Happy Holidays everyone!
From all of us at Discover France Adventures, Pure Adventures, Cycling Classics, GoToParis; we wish you a wonderful holiday season and a prosperous New Year in 2010!
Posts
Goodbye Blog, Hello Newsletter
13 years ago
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays everyone!
From all of us at Discover France Adventures, Pure Adventures, Cycling Classics, GoToParis; we wish you a wonderful holiday season and a prosperous New Year in 2010!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Dollar on Strong Roll to Euro
Lots of turmoil in the currency market today and since this week. It is likely to continue next week before it turns around. Many analysts see the dollar much weaker than it is today during 2010. We are locking down forward contracts on currency to hedge against 2010 increase. We encourage any readers planning a 2010 vacation to consider prepaying their trip or get connected to the market news.
Here is a good place to read up:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/markets/currencies.html
Happy Holidays!
Here is a good place to read up:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/markets/currencies.html
Happy Holidays!
Monday, November 9, 2009
Tour de France Tours Announced
Discover France Adventures, official Tour Operator to the Tour de France, has now posted all of their tour offers for the 2010 race. The offers vary from VIP guided tours with full on insider access to media, the teams, and rides on the closed race course as well as podium access. At the other end of the offers are the self guided tours which give independent do-it-yourselfers excellent locations to see several stages of the 2010 Tour. Discover France is also offering what they call their "Domestique" tours - fully guided tours with excellent lodging and professional guides without the price tag of the VIP access.
If you are cyclists, how about riding a full stage of the Tour de France yourself? That is what Etape du Tour is all about and Discover France has packages to do just that.
The cycling isn't only for strong cyclists! Discover France also offers a VIP tour with moderate cycling distances that will suit perfectly for couples and persons who also want to take in more of the French culture and heritage. This trip starts in Aix en Provence on Bastille Day - what a great way to start!
For those who follow the Tour de France but don't have time to give to a complete cycling tour, there are the Paris only and Bordeaux+Paris offers available. These all include special Tribune seating for the final stage that finishes on the Champs Elysees in Paris. There is nothing like reserved seating for this stage as the streets surrounding are at least 10 people deep!
Custom requests are still being accepted. Numerous groups are organized already, so don't wait, hotel space is getting harder to have. Contact us by email to request a quote.
Friday, September 4, 2009
New Destinations for 2010
Pure Adventures will be 'leaping' forward again in 2010! We are developing tours in all the following destinations:
Portugal, Croatia, Romania, Slovakia, Malta, Quebec, Holland, and some still to come. We welcome traveler comments for new destinations - let us know what you are looking to do and where!
USA - travel programs are on the drawing board! Especially in Arizona around our USA office location. We can organize challenging road cycling tours, mountain bike tours, canyoning trips, hiking trips, and more.
A new website will be launched before year end as well - thank goodness - so the new destinations and tours will be more easily navigated.
NOT changing: Italy, Spain, France, Ireland - our key destinations will continue all they we have so far with a few new regions added.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Czech Beer Spa & Czech Travel links
Czech Republic Tourism - Cycling Tours
As we offer cycling tours in the Czech Republic and nearby countries that cross part of the Czech country, below are some links and info that are useful for people interested:
Cycling Tours in Czech Republic: Pure Adventures
Czech Tourism on Twitter: http://twitter.com/czechtourism
http://www.traveldeals.czechtourism.com/adventure.asp
Now, here is the BEST 'activity' of all - preferably AFTER a long cycling trip:
As we offer cycling tours in the Czech Republic and nearby countries that cross part of the Czech country, below are some links and info that are useful for people interested:
Cycling Tours in Czech Republic: Pure Adventures
Czech Tourism on Twitter: http://twitter.com/czechtourism
http://www.traveldeals.czechtourism.com/adventure.asp
Now, here is the BEST 'activity' of all - preferably AFTER a long cycling trip:
BBB BEER SPA IN THE BESKYDY MOUNTAINS
The Czech Republic, which has the highest consumption of beer per capita in the world, has opened another beer spa! Located in the Beskydy Mountains, the BBB Beer Spa is situated at the Bahenec Wellness Hotel. The guests can indulge in a range of health treatments including a hot-tub soak in lager, beer body massages and beer body wraps.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Irish Cultural Museum
Where Irish traditions are alive and kicking!
To many, Irish culture has come to mean leprechauns and dodgy theme pubs, but in
the wilds of Connemara, Kevin Rushby finds a unique centre that is ensuring traditions
survive
By Kevin Rushby
The Guardian, Saturday 21 March 2009
Way out west ... the emphasis at Cnoc Suain’s cottages is on Irish musical heritage.
