Top Spot:
British Virgin Islands
Wonderful group of islands in the
Caribbean; good sailing, good eating, good weather, islan' time.
Here's
another BVI website.
See our BVI page for
more.
France: We've spent several
holidays in France. These are some of our favourite places:
Annecy
Here is a site with a set of pictures and a webcam of Annecy lake and the
surrounding region of this purest lake in Europe. Very beautiful, it's in
the East of France in Haute Savoie, close to the Swiss border near Geneva,
and not far from Italy. We've stayed in the town and (even better) along the lake
at
Talloires.
Arcachon
Wonderful enclosed
natural harbour on the Atlantic coast of France not far from Bordeaux, where
we have spent a few holidays sailing.
The
Alternative Aquitaine website also has some useful info on Acrachon.
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Dorset
Our
favourite places to stay in Dorset are:
The Priory Hotel
at Wareham.
The 'boathouse' has the best rooms and they're all lovely, if a bit pricy.
Amongst the best customer service of any UK hotel, and by far the best on
the south coast - and not just our opinion, it's reckoned to be a 'hotelier's
hotel' by those in the know - the place where hoteliers go to see how service
should be done. Excellent restaurant.
Kimmeridge Farmhouse.
In the middle of Purbeck and near to Church Knowle. Delightful B&B with a
lovely hostess who really knows how to do it well. Only three letting rooms
so need to book well in advance.
Swanage
A bit 1950's but part of
the beautiful
Isle of Purbeck. Rhys was born in Dorset and Swanage was his
nearest resort as a child - it hasn't changed much!
Virtual Swanage
Swanage Railway
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Flights 'n Stuff
A site that links to various
travel companies to book travel, hotels, car hire, car parking and lots more. We've
often used the combined hotel and parking deal airports from ABC Holiday
Extras - get to it from the Hotels icon. It's good value and saves a lot of
hassle. The car hire on Holiday Autos has also been great value.
A site for reading and collecting
reviews of hotels and other resorts, now with a UK site to go with the US
.com one. We use it all the time to read up about places we want to go to,
and try to always write up a fair report of our experiences when we're back.
A 'boys toys' site - "stuff you don't
need ... but you really really want". Good for naff pressies.
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Céret
Lovely village next to the
Pyrénées
near
Perpignan
and the Spanish border on the Med coast. We stayed at
La Terrasse
au Soleil.
Avignon - the
Vaucluse
and Luberon
Avignon is in the Vaucluse, a department
of western Provence, and possibly our favourite area of France so far, being
a nice compromise between brash Provence itself and the rather more
civilised (to us) Languedoc. Several other websites to look at as well as
those from the heading above: See also:
Avignon tourist office
Beyond
France - Avignon
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Mediterranean and Ionian Seas:
Some of the islands we've visited:
Cephalonia, in the Ionian Sea
We well remember Cephalonia Meat Pie from our visit, but the island is also
the setting of "Captain Corelli's Mandolin, by Louis de Bernieres, an
amazing book - my best read for years, and recently made into a film.
Levkas, Ionian
Another island in the Ionian where we
chartered a yacht - from Nydri - to sail around the Ionian for a week. Nice
easy sailing, good for beginners, though can be busy.
Paphos,
Cyprus
Pleasant and civilised resort, with
lots of historic and legendary sights (and sites) - remains, temples,
mosaics plus nice hotels and good weather. If you're going, try to book one
of the hotels on the sea front or beach - we stayed at the Venus Beach -
splendid!
Gibraltar
Well not quite an island, but near
enough. The
Rock Hotel is a grand old place coming to terms with a changed world.
Gibraltar may not be really a place for a proper holiday (IJHO) but it's very
interesting for a few days. Rhys went sailing there in December 2002 and stayed
at the
Eliott Hotel-
complete with pool on the roof!
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An association of independent hotels
throughout Europe that offer quiet stays. Mostly very nice hotels, and we've
stayed in several.
