in two hundred folds or even more. A chartered flight actually is the most expensive type of transportation available in the field of transportation today. Aside from the fact that you pay on the basis of miles traveled, you need to take into consideration also the fact that you actually provide a different payment for the personnel thereof.
Another disadvantage of flying a chartered plane is the fact that the diligence adopted by the person in control of the same is only ordinary diligence, and not the extraordinary diligence warranted in commuter flights. Now what is the difference in these duties of care and how would it negatively affect the use of chartered flights?
Extraordinary diligence is the diligence required to be exercised by common carriers as part of the office of their functions. It actually means the adoption of that level of care taking into consideration all circumstances of time, people, and place. The duty of a common carrier is to prove that this amount of care have actually been complied with, and in any case that there would be an accident resulting from the conduct of their functions then the presumption is that the common care failed to exercise that amount of care incumbent upon it to perform. This type of diligence is incumbent upon commuter flights to adopt. On the other hand, chartered flights, not being a common carrier because of its already private nature are only required to adopt that level of care a good father of a family is incumbent to take, and that is ordinary diligence in the conduct of its proceedings.
About The Author
Atty Gabriel Cosh is a legal advocate and a practitioner of law for over 10 years now. He is also an expert in the field of social legislation and personal injury cases.
For more information about aviation accidents log on to http://www.personalinjurylawyerinc.com/Aviation-Accidents.html
Sep
19
Visit Prague
Filed Under Czech Republic, Europe | Leave a Comment
The holiday season - the best time for travelling - has already come and I am ready to invite you to one of the most beautiful cities in the whole world. Do you plan to spend this summer in Prague? Would you like to know how to enjoy your stay in the capital of Czech Republic? Or do you sill hesitate what to do in the late summer? I have some useful tips for you all.
Prague is a city of many faces. It has its long and sometimes mysterious history, breathing from each building in the old centre. On the other hand, it is a modern city with a lot of new.
The first thing you come across when browsing through any Prague’s tour guides is surely Prague Castle, Charles Bridge or Old Town Square. These three places are undoubtedly the main points of Prague?s history, connected with many important persons and occasions. They are really worth seeing. Because of their popularity, they are almost anytime too crowded, therefore not so safe. If you are early bird, I do recommend you to come there in the early morning, when you can walk freely without any noise and people and feel and smell the magic of unforgettable city. For those, who like trips with tour guides, there are some agencies organising various tours through Prague. You can choose the right thematic walk just for you.
My second tip is connected with typical Czech cuisine. Czech beer is almost world known, but what about Czech meals? Have you ever tried garlic soup, bouillon with vermicelli, roasted sirloin beef in sour cream sauce with dumplings, roast pork with sauerkraut and dumplings or dill sauce? If your answer is “no”, you meet with a part of our culture in any Czech restaurants in Prague. There is a variety of typical Czech restaurants that offer Czech cuisine, Czech beer and Czech folklore as well. In this way you can enjoy your evening with very good meal and also get to know character of local people.
Do you prefer night life to sightseeing? Prague is ready to meet your wishes too. You can make a choice for many music clubs in the whole city where you hear music of all genres - everything from jazz, pop & rock, oldies, ska or reggae to dance music, hip hop, house, metal or punk. Whatever you like. Most of them are situated in the centre - on Wenceslas Square or within a walking distance from there. Of course, there are a lot of other possibilities how to spend your night - sailing and french kissing on the Vltava River, night Ghost tour through Prague or visiting theatre or multiplex cinema.
My last tip is mainly for families with children. Small children don’t want to sight-see the whole day that’s why I recommend you a visit of following places. There is one place that is never failure for small travellers and it is a Zoo. Prague’s Zoo belongs to the largest in Europe. It has a lot of programmes for visitors such as feeding of animals, their presentation or training. The popularity of Prague’s Zoo still rises.
The second possibility is the new aqua park with swimming pools, toboggans, whirlpools or river with back flow. In addition, there is a massage and wellness centre with sauna to your disposal. The new aqua park is very nice place for enjoying the day with the whole family.
Prague is an amazing city with a lot of opportunities what to do and you can never be bored there. See you in Prague!