Sitting around the fire in a stone cottage with distant views of the Connemara mountains,
we get talking about Dearbhaill Standún's childhood in the early 1960s. "There was
always music," she says, "And reciting of poems and stories. I remember Seamus Heaney
standing by the fire and doing a poem about his brother. All the old guys there had
poems. My dad had The Shooting of Dan McGrew." She grins at the memory and spins a
few lines.
"Were you ever out in the Great Alone when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you 'most could hear."
Charlie Troy restored Cnoc Suain cottages.
The Great Alone is a description that might be applied to Dearbhaill (pronounced Dervil)
and husband Charlie Troy's cottage. Built on a plug of green land, Cnoc Suain, that rises
from the Connemara bogs, the house looks north across a sweeping landscape dotted with
Connemara ponies to the Twelve Pin mountains. To the south is Galway Bay and the
Arran islands. This is about plumb centre in what is known as the gaeltacht, the Irishspeaking
part of Ireland.
When they arrived here in 1995, Dearbhaill and Charlie found ruined cottages in the
undergrowth, the previous inhabitants having gone off to America half a century earlier.
Those cottages are now restored and much more has been added: organic gardens, a
workroom, library, and most important of all, a great collection of interesting local
personalities who bring to the weekend courses their knowledge, plus lots of stories and
songs.
To call Cnoc Suain a cultural centre will not do - a generation of places selling soft toy
leprechauns, four-leaf clovers and green beer have forever debased that coinage in
Ireland. But now, hearing Dearbhaill reminisce, I begin to understand. What they are
creating here is that sublime Irish brew: comhluadar, ceol, craic - company, music and
fun - the brew that Dearbhaill supped as a child.
"Musicians would turn up looking for a party," she says. "It was never planned, but we'd
be up till seven in the morning with all sorts of people - the Chieftains, the Dubliners, the
Clancys . . . they all came. Mother would say to them: 'Go upstairs and if ye find a bed,
get into it, and hold on to it."'
She takes out her fiddle and plays a slow air, one she wrote herself, called McSorley's
Repose. The turf on the fire hiss and crackle; outside the dogs are barking. I lean back in
the armchair and close my eyes.
Ireland has always, it seems, been either in the feverish grip of a cultural revival or the
agonies of a cultural panic. There have been anxieties about the loss of cultural heritage
for at least three centuries. JM Synge, travelling through in the early 1900s for this
newspaper, lamented the changes in architecture, clothing and language. "All the
characteristics which give colour and attractiveness to Irish life are bound up with a
social condition that is near to penury," he observed.
And tourists have long been coming to sample what was supposedly on the verge of
extinction. In 1695 John Daunton, a London bookseller, came to Connemara for the
express purpose of viewing "the last of the wild Irish savages" - namely the O'Flaherty
clan whose women, he noted, washed their hair in a mixture of urine and ashes.
Nowadays the search for disappearing Irish culture is more likely to be for that legendary
pub where the bar is in the general store and U2 are swapping guitar licks with the local
lads over a Guinness. Is that a myth, I wonder? Charlie takes me down for a pint to the
nearby village of Spiddal where, in Hughes' Bar, he points out a photo on the wall of
Adam Clayton, U2's bassist, jamming in the back room with a horde of local musicians.
Maybe this legend is not yet dead then? But Charlie thinks that there is something of a
crisis at the moment. "The great tradition of music sessions in pubs is under threat in rural
areas," he explains. "And that's because so many pubs are closing down. Changes in
licensing laws have had an effect too. Young people go out later in the evening now, after
the old folk are in bed. It has separated the generations from each other."
Hughes' has no music that night so we head off, ending up at The Forge in the nearby
village of Moycullen in time to catch Gerry O'Connor, one of Ireland's great banjo
players. It's more like a concert than the boozy pub session of legend, but there are all
ages here, and lots of friendly banter. Gerry recalls a bad night spent with three other
musicians at a festival: "We had to sleep on the floor and after a couple of hours, the
drummer woke up and whispered, 'Hey, there's a rat on my chest!' There was a pause,
then our piper, who was a bit of a character, said, 'Ask him if he's got a cigarette.'"
My bed that night was a good deal more comfortable - in a white-washed cottage
overlooking a small lake. Sensitively restored by Charlie, these cottages are idyllic
thatched places, the walls dominated by vast boulders of granite, the floors heated by
ground source heat pumps. Breakfast is self-service in the small kitchen, while other
meals are around the communal table up in the main house.
Each of the weekend courses focuses on a different subject: Irish language or organic
gardening, for example, but this weekend's topic is culture and history. Needless to say,
music and storytelling permeate every course.
