Infographic created by  Essential Travel

Related posts:

1. Brits planning to head abroad this summer
2. Holidaymakers ‘increasingly travelling within the UK’
3. Early booking ‘key’ for value holiday

Located on the sunny coast of Spain, the Costa del Sol, this hotel has a terraced construction on a hill facing the beach. Due to this fact its flair is often compared to the flair of the famous white villages of Andalusia. The impressive complex offers sports, fitness & wellness as well as high class entertainment and, regarding their perfect location, also offers the possibility to enjoy many activities along the coast.

Car Hire Aldiana Alcaidesa: From the 16th of May with a Sixt Car Hire Branch

Sport is the central topic of the hotel Aldiana Alcaidesa. It boasts 7 tennis courts, diving courses/ excursions, Harley Davidson motor-bike tours, archery, fitness and the spa “Alegría” with sauna and steam bath as well as an indoor-pool, inviting you to savour the culinary pleasures of the all-inclusive offer without having a bad conscious afterwards. Daily you can indulge your senses and feel transported to different countries at the themed live cooking points. Furthermore, the a la carte restaurant “La Vista” welcomes also the public allowing them to enjoy the wonderful views from the beach up to Gibraltar while indulging in some of the areas finest food.

Typical for the Costa del Sol, as well as for the hotel Aldiana Alcaidesa, is the fascination for golf. In a short distance many of the most popular and challenging golf courses can be found, like Valderrama (host to the Andalucía Masters), Sotogrande (host to the Sherry Cup) and San Roque. Also next to the hotel is the Alcaidesa Link Course that can be reached by the shuttle bus that stops directly in front of the main door of the hotel. To update one´s handycap training hours can be booked and tested in one of the organised tournaments?

From the 16th of May the hotel guests have the possibility to give an easier start to their holiday surrounded by friends. Arriving at the Málaga airport the hire car can be taken from Sixt quickly and in an uncomplicated manner and returned at the Sixt car hire office Alcaidesa within the hotel.
Sixt rent a Car will assist you daily in any case and will help you out with insider knowledge that makes it easy to discover Andalusia by your self. Visit the Alhambra in Granada, be part of the famous and the “who is who” in Marbella or drive along the coast in one of our convertibles collecting impressions of the wonderful variety of Andalusia.

Related posts:

1. Cheap Holidays for Half Term
2. Wine and Catalonia: What a great combination!
3. Baggage restrictions ‘make family holidays difficult’

Good news for all the travelers to South America: Sixt is expanding its presence in South America and is now providing customers with flexible and convenient services in Uruguay. Sixt is offering individual rental solutions, starting from one day rentals up to long term services for several months. Furthermore, for corporate customers Sixt provides fleet solutions including full service treatments up to 36 months.

Sixt launches its operations in the capital city Montevideo. At the international airport Sixt is offering a „Meet&Greet-Service“. Latest in October 2011 the network will be expanded to Punta del Este, known as the international city for exclusive tourism in South America. The customers can choose from a large variety of brand new vehicles, for affordable prices, starting from compact cars up to comfortable sedans.

Uruguay shows steady economical growth and is known as one of the most reliable economies in the region. Since 1991, Uruguay is part of the free trade zone “Mercosur”. Additionally, the economic development between countries such as Brazil and Argentina is continually growing. This way Uruguay enables international companies an access to the domestic market and its corporate business while Punta del Este, in particular, during European winter time, is the tourism hub in the region.

Sixt operates in Uruguay with a strong and reliable partner, who brings more than 30 years of expensive market experience to the table and is, in addition, backed up by one of the most important tour operators in the country. In South and Latin America, Sixt today offers mobility services to its customers in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, Peru und Puerto Rico.

Detlef Krehahn, Director Sixt Franchise: „By launching Sixt in Uruguay we now offer high-quality mobility services in another growing market in the region. We see great potential for our customers as well as partners in Argentina and Brazil by offering an access to a prosper and interesting market. Furthermore, customers in Uruguay will benefit from the existing strong presences of European markets. Especially, with Spain and Italy being their main outbound markets.”

Related posts:

1. Sixt continues expansion with business launch in South Korea
2. Sixt launches car hire in Puerto Rico
3. Sixt offers Premium quality in Kosovo

The Easter processions in Spain are renowned for their impressiveness. The largest and most important procession of “Semana Santa” (Easter Week), the Processó del Sant Crist de la Sang, takes place in the capital Palma de Majorca on Holy Thursday with the participation of 50 brotherhoods, the right of membership to which is passed down from father to son, something of which they are extremely proud.

