Archive for October, 2009

London is a global city, being among the most frequented cities of the world the reasons for this is quite obvious. London has a history and tradition that is unsurpassed which makes it one of the hotspots for vacations and on the other hand it is also one of the most fashionable cities to visit in the modern world, whatever your purpose for visit might be whether business trips or a family vacation. London therefore has to cater to a global audience and the Luxury London hotels do just that. These hotels are some of the finest in the world and are suitable for people from all parts of the planet.

The city is large and there are innumerable luxury hotels in the city to choose from. Your choices can be based on the themes and design of the hotels as well. The diversity of these luxury hotels are enough to cater to all tastes as there are tourists in the city on a regular basis who travel from all parts of the world. Therefore there are those hotels that are maybe Victorian or traditionally themed an embodiment of the old traditional world of London while on the other hand there are those hotels that are designed with the modern tourist in mind with the best of modern architecture and design and furnishings.

The Luxury hotels in the city besides being divided according to theme are also varied in the types of hotels according to their style of services. There are those luxury hotels that have the international brand names and you can thus expect to meet the best in international luxury in these hotels which keep their reputation around the world in London as well.

Then there are the other unique hotels which are different styles of luxury hotels. You can choose a boutique luxury hotel that is known for their individuality. They maintain the luxurious standards of any other luxury hotel in the city but are themed and customized by the individual owner and are more private than the big brands. Then there are the special corporate hotels that are perfect in their services for the business traveler to London. These too are steeped in luxury as any other luxury London hotel but provide special service for the business traveler making their business trip to the city much more comfortable.

All the Luxury London hotels maintain global standard and would not disappoint you in their provisions and services even though one might differ from the other. They are staffed well and provide all the services and facilities that you are used to from any luxury hotel in the world. The purpose of these hotels is that they give you the best of luxury environments along with all the practical necessities of traveling. Thus a swimming pool and telephone services might be clubbed elegantly with marble staircases and silk linen.

The locations of these luxury hotels also make them even more desirable. Some of the best locations of the city have some of the finest luxury hotels. From Grosvenor Square to Piccadilly and other popular locations all have the best of the hotels in the city. Therefore these locations are perfect for the tourist as these spots make the rest of the city more accessible.

Searching for a luxury hotel for you to stay in the city with your family or without has become much easier with the advent of the internet. On the internet you can search for the kind of hotel you want and go through all the pictures of the place and services they provide and accordingly make a choice for your stay.

Another good reason why you should opt for booking your luxury London hotel online is to avail of special discounts. It is always probable that if you book your hotel way in advance before your arrival you will have to pay a discounted price and booking online makes this easier. Thus when you search for the perfect luxury hotel online, you must look for a detailed description of the location and the quality of services of the hotel. What previous visitors have to say about the hotels are also important and you could browse through some traveler reviews for the same.

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Rome and Venice are sure to find a place in almost every living man’s list of places to see before he dies. The scenic beauty and archaeological excellence of these places have been responsible for the unbelievable growth of tourism in Italy. Italy has been a tourist favorite for the longest time now. All the globe trotters swear by the kind of services the yare offered in the luxury hotels of Italy. When the mention of the best hotels in the world comes up, these Italy luxury hotels find place amongst the top few hotels.

Letting these Italian luxury hotels cater to is the closest you can ever get to being treated as royalty. There are innumerable Italy luxury hotels, which promise to make your trip to Italy a memorable one. No other hotel staff in the world can be as warm, helpful and friendly as the Italians. Besides this, the hotels have breathtaking views and offer you the best of all the luxury facilities you have ever come across.

Staying in the Italy luxury hotels is an experience of a lifetime. The decor, the lighting, the flower arrangements and the overall look of these five star luxury hotels is so enticing that leaving the hotel will take you some amount of self convincing. All these luxury hotels of Italy have a wide selection of restaurants and bars to choose from. Each ones of these is built on the basis of different themes and they dish out some of the most exotic dishes that you have ever sampled.