Down at the workroom I get a lesson in how to make a traditional Arran islander's belt, a
crios, from local author Sean Barrett. "Every man had a different pattern and colour," he
explains, adding with a ghoulish grin, "so when he drowned they could identify the
body."
Sean is full of tales. Like the time he found a pat of butter three metres down in the bog.
"The people used to use the bog as a larder and this butter was more than a thousand
years old," he says. "Mind you, the dog ate some of it and he's all right."
The bog surrounds Cnoc Suain like a sea of sphagnum moss. Growing at a millimetre a
year, the vegetation slowly rises in broad spongy heads, crushing its own fibrous mass
below and producing peat. Down there, under the centuries of growth and decay, are
relics of vanished communities. Later in the day, local archaeologist Michael Gibbons
explains more about the history of the area. "When I started in archaeology, Connemara
was considered to have nothing," he says. "Now we've identified hundreds of sites and
found lots of astonishing artefacts." They are still turning up. He jumps up and down on
the turf near Dearbhaill and Charlie's cottage. "Under this is a neolithic burial site - we'll
dig it one day."
Like Sean, Michael's talks tend to encompass some wonderful extraneous details. Ludwig
Wittgenstein, it turns out, came to Connemara to think. "Unfortunately the remote cottage
he chose was next to where the herring boats landed and he spent his time complaining
about the noise."
For music in the evenings, we have Dearbhaill's own band, Dordán, and some local
teenagers: Orla Ní Fhinneadha and Breandán Ó hIarnáin, awesomely talented and full of
enthusiasm. "Traditional Irish music is big among young people now," Orla tells me,
after a powerful example of unaccompanied Sean Nós, old-style singing. "It's the social
side I like - and the singing, of course."
Breandán and the others confirm it: there is a huge revival of interest among young
people at the moment. He then shows off his prodigious talents: a series of jigs and reels
on the fiddle, accompanied by harpist Kathleen Loughnane and Mary Bergin on the
whistle, then a dazzling display of Irish dance steps. Before we've finished applauding
he's out the door, heading off to a karate lesson. We troop up the hill for a convivial
dinner around one table, then a session of storytelling with another local personality,
Gerry Conneely.
Was it true that everyone used to have a recital ready to hand? Gerry is the man to prove
it, pulling Dan McGrew effortlessly from his stock and topping it off with The Ballad of
Reading Gaol. It's his stories of village life, however, that everyone remembers: "The day
the German blondes arrived" and "Why a man can't just drink his 16 or 18 pints in peace
and quiet."
At the end of the evening I sit with Dearbhaill and she tells me a story of her own cultural
renaissance. "In 1970 I'd given up the fiddle for two years and Séamus Ennis, a famous
piper, came to call on us. He insisted I play, then he kept me going for the next few years
by giving me tunes - wonderful tunes he had learned in the 1930s from an old man, Colm
Ó Caoidheáin, who didn't want them to die with him."
She digs out the faded manuscripts and we pore over them: beautiful slow airs that she
plays for me. Ennis copied these out by hand for her, recalling every note and word some
30 or 40 years after he heard the songs.
It is individuals, I realise, who by their personal choices can keep a culture alive and
kicking. That is what Cnoc Suain is about: individuals picking up the fiddle and refusing
to put it down. My only complaint was that a weekend is too short. All that music and all
those stories need time - a lifetime perhaps - plus the challenge of learning to pronounce
those Irish names. I'm just trying to remember comhluadar, ceol and craic. It's not hard:
co-loo-dar, key-hole and crack - company, music and fun. That should be enough to get
started.
Getting There
From Dublin/ Dublin Airport to Galway City - Bus or Train:-
GoBus (www.GoBus.ie ) provides a non- stop service.
City link (www.Citylink.ie ) and Bus Eireann
(www.BusEireann.ie ) also provide a regular bus service.
Irish Rail (www.irishrail.ie ) provides a regular train service.
Flights to Galway AirportAer Arann (www.aerarann.ie) operates flights
from Dublin, Luton & Manchester.Car Hire is also available at
Galway Airport (www.GalwayAirport.com)
Cultural programmes
Residential programmes run from March to October. The cost of a 3 day/2 night
programme includes, accommodation, meals, drinks with dinner, talks, tuition
and entertainment. Dates & details from www.CnocSuain.com .
Cnoc Suain, in conjunction with The Galway Tour Company,
also run a day tour ~ The Conamara Culture & Craft Experience ~
which gives a unique window into Irish/Gaelic culture.Cost is E50 per person
and includes, transport from & to Galway City and entrance to Cnoc Suain.