The traditional attire, consisting of robes and with pointed hoods in the colour of the brotherhood hence preserving the anonymous status of the penitents, the drumbeat, the rattling of the chains and the moaning of the women confers this rather singular event with a somewhat mystic ambience. The procession starts in the late afternoon and lasts into the early hours of the morning. The days following Easter Thursday are packed with a programme of religious events. On Good Friday there are a lot of other processions throughout the entire island and Holy Sunday is, of course, famous for its masses. Easter Monday is a family day on which villagers dine in traditional restaurants or go on picnics.

The “Romerías” or pilgrimages are typical of this time of the year and take place on Tuesday with the participation of the entire village. Finally, on the Easter Sunday there is a large fair at Bellver Castle in Palma. Well worth a mention is the typical food made at Easter; Empanades pies filled with meat, fish and vegetables, pine nuts and raisins, Rubiols filled with jam or curd cheese, Crespells, a kind of biscuit, to name but a few. The only thing that is vaguely reminiscent of other European traditions are the chocolate figures, called Mona de Pascua, which according to a Catalan custom are traditionally given by godparents to their godchildren.

As you can see, holidays on Majorca are not just sea and sand! Let yourself be seduced by the charm of “Semana Santa” and the typical mallorquin products.

Related posts:

1. E-Bikes at Majorca: make a reservation now for October and get your personal Sixt bonus!
2. Easter Special: you won’t need to search for our low prices
3. Win tickets for the Elton John and Andrea Bocelli concert in Majorca

Leeds Bradford Airport and London City Airport are advising passengers travelling this morning to contact their airline or tour operator to check the status of their flight before travelling to the airport.

As the adverse weather will affect road travel also, please allow extra time when travelling this morning.  Travel news is being constantly updated on the BBC website where you can check the situation on UK motorways,  main routes, rail and airports.

Related posts:

1. Snow continues to cause disruption to travel
2. Fog causes flight disruption
3. Rail Work To Cause Bank Holiday Chaos

Due to the damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are continuing to advise against all but essential travel to Tokyo and north Japan. For up to date information and contact details of the British Embassy in Tokyo  please visit the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website.

Bahrain Travel Advice

Due to recent developments in Bahrain, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have advised against all travel to Bahrain until further notice. Further information and contact details for the British Embassy in Bahrain can be found on the website.

Related posts:

1. Sixt rent a car In New Partnership With Foreign Commonwealth Office
2. Sixt Nominated for British Car Hire Travel Award
3. US embassy to become luxury London hotel?

Sunset in Goa

Many people I spoke to before we booked to go Goa said that it was a little bit like Marmite, you either love it or hate it. After holidaying there for 2 weeks, I definitely fall into the ‘love it’ category.

Now before you even get to Goa, there is the small issue of applying for your Visa. It’s not the easiest thing to complete and due to fairly inadequate instructions for those completing a Visa for the first time, it definitely causes unwanted stress.

Visa
We applied for our Visa online at http://in.vfsglobal.co.uk/, online applications are now mandatory as of 23 November 2010. I would suggest you read the whole site to make it easier when you come to actually applying. Have your passport to hand and the address of the hotel you are staying at whilst in India. The process is quite time consuming so make sure you do this when you have plenty of time on your hands. I didn’t find the notes accompanying the application all that clear and had some questions that I wasn’t too sure of. For instance there is a section where you have to enter 2 referees whilst you are in India, I realised that I could put the hotel’s address but only after ‘googling’ for help. It was recommended that the 2nd referee could be the British High Commission in New Delhi.

After completing the application form online you simply print a copy off (along with a copy of the checklist PDF) and send these, with your passport and photos, to the application centre for processing. After paying online you are given a web reference number which you can then use to track the progress of your application. I gave my email address and mobile number as well and after following the progress of our application, we saw that the Visa had been processed and was on its way back to us. I checked my email account and sure enough there was a message to say that the Visa’s were being returned and on the day they were delivered, I even got a text message from DX secure to say that they would be with me that day. Very impressive after the stress of completing the forms.
Note: Rules regarding photos have changed recently, you cannot now use a normal sized passport photo for your visa. The photo must be 50mm by 50mm which is larger than the UK standard passport photo size.

Package Holiday

For the first time ever we booked Goa as a package holiday. Normally we book flights and hotels separately ourselves, but as you now have little come back if you have booked individually rather than a package through a tour operator, we went for peace of mind and booked with Olympic holidays.

The hotel pool

Our package was a flight from Manchester with Monarch Airlines and 2 weeks accommodation at the Nizmar Resort, Calangute.
 