For people out on business trips, these Italy luxury hotels help you with all the high end technology you need to carry out your operations effectively. The business centers and conference rooms of these luxury hotels of Italy are also done up very tastefully and they are spacious enough to provide room for close to three hundred people. To add up to these services, the hotels are also disable-friendly. There are arrangements made for wheelchair bound people to look around the place without any kind of difficulty. The rooms that are made available to guests are also spacious and comfortable with a good view of the surrounding areas.

These luxury hotels in Italy are built keeping all kinds of guest needs in mind. Along with the various recreational activities that are made available to guests on a holiday, there are also provisions for people who are in Italy for business purposes. For the help of such guests, there are special arrangements for holding business conferences and meetings. These conference rooms are fully equipped with all the modern amenities, which are required in order to hold the conference comfortably. People, who are wheel chair bound, can also easily move around in different sections of the hotel due to its disable friendly nature. With regards to rooms, the rooms of such luxury hotels are not only spacious and comfortable, but also beautiful and inviting.

Long journeys and extended sightseeing tends to tire most guests. To refresh the senses of all these tourists, there are spas which are a part of the Italy luxury hotels. These spas provide the guests with a large number of options in the form of massages and alternative therapies. There is also the presence of a salon in all the luxury hotels, which offer all the services that the tourists can possible look out for.

While on a vacation, guests are always looking for ways to get out of their work mode and get relaxed. What better way of relaxation than an indulgent massage. The Italy luxury hotels have their own spa, which means that you don’t have to travel in order to get some pampering done. These spas employ the best masseurs, who are not only skilled but also qualified to relax every nerve in your body. Along with the spa, there are salons for people, who want to look good all the time. These salons offer a whole wide range of aesthetic services that you can choose from.

All these larger than life services that are extended by Italy’s luxury hotels are in exchange for a price. As expected, these luxury hotels can cost you a large amount of money. However, with a little bit of looking around, you can manage to find yourself a good bargain. If you know how to search for good offers, then you can make use of all the services at these Italy luxury hotels and still not end up emptying your bank balance.

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Just as wrinkles trace the past and present story of a person, in a city like Rome through its old stores and ancient alleyways, you get the true feeling of its history and charm. Go through the shelves of an old delicatessen in search of ingredients that make the typical cuisine of the locals. These old shops lead us to observe details and pick-up perfumes and aromas unmatched anywhere else.

Do you enjoy going through old stores, little stalls and workshops? Rome is the place for you! The only thing you have to worry about is your luggage. The tendency is to go overboard and buy just about anything and everything that catches your fancy.

Would you like to visit a very typical suburb of Rome? Visit San Lorenzo! The stone work and marble and statues of all shapes and sizes are to be found there. Not to speak of the very characteristic name signs for old time mechanics. Very Roman in their attitude.

Now let’s venture into the very heart of Rome. Not far from Piazza Navona is Via de’ Coronari which is lined with antique shops and very expensive art stores. This is a very exclusive suburb of Rome recommended for the lucky few… Are you looking for rare prints, paintings and carpets? This is the place for you. Of course all credit cards are welcome and the sign “English is spoken” appears on most shop windows.

Window shopping is also enjoyable (considering the prices - one needs to be aware of real costs) since the varieties of objects one can buy are innumerable, from the most outrageous prices to the merely expensive. Remember - all that glitters is not gold!

At No. 198 of Via de’ Coronari is a tiny shop called “Il Collezionista” - the Collector - where tiny soldiers, old spectacles, important medals, old sewing machines and you name it, they have it, are displayed in “bellavista”.

A rocking horse, miniature car and a playful atmosphere is what your children will get if you go along to Via Metastasio No 17, near the Pantheon, where Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will gladly cut your children’s hair.

Martina is a well known lady for her ability to fry fish and stuffed zucchini flowers in the real Roman way. How do you get there? It’s half way down Via de’ Giubbonari. It’s called Filettaro, which comes from fillets of fish.

Want a lunch time break? A pizza shop situated between Piazza Navona and the Pantheon serves the most delicious pizza of all times. Especially because you can choose from any possible topping at a very reasonable cost and take it away!