Details at www.CnocSuain.com or www.GalwayTourCompany.com
To many, Irish culture has come to mean leprechauns and dodgy theme pubs, but in
the wilds of Connemara, Kevin Rushby finds a unique centre that is ensuring traditions
survive
By Kevin Rushby
The Guardian, Saturday 21 March 2009
Way out west ... the emphasis at Cnoc Suain’s cottages is on Irish musical heritage.
Sitting around the fire in a stone cottage with distant views of the Connemara mountains,
we get talking about Dearbhaill Standún's childhood in the early 1960s. "There was
always music," she says, "And reciting of poems and stories. I remember Seamus Heaney
standing by the fire and doing a poem about his brother. All the old guys there had
poems. My dad had The Shooting of Dan McGrew." She grins at the memory and spins a
few lines.
"Were you ever out in the Great Alone when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you 'most could hear."
Charlie Troy restored Cnoc Suain cottages.
The Great Alone is a description that might be applied to Dearbhaill (pronounced Dervil)
and husband Charlie Troy's cottage. Built on a plug of green land, Cnoc Suain, that rises
from the Connemara bogs, the house looks north across a sweeping landscape dotted with
Connemara ponies to the Twelve Pin mountains. To the south is Galway Bay and the
Arran islands. This is about plumb centre in what is known as the gaeltacht, the Irishspeaking
part of Ireland.
When they arrived here in 1995, Dearbhaill and Charlie found ruined cottages in the
undergrowth, the previous inhabitants having gone off to America half a century earlier.
Those cottages are now restored and much more has been added: organic gardens, a
workroom, library, and most important of all, a great collection of interesting local
personalities who bring to the weekend courses their knowledge, plus lots of stories and
songs.
To call Cnoc Suain a cultural centre will not do - a generation of places selling soft toy
leprechauns, four-leaf clovers and green beer have forever debased that coinage in
Ireland. But now, hearing Dearbhaill reminisce, I begin to understand. What they are
creating here is that sublime Irish brew: comhluadar, ceol, craic - company, music and
fun - the brew that Dearbhaill supped as a child.
"Musicians would turn up looking for a party," she says. "It was never planned, but we'd
be up till seven in the morning with all sorts of people - the Chieftains, the Dubliners, the
Clancys . . . they all came. Mother would say to them: 'Go upstairs and if ye find a bed,
get into it, and hold on to it."'
She takes out her fiddle and plays a slow air, one she wrote herself, called McSorley's
Repose. The turf on the fire hiss and crackle; outside the dogs are barking. I lean back in
the armchair and close my eyes.
Ireland has always, it seems, been either in the feverish grip of a cultural revival or the
agonies of a cultural panic. There have been anxieties about the loss of cultural heritage
for at least three centuries. JM Synge, travelling through in the early 1900s for this
newspaper, lamented the changes in architecture, clothing and language. "All the
characteristics which give colour and attractiveness to Irish life are bound up with a
social condition that is near to penury," he observed.
And tourists have long been coming to sample what was supposedly on the verge of
extinction. In 1695 John Daunton, a London bookseller, came to Connemara for the
express purpose of viewing "the last of the wild Irish savages" - namely the O'Flaherty
clan whose women, he noted, washed their hair in a mixture of urine and ashes.
Nowadays the search for disappearing Irish culture is more likely to be for that legendary
pub where the bar is in the general store and U2 are swapping guitar licks with the local
lads over a Guinness. Is that a myth, I wonder? Charlie takes me down for a pint to the
nearby village of Spiddal where, in Hughes' Bar, he points out a photo on the wall of
Adam Clayton, U2's bassist, jamming in the back room with a horde of local musicians.
Maybe this legend is not yet dead then? But Charlie thinks that there is something of a
crisis at the moment. "The great tradition of music sessions in pubs is under threat in rural
areas," he explains. "And that's because so many pubs are closing down. Changes in
licensing laws have had an effect too. Young people go out later in the evening now, after
the old folk are in bed. It has separated the generations from each other."
Hughes' has no music that night so we head off, ending up at The Forge in the nearby
village of Moycullen in time to catch Gerry O'Connor, one of Ireland's great banjo
players. It's more like a concert than the boozy pub session of legend, but there are all
ages here, and lots of friendly banter. Gerry recalls a bad night spent with three other
musicians at a festival: "We had to sleep on the floor and after a couple of hours, the
drummer woke up and whispered, 'Hey, there's a rat on my chest!' There was a pause,
then our piper, who was a bit of a character, said, 'Ask him if he's got a cigarette.'"
My bed that night was a good deal more comfortable - in a white-washed cottage
overlooking a small lake. Sensitively restored by Charlie, these cottages are idyllic
thatched places, the walls dominated by vast boulders of granite, the floors heated by
ground source heat pumps. Breakfast is self-service in the small kitchen, while other
meals are around the communal table up in the main house.