The flight was comfortable enough and the meals OK, although all refreshments had to be paid for. I have taken many long-haul flights where tea/coffee and soft drinks have been complimentary, but not on this flight. Apart from that the flight had good in-flight entertainment and the stewardesses were friendly and pleasant.
On arrival into Goa airport you follow each other like lost sheep and go through the normal processes. They tend to like to look at your passport a lot so keep it to hand ready to show to whoever may want to see it. The baggage claim area is a little like organised chaos with bags coming through on 2 different belts intermittently so you have to keep an eye on both and there were staff removing bags from the belts so you then had to wander around the area looking to see if yours has already been taken off.

The baggage area is your first chance to exchange sterling into rupees, but we decided to wait until we got to our destination and change it locally to get a better rate as our transfer was included in the package we had booked. This is where I was thankful for our Olympic Tour Rep called India. On coming out of arrivals it was manic with guys wanting to take your cases for you, luckily, India was stood straight in front of arrivals to give us our bus number. This was really well organised and within minutes we had stepped out of the airport and got our first glimpse of the real India.
Tip: Those that had visited Goa many times had a £1 coin ready to give the guys that rush to take your cases when you come out of arrivals. We didn’t!

Calangute and Nizmar Resort
We did plenty of research before booking Goa, using mainly Trip Advisor and it is something you definitely need to do to prepare you for India. Those people that flick through a brochure, pick a nice hotel and then do not read anything more on the location they are going to are I suspect those that ended up not loving Goa as much as others – no pavements and lots of dirt tracks are the norm. The cows I will come to later!

Our hotel was based in Calangute, about a 45 minute drive from the airport. We had to wait a little for our room to be prepared, but were given drinks by the pool whilst we were waiting. Nizmar was a nice hotel and in speaking with people we met whilst in Goa, it seems to have been one of the better hotels to stay at. Our room was large, with 2 balconies overlooking the pool and the well stocked fridge was a blessing. The room was clean enough and towels were changed every day, but you need to bear in mindthat hotels in Goa are more basic than those in England, so a little patience is needed with regards to some of the standards of cleanliness.

Although we didn’t eat in the hotel ourselves, apart from the breakfast, fellow guests commented that the food was really good and many ate in the hotel most nights. Entertainment was provided in the evening, but again, we only heard this briefly as we didn’t stay in the hotel. One thing that really stood out were the staff, from the security guard to housekeeping staff – everyone was very friendly, chatty and could not do enough for you.

Situated in Calangute, the area around the hotel is a lot busier than Candolim or Baga. CalanguteRoad is very hectic at the weekend, as Indians come from neighbouring areas to visit the beach, but you can avoid the hustle and bustle if you stay closer to the hotel. Fernando’s is an excellent little restaurant / bar next to the hotel who’s chef Pradeep cooks the most delicious curries and stuffed paratha mmmmm. There are plenty of places to eat andI would certainly recommend going to a different place every night as there is so much choice.

As Calangute is in-between Candolim and Baga, it is easy to walk into both areas during the day or at night to experience the different towns. If you don’t want to walk, taxi’s are very cheap and readily available, I am sure there must be at least 4 taxi’s per person in Goa!
Tip: Pack a torch for walking back at night, some of the roads are not well lit and when walking on dirt tracks it makes it a lot easier.

Candolim and Baga
Candolim and Baga are quieter areas, both with lovely beaches and again plenty of nice places to eat and numerous shops and markets. Walking is the best way to see the most and investigate the various little roads that lead off from the main drag.

Baga Beach

The beach shacks are things that you have to discover for yourselves, everyone has their favourite and we had some nice days at Bosco’s, Baga Beach. In general the food in all the shacks we ate at was lovely, incredibly cheap and there was a great choice.

When on the beach you have to be prepared for the number of sellers that attempt to sell you anything from DVDs to bracelets or fruit. They are really friendly and nice to sit and have a chat to, everyone wants to know your name and a polite ‘no thank you’ seems to do the trick – ‘maybe later’ is not a line you should use as they do remember and will only come back to you later!

There are quieter beaches, taxi’s will take you there for an agreed return fee and wait for you. We went to Ashwem beach which is more secluded with no sellers, just peace and quiet and the trip only cost 600 rupees.
Tip: Put some sweets in your bag for the local kids when you go to the beach.

Eating out
Food in Goa is very cheap and of an excellent standard when it comes to taste. We tried various curries and Goan dishes. It is easy to overdose  on curry and after 2 weeks, you do have to indulge in a Chinese meal or a steak I am afraid and these are on the menu in most restaurants. On average a meal for 2 people with drinks was anywhere from 700 – 1000 pupees andwith 72 rupees to the pound, this makes for a very cheap night.
Tip: Carry an antiseptic pen with you when out and about for use before you eat.

