Archive for March, 2010
March 31st, 2010 | 
Author: Cyprus offers plenty of attractions for visiting holidaymakers. From relaxing by the pool to getting out and about visiting the local towns and villages, you’ll be sure to have a fun packed visit when you stay at Cyprus hotels.
Relaxation
Cyprus offers a number of beautiful beaches, including Phinikoudes Beach, one of the most famous on the island and the golden sand beach of Kapparis. Since many hotels are located directly on the beaches, you might enjoy onsite relaxation on the beach and in the pool. Meanwhile, spa facilities can be found at many of the resorts ensuring plenty of opportunity for any stress to melt away.
History
Cyprus boasts a number of significant historical and archaeological sites, from the ancient Tombs of the Kings and Mosaics in Paphos to the UNESCO recognised Byzantine churches in the Troodos mountains. Experience a mix of music and history when you visit the medieval fort in Paphos where the island’s summer opera festival is held. Head to the charming village of Choirokoitia to see the Neolithic settlement that is widely regarded as one of the best preserved sites in the eastern Mediterranean. The Cyprus museum in Nicosia hosts antiquities dating from the Neolithic to the Byzantine Age.
Get Sporty
If you are interested in sports and the outdoors, Cyprus has plenty of active options to keep you busy throughout your vacation. You can learn to dive at resorts throughout the Akamas peninsula. Or if you want to snorkel or go sailing it’s quite possible you will be able to do this at your hotel, with many Cyprus hotels offering their own watersports facilities onsite. Your resort might also include tennis courts and host yoga or other fitness classes. For sailing instruction and to hire boats for yourself, check out the harbours at Latchi, Paphos and Limassol.
Retail Therapy
There are plenty of opportunities for retail therapy on the island thanks to its many shops and markets. Buy the famous Savva pottery just outside Paphos or in the Foini village of the Troodos mountains. Handmade lace can also be found in many of the mountain settlements as well as in Lefkara near Larnaca. Another item unique to mountain villages are the hand woven rugs, try Phyti near Polis for good deals. Islanders also sell delicious olive oil, olives and honey, which you can buy at many local markets.
Cuisine
Tasty cuisine is available at many of the Cyprus hotels. Some of the items you should try on your vacation are souvlaki, or pork kebabs, grilled octopus, tsipoora or sea bream and loukanika, a hearty locally-made sausage. Finish it all off with a sticky pastry and a Brandy Sour cocktail.
Air Travel-Pros and Cons
As the decades have passed air travel has continually grown in popularity. This increase in popularity has been due to the convenience and safety one could enjoy by traveling by air. The following are some of the positive and negative factors involving air travel.
Disadvantage: Airplanes Cause Pollution.
Pollution is the biggest problem caused by air travel. Airplanes are responsible for sending greenhouse gases into our atmosphere and these gases contribute for things like global warming. A lot of people are keen to minimize the effect of global warming on the planet and they find this a major setback. Many airlines are becoming friendlier to the environment to prevent the effect of global warming. One of the ways in which you could do this is by retrofitting winglet on the aircraft that makes the aircraft fuel efficient. In addition, many airlines have started upgrading their fleet of aero planes to modern fuel efficient aircraft by spending millions of dollars.
Disadvantage: High Cost
One major disadvantage in traveling by air is its cost. It is cheaper to fill up gas in your car and drive to your desired destination instead of going by flight. There are ways to get around this by taking advantage of discount
airline travel. Ultimate decision for flying or driving is dependent on whether you get a good deal on the airfare or not.
Disadvantage: Fear of Flying
Many people refrain from flying. For anyone that has ever been on a flight that has experienced extreme turbulence or some type of other event it can be rather terrifying.
Advantage: Speed of Travel
One of the greatest pros about air travel is that it provides the ability to get you where you need to go much faster than other forms of transportation. While it can take days to drive across the United States, a person can fly the same distance in a number of hours. This helps us to enjoy longer vacations because we have to spend less time traveling.