Each of the weekend courses focuses on a different subject: Irish language or organic
gardening, for example, but this weekend's topic is culture and history. Needless to say,
music and storytelling permeate every course.
Down at the workroom I get a lesson in how to make a traditional Arran islander's belt, a
crios, from local author Sean Barrett. "Every man had a different pattern and colour," he
explains, adding with a ghoulish grin, "so when he drowned they could identify the
body."
Sean is full of tales. Like the time he found a pat of butter three metres down in the bog.
"The people used to use the bog as a larder and this butter was more than a thousand
years old," he says. "Mind you, the dog ate some of it and he's all right."
The bog surrounds Cnoc Suain like a sea of sphagnum moss. Growing at a millimetre a
year, the vegetation slowly rises in broad spongy heads, crushing its own fibrous mass
below and producing peat. Down there, under the centuries of growth and decay, are
relics of vanished communities. Later in the day, local archaeologist Michael Gibbons
explains more about the history of the area. "When I started in archaeology, Connemara
was considered to have nothing," he says. "Now we've identified hundreds of sites and
found lots of astonishing artefacts." They are still turning up. He jumps up and down on
the turf near Dearbhaill and Charlie's cottage. "Under this is a neolithic burial site - we'll
dig it one day."
Like Sean, Michael's talks tend to encompass some wonderful extraneous details. Ludwig
Wittgenstein, it turns out, came to Connemara to think. "Unfortunately the remote cottage
he chose was next to where the herring boats landed and he spent his time complaining
about the noise."
For music in the evenings, we have Dearbhaill's own band, Dordán, and some local
teenagers: Orla Ní Fhinneadha and Breandán Ó hIarnáin, awesomely talented and full of
enthusiasm. "Traditional Irish music is big among young people now," Orla tells me,
after a powerful example of unaccompanied Sean Nós, old-style singing. "It's the social
side I like - and the singing, of course."
Breandán and the others confirm it: there is a huge revival of interest among young
people at the moment. He then shows off his prodigious talents: a series of jigs and reels
on the fiddle, accompanied by harpist Kathleen Loughnane and Mary Bergin on the
whistle, then a dazzling display of Irish dance steps. Before we've finished applauding
he's out the door, heading off to a karate lesson. We troop up the hill for a convivial
dinner around one table, then a session of storytelling with another local personality,
Gerry Conneely.
Was it true that everyone used to have a recital ready to hand? Gerry is the man to prove
it, pulling Dan McGrew effortlessly from his stock and topping it off with The Ballad of
Reading Gaol. It's his stories of village life, however, that everyone remembers: "The day
the German blondes arrived" and "Why a man can't just drink his 16 or 18 pints in peace
and quiet."
At the end of the evening I sit with Dearbhaill and she tells me a story of her own cultural
renaissance. "In 1970 I'd given up the fiddle for two years and Séamus Ennis, a famous
piper, came to call on us. He insisted I play, then he kept me going for the next few years
by giving me tunes - wonderful tunes he had learned in the 1930s from an old man, Colm
Ó Caoidheáin, who didn't want them to die with him."
She digs out the faded manuscripts and we pore over them: beautiful slow airs that she
plays for me. Ennis copied these out by hand for her, recalling every note and word some
30 or 40 years after he heard the songs.
It is individuals, I realise, who by their personal choices can keep a culture alive and
kicking. That is what Cnoc Suain is about: individuals picking up the fiddle and refusing
to put it down. My only complaint was that a weekend is too short. All that music and all
those stories need time - a lifetime perhaps - plus the challenge of learning to pronounce
those Irish names. I'm just trying to remember comhluadar, ceol and craic. It's not hard:
co-loo-dar, key-hole and crack - company, music and fun. That should be enough to get
started.
Getting There
From Dublin/ Dublin Airport to Galway City - Bus or Train:-
GoBus (www.GoBus.ie ) provides a non- stop service.
City link (www.Citylink.ie ) and Bus Eireann
(www.BusEireann.ie ) also provide a regular bus service.
Irish Rail (www.irishrail.ie ) provides a regular train service.
Flights to Galway AirportAer Arann (www.aerarann.ie) operates flights
from Dublin, Luton & Manchester.Car Hire is also available at
Galway Airport (www.GalwayAirport.com)
Cultural programmes
Residential programmes run from March to October. The cost of a 3 day/2 night
programme includes, accommodation, meals, drinks with dinner, talks, tuition
and entertainment. Dates & details from www.CnocSuain.com .