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Amalfi Coast - The most famous stretch of the Italian coastline lies south of Naples. It takes its name from the town that during the Middle Ages was one of the Italian Sea Republics and vied for supremacy at sea with Venice, Genoa and Pisa. The area is dotted with tiny little villages and larger towns like Positano, Ravello and Sorrento, located on hilly slopes facing the Tyrrhenian Sea. The visual impact is breathtaking as the colors of the houses create a unique contrast with the deep blue color of the sea.

Pompeii - Just imagine: its late in the evening, people are either going to sleep or doing their ordinary chores at home and all of a sudden there is a terrible noise, ashes and gas invade streets and houses; in a matter of minutes the whole city is dead. People have been caught unprepared and their bodies will remain forever in exactly their position at that time. This is what happened in Pompeii about 2000 years ago and now you can see casts that have been made of both men and animals, in addition to whole streets with buildings particularly well preserved.

Rome - The name is a synonym for ancient history, Christianity and beauty. Its impossible to describe in a few lines the marvels you can admire in the city. No doubt you are familiar with the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Bocca della Verita, Navona Square, the Pantheon, St. Peters Basilica, the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museums. These, however, are just a few of the magnificent sights that are waiting for you when you come to Rome. You have to see it to believe it!

Florence - Piazza della Signoria, the Uffizi, the Academy Gallery, the Old Bridge, Palazzo della Signoria, Michelangelo’s David and a host of other places and artistic masterpieces are probably familiar to people all over the world. All this and much more is Florence, a city that, together with the rest of Tuscany, gave the world so many magnificent artists who created the Renaissance and as many scientists who contributed immensely to the progress of Western Civilization. Think of astronomer Galileo Galilei, scientist and painter Leonardo da Vinci and 15-16th century navigator Amerigo Vespucci (he called America, after his own name, the newly discovered continent).

Chianti Region - A flask or bottle of Chianti may be found anywhere around the world. Its flavour is appreciated by millions of enthusiasts everywhere. This is really where the action is. A tour of the Chianti area will reveal to you what its vineyards look like, how the vines are trained and looked after and what wine production techniques have been developed to achieve such excellent results. Needless to say, the tour must comprise a wine-tasting event so that you may savour the best quality Chianti wine at its very origin.

Pisa - Piazza dei Miracoli, or Miracle Square, is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Once you are there, you realize why. In addition to the world-known Leaning Tower, three other marvelous buildings share the privilege of looking on to the square. They each represent a stage in mans life: the Baptistery, birth, the Cathedral, maturity, the Cemetery, death. The whole picture is extremely impressive and leaves visitors absolutely stunned for its impeccable layout and design.

Siena - Siena and its famous Palio, or Horse Race, are one and the same thing in peoples minds. Its true, the Palio is so important for Siena that the people from the various contrade, or wards, support their horses and jockeys to the extent that sometimes a wife and a husband will have disputes over their reciprocal representatives. However, there is much more to Siena than just the Palio. Its layout and the style of its buildings are typically Medieval. So, if you wish to see a city that is as close as possible to what it was like centuries ago, simply go to Siena.

Venice - Known the world over on account of its canals, Venice was established in the early Middle Ages and since then it has grown on the strips of land that, jutting out into the sea, form its canals. Venice had its heyday between the late Middle Ages and the 18th century. Small wonder that most of its finest buildings date from that period. It is really pointless to make an extensive list of them, but we must at least mention St. Mark’s Square which is the heart of the city and offers a splendid spectacle, with its Basilica, Clock-tower and Bell-tower.

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* Why would four soldiers fuss around a cannon piece placed on top of the Janiculum Hill in the centre of Rome? The answer is simple. It’s nearly 12 o’ clock and at noon they will be firing a shot, as has been done every day since 1847. At the time this practice was intended to enable people in Rome to set their clocks and watches at a standard time.