About The Author
Veronika Traveliana likes to travel all around the world. Currently she resides in Prague and works at Prague Hotels and Apartments Agency http://www.traveliana.com that serves Prague explorers with accommodation, tours, walks and other
services.
Sep
19
Canadian Rockies Golf Vacation
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A Canadian Rockies golf vacation could very well be the most memorable holiday you’ll ever take! The Canadian Rockies truly are one of the top natural wonders of the world, internationally renowned for the stunning scenery, the sparklingly clean air, and the quiet of unspoiled wilderness. This is as close as it gets to paradise on earth.
Snow-gilded mountain peaks, gem-like lakes, lush green river valleys and wide blue western skies are almost scenery clichés, but on your Canadian Rockies golf vacation this is reality. Golfers from around the world come to just stand and stare at one of nature’s crowning achievements. The fact that you’ll be playing golf in such a fabulous setting is just the icing on the cake. Of course, the numerous world-class golf courses in the area take full advantage of their gorgeous settings.
Verdant fairways weave themselves around glacier-fed streams and towering stands of evergreens, and often the greens themselves are back-dropped by achingly beautiful vistas. If there is a heaven, surely it must look like this! In such circumstances, it can be very difficult to concentrate on your golf game.
There are a wide variety of golf courses to choose from, all of them fabulous in their own unique way. Stanley Thompson, Canada’s master golf architect, designed the Fairmont Banff Springs Golf Course in 1928. He sensitively incorporated the natural scenic splendour into his design. The course winds along beside the pristine wilderness of the Bow River overlooked by the snow-capped peaks of Sulphur Mountain and Mount Rundle. This amazing course will both challenge and delight you.
SCOREGolf Magazine rates the Jasper Park Lodge Golf Club as the #1 Best Golf Resort in Canada with good reason. Designed in the 1920’s by Stanley Thompson, few golf courses in the world can match the rugged majesty of this national treasure. The design features wide fairways carved through thick forest, dramatic bunkering and holes aligned with distant mountain vistas. It presents a cunning blend of beautiful landscapes and challenging terrain.
Of course, a Canadian Rockies golf vacation would be incomplete without luxurious accommodations, fine dining, unique shopping experiences and pampering spas. Fortunately, resorts like Banff and Jasper in the Canadian Rockies have been offering these amenities for well over a century, all in a unique manner. Hedonistic luxury in the heart of spectacular unspoiled wilderness is now a Canadian Rockies tradition.
K. Gordon Schultz
President
http://www.GolfCanadasWest.com
Copyright 2007 – Golf Canada’s West. This article can be reproduced in its entirety, if the author credit and website address is retained.
About The Author
K. Gordon Schultz is president of Canmore Golf & Curling Club and the founder of Golf Canada’s West – Customized Golf Vacations. His company offers customized golf vacations packages to Alberta and British Columbia being the Western Canada’s leading golf vacation specialist. Toll free 877 323 3633, or visit http://www.GolfCanadasWest.com
Aug
24
Marbella in Spain
Filed Under Europe | Leave a Comment
Marbella, Spain - The place to be seen on the Costa del Sol. Movie stars, celebrities and millionaires alike flock to this spot to enjoy its myriad of leisure possibilities; from water sports, amazing beaches, infamous nightlife, to its numerous golf courses and leisure ports.
What formerly was just a small Andalusian fishing-village turned into one of the most exciting holiday resorts along the Mediterranean coast, one of the favourite places of the rich and beautiful.
The oldest historical rests to be found in Marbella date from the time of the ancient Romans - The settlement of Villa Romana in Rio Verde is from 2nd century while the Roman Thermal Spas are from 3rd century. In Vega del Mar, there is a 4th century Basilica dating from the earliest epoch of Christianism.
More popular attractions include the ruins of a 9th century Moorish fortress, the 16th century church Iglesia de la Encarnación and the Bazán Palace. On a more contemporary note, there is the Museum of Contemporary Spanish Engravings , the most important in all Spain, with works of Picasso, DalÃ, Miró and Tapies. At Plaza de los Naranjos there is the Archaeological Museum, with historical objects on display, dating from Roman, Visigothic and Paleochristian times.