Cnoc Suain, in conjunction with The Galway Tour Company,
also run a day tour ~ The Conamara Culture & Craft Experience ~
which gives a unique window into Irish/Gaelic culture.Cost is E50 per person
and includes, transport from & to Galway City and entrance to Cnoc Suain.
Details at www.CnocSuain.com or www.GalwayTourCompany.com
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Hostel Picks
I'm personally not big on hostels, but many people are. A good hostel might be worth staying at, and so I'll pass along the 'STA Top Hostel Picks" for Paris. I have no idea really how good they are. Since STA is dedicated to student travel, that should give an idea about what the clientele is probably consisting.
"Absolute Paris Hotel and Hostel (Paris, France) – A cheap sleep in one of the trendiest neighborhoods in Paris - Metro République.
Caulaincourt Square Hostel (Paris, France) – Located in the artist haven of Montmartre, you’ll be walking the same streets as Picasso and have access to free WiFi in the hostel."
Here is the article: http://www.pr.com/press-release/157506
"Absolute Paris Hotel and Hostel (Paris, France) – A cheap sleep in one of the trendiest neighborhoods in Paris - Metro République.
Caulaincourt Square Hostel (Paris, France) – Located in the artist haven of Montmartre, you’ll be walking the same streets as Picasso and have access to free WiFi in the hostel."
Here is the article: http://www.pr.com/press-release/157506
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Hiking in Provence
Take a Stroll Through Provence This Summer and Discover a “Life List” Destination for an Affordable Price
Scottsdale, AZ—Picture exploring the countryside of Provence by foot, savoring the flavors of distinct French cuisine, sipping some of the world’s finest wines, and enjoying a breathtaking view from a picturesque chateaux. Discover France, the leading specialist in cycling and hiking travel services throughout France, offers unforgettable self-guided walking trips to Provence that give travelers the opportunity to “live like the French” and explore this romantic destination at their leisure this summer.
Complete with hotel arrangements, Garmin personal navigation systems, route maps, and suggested itineraries, Discover France’s self-guided itineraries to Provence offers travelers freedom, flexibility, and at less than 1000 Euros---affordability. Guests will wander through Provence with peace of mind as Discover France takes care of the details. Avoid the annoyances of group travel and experience these itineraries that feature the best of Provence:
This hiking tour combines the best of Provence from St Remy to Gordes and includes history and plenty of culture, history, antiquity, castles, crafts, traditions, gastronomy, and natural beauty. During five hiking days, visitors discover Saint-Remy de Provence and the countryside around this lovely town, the Sorgues Area, the Vaucluse Hills and the Luberon. Feast on gourmet French cuisine, sip on delectable French wines, and stay in unique and well-appointed accommodations along the way. Dates: April-June, Sept-Oct. Price: 997 Euros, double occupancy.
A Classic Provence journey, this unique hiking tour takes travelers on a discovery of the Pont du Gard area, west of Avignon. Start at the famous Pont du Gard - Roman aqueduct built in the 1st century BC and during four hiking days, visitors discover the countryside around and spend two nights in the charming town of Uzes, a classic and typical Provencale village. Be immersed in the culture, food, natural beauty, historical sites, and wine on this journey. Dates: April through October 2009; except in July/Aug when trails are closed due to forest fire prevention measures. 835 Euros per person, double occupancy.
The routes for these trips are a combination of quiet country roads along Provence villages as well as parts of GR-trails (“Grande Randonnees”/ Long Distance Paths). The daily distance varies between 15 and 20kms (9 and 12 miles) and the hiking is moderate with some hilly terrain. Day five exceeds this distance with a 23km (14.5miles).
Discover France features creative self-guided itineraries that offer the best of each region at the greatest possible value to the traveler. Their website features more than 30 different self guided tour itineraries that last anywhere from four to fourteen days. For more information or to see a complete listing of itineraries, please visit the website or contact by phone at (480) 905-1235.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Tour de France - French Riviera
So, the Tour starts in Monaco this year which is very unique in the history of the tour. The Principalite of Monaco is an independent country but it might as well be France. Situated just next to Nice on the Cote d'Azur, this is the perfect start for the tour we are offering to enjoy some of the best southern France countryside and the greatest bicycle race in the world!
To know more about the opening events and activities for the race, visit this page of the Tour's website: http://www.letour.fr/2009/TDF/COURSE/us/grand_depart_2009.html
We are offering a chance to ride along the French Riviera and then continue on to the southern beaches of Provence to see the all important Team Time Trial. Among all the hard core cycling tours we offer at the Tour, this trip is not meant to be a hard core trip. In fact, it is a moderate trip that is open to good cyclists who love to follow the race but would also like to enjoy some Provence countryside and Mediterranean beaches. There is no heavy climbing and the ride distances are moderate with options to go long for those who need more miles.