* Ever heard of the “most beautiful hole in Rome”? On top of the Aventine Hill - one of the seven hills of Rome - there is a garden known as ‘Giardino degli Aranci’, or Orange Garden, with a fabulous view of the city. At sunset, when the entrance gate closes, you can peep through the keyhole and have a breathtaking view of a line of trees and, lit in the background, St. Peter’s Dome.

* Learn how to always tell the truth! When touring Rome, one of the sights you can’t miss is the Bocca della Verita, or Mouth of the Truth. Everybody knows the story that in antiquity if you put your hand in there and you had committed a crime, your hand would fall off. This, though, was no coincidence: judges standing behind the wall would signal a man to cut off or let go of your hand. And people normally are not told that this masterpiece of Roman art was in fact the top of a sewer manhole originally placed in the Roman Forum!

* Roman Aqueducts: is this an ancient history lesson? Not at all! It’s modern-day Rome. Those glorious, huge structures you can admire along the Appian Way were in fact aqueducts bringing water to Rome. Below those arches the Romans also built other aqueducts and, strange as it may seem, these are still used to quench the thirst of today’s Romans - the water is excellent: it’s even bottled and exported - and to feed water to many Roman fountains.

* The “bewitched” climbing slope. Ever been driving downhill along a road and suddenly found yourself backing up or at least coming to a stop? You can have this experience along a road near Ariccia, in the vicinity of Rome! Don’t ask us why. All sorts of explanations have been given, but none really satisfactory. It’s fun to watch, though, a soccer ball or a tennis ball rolling back along the road!

* Have you ever stopped to think how giant machinery allows man to carry out fantastic jobs almost without any effort? Only a few centuries ago this was unthinkable. In 16th century Rome, for instance, one day they were trying to lift the obelisk currently standing in the middle of St. Peter’s Square. It was a strenuous job that required great concentration for the 800 workers involved. To ensure silence, the crowd had been told that anyone caught even simply talking would be condemned to death (the necessary scaffold had already been set up). Someone realized that the ropes were giving way and to help out the people on the job, cried out: WATER TO THE ROPES! The trick worked perfectly… and the man, far from being punished, was given a prize and a title!

* Piazza Navona is perhaps the square that Romans love most. According to one of the popular stories involving two famous Italian artists who worked there, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini were at loggerheads with each other and were anxious to show their feelings. So Bernini designed the fountains in the square in such a way that a statue representing the Nile seems to turn its back on the Church of St. Agnes built by Borromini and cover its eyes to avoid the sight of such a terrible-looking church.

* Have you ever heard of modern-day Romans’ laid back attitude to life, but also of their basically kind-hearted approach to other people’s problems? Here is something for you to think about. Carol Wojtyla, who was in Rome for the conclave after the death of his predecessor, was delayed by a hitch and was looking desperately for a lift to the Vatican. A passing bus driver who was going back to his depot was puzzled to see a priest thumbing a ride and stopped to find out. When he heard what was happening, he decided off his own bat to take him straight to the Vatican on his bus. The grateful Wojtyla, now a Pope, got in touch with him some time later to thank him for allowing that unknown priest to become a Pope.

* Do you think that highways are a modern invention? Think twice. Over 2000 years ago the Romans had their version of highways. They certainly didn’t have vehicles hurtling along at breakneck speed or gas stations, but they did have a road network that even these days would be second to none in length (thousands of miles) or quality (many stretches of Roman roads are still partly in use or have been used as tracks for new highways). They were also fairly sophisticated: they had service areas where people could relax or rest during their trip, facilities to change horses and a sort of diners where you could have a full hot meal or take it away with you in hot stone containers to be left at the next service area.

* There is a street in Rome named Via del Porto di Ripetta (Port of Ripetta Street). What has this peculiar name got to do with Rome? The answer is that in Roman times ships could sail up to the city because Rome was 11 kilometers closer to the sea (the Tiber has discharged huge quantities of silt and sand at its mouth over the years) and the Tiber was navigable. Perhaps it will be possible to sail up the river again before long if the mayor of Rome has it his way: he is pressing for it.