Trips
There are plenty of places you can visit if you need more to do than sit on the beach or stay in the local area. On the Saturday evening we visited Apora night market, which is an excellent place to practise your haggling skills. Do be prepared as the sellers are excellent sales people, but as long as you keep going, you will get yourself some excellent bargains. There was local food and really good entertainment so it is definitely worth a visit for a few hours.
Many other tourists we spoke to had taken the trip to the Spice Farms and bathed with the elephants, others signed up to go on a waterfall trip, whereas we decided to visit the capital of Goa, Panjim for the day.
Tip: Negotiate a return fee with your taxi driver and book the same taxi driver throughout your holiday – ask your driver for tips on the best places to go and their opinion on the trips that are recommended to you by others – more often than not they have other suggestions as to what you may like to see.

One of the 'roads' in Goa

How little or how much you do in Goa is completely up to you and the type of holiday that you want. We spent the most of our 2 weeks between the 3 areas of Calangute, Candolim and Baga and walked most of the time as opposed to getting taxis.

Goa I am sure is not everyone’s cup of tea. It is not an immaculate resort like you find in Spain or Greece and to some I suppose it may seem a little unkept or even dirty. Yes, there are no pavements in most areas, you walk in the dirt so there is no point in taking nice shoes and wearing white linen trousers to go out in was possibly not my most sensible decision during the holiday, but it has a charm that unless you have been, I just cannot describe.

The people are some of the most friendly I have met.  Many nights were spent talking not only to other tourists, but to local people that would join you at your table and ask you weird andwonderful questions about England- just as we must have asked them the strangest questions about their life in Goa. Staff in the restaurants spend time with you to ensure you have enjoyed their food andit is all very genuine, our opinion really did matter to them – something which is a little lacking back here in England.

One of the many cows sunbathing on the beach!

I hope this has given you some food for thought, that Goa may end up on your ‘places to visit’ list and that you enjoy your stay as much as we did. Oh and by the way…….the cows. Prepare yourself, they saunter around as if they own the place. Traffic and horns (which are blaring every second of the day) do not phase them, they move out of the way for no-one and no-one moves them on. Cows take priority on the road and traffic just has to drive around them, even if they decide that they need to sit down in the middle of the road and take a rest. They join you on the beach and like to investigate the local rubbish bins, but all in all, they probably help to make Goa what it is……and only in Goa can you trip over a cow in the dark on the way home from the pub!

Related posts:

1. Argentinean Fine Wine and British Seasonal Food Evening
2. Heathrow Airport Celebrates the Best of British Food
3. Globe-trotter Sets New Record

Jet2.com and Jet2holidays are contacting all affected passengers booked to travel to Egypt, feedback from customers is that they are relieved by our decision. Customers will automatically receive a full refund for the cost of their flights or holiday, plus a discount off a new booking. Jet2.com and Jet2holidays will replace the suspended Egypt programme with additional flights and holidays to Spain and Portugal adding 70,000 seats across a number of its bases.

Related posts:

1. Baggage restrictions ‘make family holidays difficult’
2. Flyglobespan enters Administration
3. Car hire users should ‘shop around for flights’

Image via Wikipedia

In the latest step in their mission to “organise the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful” Google have partnered with 17 art museums from around the world to provide virtual tours and high definition views of famous works of art.

The Google Art Project works in cooperation with some of the most well known art establishments including the National Gallery in London, the Van Gough Museum in Amsterdam and the Smithsonian in Washington and offers users the ability to zoom right in and get a better understanding of some of the worlds most famous works of art in stunning detail.

It will be interesting to see the reaction to this project as many Google projects in the past have encountered concerns over security and some may consider providing virtual tours of buildings containing some of the most valuable paintings in the world another such case!

Related posts:

1. College Hotel Recommended for Tourists Heading to Amsterdam
2. Sixt comes to Google Plus Brand Pages!
3. Google unveils ‘Intelligent Cars’

Diners can be picked up from one pick up point, be it their home or office and dropped directly at The Gun at no charge.  In an excellent initiative to encourage lunchtime diners to sample The Gun’s extensive menu, diners simply need to book a table in their dining room for two to eight people on a Monday to Friday and a car will be organised to deliver them to The Gun’s front door.

The offer does not extend to weekends or Bank Holidays and is only valid for their dining room or private rooms and not for seating in the bar areas, but during the hectic working week, what better way to entertain clients.

All cars will be provided by Carrot Cars www.carrotcars.co.uk, just contact Vanessa or Anna and they will arrange everything for you:
Tel: 020 7515 5222
Email: vanessa@thegundocklands.com or anna.mcc@thegundocklands.com

With lunchtime offers including 2 courses for only £15 or three courses for £18, The Gun is an ideal choice for delicious food in a relaxed, historic setting.  www.thegundocklands.com

Related posts:

1. London featured in list of top UK cities
2. NY Taxi Driver saves Italian Family’s Vacation
3. Free Concert Tickets from Orange