To see full details about this trip, please see our website at http://www.cyclingclassics.com/grand_tour01.php
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Last Minute Bookings - The New Normal?
Hotels and airlines are willing to undercut themselves and their advance planning customers in order to fill unsold space. The trend has been around for a while, but it seemed like only a lucky few or those who were very flexible could get a last minute deal in the past. For example, being single gives you a whole lot of flexibility that a family of 4 may not have. According to the Wall Street Journal today, this last minute trend may be something of the new norm.
Of course new norms change all the time. The examples cited in the article show that currently this does pay off. I think this can only work with airlines and individual hotel bookings, however the cruise industry seems to be doing the same thing. Well, I personally don't care much about what the cruise industry is doing and frankly all these 'travel products' have become commodities. My concern is how this mentality transfers over into the tour business.
As a company that sells mostly self-guided trips, we can handle it. In fact, we can prosper from it where I am sure many guided/group tour programs with fixed departure dates cannot. We will happily take bookings at the last minute and organize the whole tour to start any date; that is our offer anyway, so if more people go to booking last minute then we can be there for them. How can a group departure do that?
The majority of people who book 'tours' are booking group, guided programs with fixed departure dates. These trips are organized by companies that have to lock up hotel rooms and services very far in advance. Often the hotels don't like to tie up rooms without some guarantees and so comes the non-refundable deposits, etc. These tours need early bookings to assure departures and hold space. If minimum numbers are not met far enough in advance, a tour company has to decide to either cancel the space to avoid lost non-refundable deposits to the hotels, or raise prices on those who book in advance to keep the trip. The latter is almost never the solution. These same hotels that would discount to last minute travelers booking direct impose higher restrictions and standards on the tour companies that market their product and bring them groups.
So, I would expect to see more group tours with fixed departure dates to start canceling. This may leave some people who booked in advance out in the cold - with airline tickets and no tour. We have been able to help many of these people in the past who are willing to go to a self guided trip, but for those who aren't - well, tough luck. Therefore, who wants to book a guided group tour with fixed departure date in advance??
Tour companies, including ourselves, are pushing hotels and other service providers to be more flexible in their terms, but when the demand for direct bookings is so strong (and more profitable to the hotel), why should they? This could mean quite some changes for the tour industry.
L
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Rome-Bordeaux Flights
New flights have been added between Bordeaux in the southwest of France and Rome. This gives one better alternative to travel between France and Italy that will save a lot of time! To cover this distance by train might take a 1.5 days and by car, at least the same time!
Now, instead of passing through Paris, Air France has this flight:
Bordeaux-Rome: Air France announced the launch of two new roundtrips Air France announced the launch of two new roundtrips on Mondays and Fridays starting 2nd February 2009, on its Rome-Bordeaux route, as a complement to its already-running Saturday and Sunday roundtrips. Information and Bookings: www.airfrance.com, or in all Air France agencies or through any travel agent.
Cycling/hiking in Italy + Dordogne in one vacation now very possible!
Now, instead of passing through Paris, Air France has this flight:
Bordeaux-Rome: Air France announced the launch of two new roundtrips Air France announced the launch of two new roundtrips on Mondays and Fridays starting 2nd February 2009, on its Rome-Bordeaux route, as a complement to its already-running Saturday and Sunday roundtrips. Information and Bookings: www.airfrance.com, or in all Air France agencies or through any travel agent.
Cycling/hiking in Italy + Dordogne in one vacation now very possible!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Client Submitted Provence Trip Notes
Pure Adventure:
After literally traveling on planes, trains, and automobiles for 24 hours, we arrived at our hotel outside of the walled-city of
The next morning we awoke, eager to try out our rental bikes. I couldn’t wait to go sightseeing by bicycle…without a big group of American tourists, without a guide, without a SAG wagon, and on nobody else’s schedule but our own. The self-guided bike tour with “Discover
The bikes were the hybrid style, with a wide padded seat, upright handle bars, shock-absorbers on the seat post, and big baskets in front, presumably to carry wine, cheese, and baguettes. These bikes were built for comfort. We put on our helmets, loaded up the water bottles and snacks, checked our maps, and we were off!
Our itinerary called for us to cover about 25 miles a day at a leisurely pace including time for lunch and visiting many sites of interest unique to the area. Let me share a few of those places with you.