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During your tour of Rome, you wont need to have a lot of money with you. First take a maximum of 50 Euros cash in your wallet, let’s say in 5 and 10 Euro bills. Find another safer place for the rest of your money, credit cards and documents (i.e. money belt, socks, shoes) ” NEVER keep them in your handbag or purse.

Before entering a restaurant in Rome have a look at the price list (usually its on a stand outside the restaurant). Please keep in mind that a cover charge is always applied.

Rome is a lovely place for shopping (fashion clothes, shoes, souvenirs, etc.). Let yourself go, but remember that, if the store has a ‘Tax Free’ sign and you spend at least 150 Euros there, you should ask for the document stating that you have paid the full tag price. When leaving the European Continent for the U.S., you will have to produce said document at the ‘Tax Free’ desk at the airport to obtain a refund of the 12 % European VAT Tax.

Not all taxi drivers are licensed for the job. Always take taxis bearing the ‘Taxi’ sign and ask the driver if he is will give you the receipt at the end of the trip.

In case of an emergency you may need to contact someone urgently for assistance. Keep on yourself a list of contacts you can get in touch with at all times - best if they speak Italian and English.

Before leaving home, make sure you arrange with your mobile provider the activation of international roaming. You phone will then work automatically on your arrival in Rome.

As far as possible pre-pay all the services that you will require during your tour of Rome. You will then know exactly what your costs are. In any case, if necessary, always change your currency at a bank: you will avoid possible problems.

Selecting the right tour operator abroad is essential to have a top-notch tour in Rome. Here are a few things you should check. They should give you their street address, a phone number you can contact, their email address their VAT and Tour Operator License numbers and should be prepared to provide you with a 24-hour emergency mobile number.

This is just something that travellers from the U.S. and Canada should know. Visitors from outside the European Union are entitled to free or near-free medical treatment at Italian hospitals in case of an emergency.

For your information, the phone number of the U.S. Embassy in Via Vittorio Veneto 121, Rome is 0039 06 4674 5929 and the phone number of the Canadian Embassy in Via Zara 30, Rome is 0039 06 854441.

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Book Your Next Holiday To London

Author: Guest Author

For most people, taking a trip will always be a top priority, even in these times of financial doom and gloom. If this is you, then you might feel as though you are stuck between your desire to go on holiday and what your budget allows. If you have less money now than before but still want to get a flight to London to have that British vacation you’ve longed for, then read on! We have compiled some expert tips on how to find your next holiday to England on the cheap.

Fly Smart. Traveling to England during the height of tourist season - typically during the summer months - is a great way to empty your bank account. If you’ve got a more flexible holiday schedule, book your flight to London for the spring or autumn months to enjoy beautiful weather and off-peak prices. If you’re particularly adventurous, take your British holiday during the winter months - it may be cold, but you’ll have your pick of flights at rock-bottom prices!

The Bigger Names May Get You The Best Price. Contrary to popular belief, it’s often the bigger airline names that can get you the best prices for flights to London, since all taxes and fees are included in the quoted price. Within smaller or budget airlines, taxes, fees and other services like baggage check and snack service can all incur costs, which will add up pretty quickly by the time you touch down in London town!

Take Advantage Of Visitor Attractions. Museums are a great place to take the kids, and most of the major museums have free admission during the day. The British Museum is high on the list of recommended museums - with so many fascinating exhibits to choose from, your children won’t ever want to leave! For other great daytime activities that the whole family will enjoy, visit the Tower of London and the London Dungeon for a thrilling trip back in time. Admission rates are a little high, but thanks to the declining pound, it’s more affordable than ever before!

Ask For An Upgrade. One of the best perks of scoring a cheap flight to London is the possibility of getting an upgrade to business or even first class. Ask your ticketing agent if there are any available seats in the business or first class cabins; if there are, you can request to be put on a waiting list for the chance of a luxurious upgrade. Not a bad way to fly!

Don’t let the potentially high price of a British vacation scare you away from taking the trip of your dreams! Just learn these traveler’s tricks and you’ll not only travel in style - you’ll spare the balance of your bank account!

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