Karen Brown's Guides
An American set of 15 guide books of
hotels etc. in Europe and the USA. We've used them to find some of the
places we've stayed at and the website gives a preview. Not a huge amount of
detail, but enough to find places to suit.
Friends Reunited
Originally based on schools, the site
has been extended to include workplaces - most companies are there already.
Costs only £5 per year to register so you can send messages to friends or
put pictures on. Rhys and some of his old (old being the operative word!)
classmates held a reunion in September 2002 - scary!
Genes Reunited
Sister site to Friends
Reunited and a very effective way of contacting other people doing family
history research. We've met several new cousins through the site and found
out a lot about our ancestors and other family members.
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Europe:
Lake Maggiore
in Italy (and a bit in Switzerland). We
stayed at
Camin Hotel
Colmegna, at Luino on the lake shore. It seemed like it must have been a
model for Fawlty Towers, but super nonetheless. They have their own tiny
lakeside marina and we took their boat out on the lake for a day.
St Gilgen, on
Lake St Wolfgang
in Austria. We stayed at
Hotel Hollweger in St
Gilgen, which was lovely. The town of St Wolfgang, at the other end of the
lake, is the location of the 'White Horse Inn', subject of an operetta - and
nothing like as nice.
Munich
in Bavaria in the south
of Germany, splendid city with a beautifully rebuilt centre. Home of
BMW cars (good museum, if
you're into BMWs) plus it has the
Oktoberfest! - beer and oompah bands.
Lucerne, Switzerland
Classic Swiss city and lake with terrific
scenery and lots of energetic things to do, walking, climbing, watersports
etc., but also nice hotels to relax in and excellent restaurants. And you
can get about a lot on boat and railway trips. We liked the
Arabella Sheraton a few miles out of town at Vitznau, on the lake shore.
Black Forest
In the south west of Germany up to the
River Rhine at the French border. Now that Sam, Mike and Elizabeth live in
Strasbourg we are seeing a lot of it, and delighted to do so. We stayed at
the best hotel in the area by
a long way (and one of the best in Germany), the
Schlosshotel
Bühlerhöhe. Sven and the England team went there
just after us in June 2006 so it
must be good! |
North America:
Don Cesar Resort,
Florida
At St Petersburg on St Pete's Beach,
near Tampa and just a couple of hours from Orlando. Super up-market resort
hotel with its own white sand beach, pools, pampering facilities, bars,
shops etc. The whole resort really is this pink! Delightful.
Florida Keys, and
Key Largo
The Florida Keys are a
string of islands all joined together with a very long road bridge, and Key
Largo is a short distance along the way. The
John Pennecamp state
park was well worth a visit. We stayed at the
Sheraton Beach
Resort in Key Largo.
The
Everglades
Wonderful national park
in the south of Florida, well worth a couple of days. See alligators and big
birds in their natural environment, very well run by a ranger service.
Niagara Falls
Well worth a
once-in-a-lifetime trip. The falls are spectacular but once you've done them
(drenched on the 'Maid of the Mist' boat tour) there is little else to keep
you there. We stayed at the
Sheraton on the Falls (on the Canadian side) in a 17th floor room right
opposite the American Falls with a brilliant view of both.
Toronto
Really nice civilised
Canadian city with a great lake-front. We stayed at the
Westin Harbour Castle.
And in the Caribbean Sea:
St Lucia
Where went for David & Lynne's
wedding. We stayed at the
Jalousie Plantation Resort and chartered a yacht from
The Moorings in
Marigot Bay, and we also visited Rodney Bay.
Here's another
St Lucia site.
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Rotary International
UK Homepage of this worldwide
charitable organisation. The Rotary Clubs have largely shed their old stuffy
image, are are very inclusive (women and all ethnic origins are important
throughout the organisation) and they do tremendous work in both their own and
distant communities.
Web Building and Hosting
Our web site was built by
our own family business:
who can fix your computer,
or your LAN or wireless network, or build you a website, or almost anything
else to solve a problem with your computer installation.
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