The first day, after going through many small towns, we arrived at one of the main attractions for the day, the majestic Pont du Gard. The roman aqueduct, built in the year 19 BC, is a giant stone bridge that spans across the wide river with huge arches. Once we were on the bridge, we peered over the edge of the stone wall hundreds of feet above the water. There was no fence or safety net to prevent tourists from plunging into the river and then suing the government. I guess that’s mostly in America where we worry about things like that. Typically our hotels were always located at the top of a hill, which meant a steep climb at the end of the day. However, there was always the fabulous Southern France dinner as a reward (remarkably similar to California Cuisine, so we felt right at home), as well as inexpensive local wines, wonderful desserts, and to top it off, my personal favorite, the cheese plate, at the end of the night.
On another day we rode through medieval villages, then onto rural farm roads past vineyards, colorful fields of flowers, olive trees and fruit orchards, finally arriving at Chateau Tarascon, a 14th century castle situated on the Rhone River. The huge castle was quite a fortress with beautifully woven intricate tapestries on the walls dating back over 700 years, but was otherwise empty. The most interesting rooms looked like small stone closets. In the center of these rooms, which were actually the ancient bathrooms, there was large hole in the floor. When I looked through that hole, I was surprised to see straight down to the flowing river three stories below! People always complain about the bathrooms in certain European countries. Needless to say the French have come a long way from those days, although the concept of a shower curtain still escapes them for some reason.
Towards the end of the trip we visited the old Roman city of Arles near the Mediterranean Sea. When we arrived here for the evening, we were greeted by mosquitoes that obviously thrive in the Mediterranean climate. The suggested packing list provided by Discover
Van Gogh lived in Arles for two years of his life and did many paintings here before being sent to the insane asylum. We visited the museum with many of his paintings plus many old ruins like the amphitheater and the public baths that had been built by the Romans when they invaded Southern France over a thousand years ago. There was also a coliseum that still held events like bull fights to this day. Later in the day we saw an amazing event. In the evening as we were walking on the crowded main street though town, we heard a loud noise approaching like thunder. Suddenly the crowd parted as a group of large white horses galloping at full speed herded a pair of huge bulls right past us. At the end of the long street they were escorted up a ramp and onto a truck waiting to take them home after the day’s bullfight with the matadors. The bulls had only been six feet away from us, again with no protective fences or barrier, and the crowd was buzzing with excitement afterwards.
All in all it was a great trip and eye-opening experience, and we both really loved the bike trip. We are already planning a similar adventure in
Linda K - California
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Puglia Cycling Italy
We just posted our newest cycling trip, this one in Puglia. This region which is located in the "Heel of the Boot" - that lower eastern part of Italy - where the coastline falls on the Adriatic Sea. Just saying that makes me think of the white washed homes and villages perched on the hillsides above the sea of clear, turquoise waters. Don't believe me? See the photos. We just put this announcement out by enews to subscribers too, and what I didn't have space for in the enews is a nice little recipe for a classic regional dish from Puglia. This was sent to me; perhaps it was found on the net somewhere - maybe on Gigliola's website? Anyway, what could be easier to make than spaghetti? So, make it good:
Spaghetti alle olive verde
Puglia
Preparation - Medium
Serves 4
Gigliola Bacile was raised in the beautiful baroque southern city of Lecce, and it was there, she says, that she learned to dress spaghetti with chopped green olives. Her secret? She starts her soffritto with just a little extra virgin olive oil, and adds more fresh raw oil (oho crudo) at the end.
6 T extra virgin olive oil
3/4 cup freshly grated bread crumbs
3 salted anchovies or 6 oil-packed anchovy fillets
3 garlic cloves
1/2 small dried hot red chile pepper, crumbled, or 1/4 t crushed red pepper flakes
1 cup coarsely chopped pitted green olives (about 1 lb whole olives)
salt to taste
1 lb spaghetti
Put a teaspoon of the olive oil in a small saucepan and toast the bread crumbs in the oil over medium heat for a few minutes, until they are golden brown and crisp.
Remove from the heat and set aside.
If you are using salted anchovies, rinse them under running water to rid them of salt, strip away the bones, and chop coarsely; if using anchovy fillets, simply chop them.
In 3 tablespoons of the remaining oil, sauté the garlic cloves over medium heat until they are brown.
Add the chopped anchovies and, using a fork, stir and crush them into the oil.
Crumble the chile pepper into the oil.
Remove the garlic cloves and discard.
Stir the olives into the oil and let cook for about 3 minutes, just long enough to mix the flavors. Set aside.
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a rolling boil.
Drop in the spaghetti and cook until done-10 to 12 minutes.
As the pasta finishes cooking, reheat the olive sauce.
Drain the pasta and turn into a heated serving bowl.
Add the remaining olive oil and the toasted bread crumbs to the olive sauce and toss with the pasta. Serve immediately.
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