Advantage: Easy to Travel Long Distances
Another major advantage in traveling by air is that you can travel to far off destinations which are difficult to traverse either by road or any other means. Air travel to practically any destination in the world is possible. Some of these flights might prove to be quite long but they are still much shorter than if you had to rely on alternative means of transportation.
Advantage: Safety
When you consider various modes of travel, you will find that travel by air is the safest. Each year thousands of deadly car crashes happen. On the other hand you find that the occurrence of train accidents is also quite common. Air travel related disasters do happen but they occur much less frequently. For many people safety is the prime consideration for choosing air travel as compared to other form of transportation.
Choosing air travel is a personal decision, based on the factors discussed above along with a multitude factors not discussed here. For most travelers safety, speed of travel and cost are the over riding factors. As long as cost remains affordable air travel will continue to grow in popularity.
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Tags: air planes, air travel, cheap tickets, discount air travel, discount airplane tickets, discount tickets, flying, planes | 
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In much of life, we are encouraged to do things in advance and be prepared. When it comes to booking a hotel, however, the early bird doesn’t always catch the worm. While there are plenty of deals to be had on advanced bookings, the best deals are often available at the very last minute.It is not unheard of to find late rooms that are up to 50% off or more. It may not be an ideal holiday idea if you like to plan ahead, but if you’re open to a new adventure, you’ll be surprised at the great deals you can find. Here are some tips to ensure you get the most out of your last minute holiday:
Stay flexible
Being flexible about dates and location will give you the very best chance of having an incredible holiday at a massively reduced price. Choose whichever is most important to you first, and then be willing to compromise on the other factors. The ultimate deals will be found if you are totally free as a bird, of course, but this is not always the reality.
Go off peak
If you go in the shoulder season, you’ll have a much better chance at finding a bargain, plus there will be far less tourists present. That’s not to say you need to go to the Mediterranean in the depths of winter or a ski resort in summer, but even just avoiding school holidays can make a difference. Many destinations will have a period during the year when you can get the best of both worlds, with less crowds and some great late rooms when the weather is still good as well.
Research thoroughly and reap the rewards
If you want to find the best deal out there, you’re going to have to put in a bit of leg work. The internet is a great place to start and you can sign up for weekly email newsletters from a number of sites that offer deals on late rooms, flights and package holidays. Smaller agencies often offer great deals so that they can stay in competition with the bigger travel companies. Comparative web sites are also a great way to access plenty of deals at once.
One of the hardest things to come by is a good discount rental car. You’ve heard it said that sometimes you get what you pay for, and this is often true with respect to rental cars. In other words, a low-rent vehicle often means you don’t get much in the way of quality. Not much of a bargain in the long run, is it? So, how do you end up getting a good discount rental car these days without driving away from the lot in something you might not otherwise want to be caught dead in? Here are a few timely tips.
When you bring back your rental car, make sure the tank is filled with gas from the cheapest station on the road. That’s not because you’re mean, it’s just because if you don’t bring it back full, the rental company will fill it for you with very expensive gas, and that will only hurt your wallet.
In order to take advantage of the discount available on a discount car rental, you’ll need to make reservations early. Some agencies will offer upgrades or discounts when a customer reserves the car early.
There is usually a discount for renting by the week as opposed to by the day, so be sure to ask about the weekly rate if you are keeping the rental for six or more days. You might get substantial savings on any days six and seven.
Packages like fly-stay-drive or fly-drive are great ways to get a good deal on a rental car, so ask your travel agent whether such options are available to you. You’ll find that most travel agencies and many hotels offer these options. It gives the consumer a good discount rate, and allows him to kill two birds with one stone.
When you approach a car rental company make an inquiry, on facilities to get discount car rental for frequent travelers like you. This should be done at the end of traveling session, so that your opportunity is not wasted and instead it is utilized.
When you’re looking for a cheap rental car, consider companies that let you tell them what your budget is and then give you a discount to match what you can spend for a car. It’s still wise to check out the reliability of the car rental firm, as there are some scam artists around nowadays.
Are you a customer in good standing with a particular car rental agency? If so, you might want to ask whether you can get a discount based on this long-term relationship.
If you make your car rental reservations over the Internet, you can tap into online discounts that many rental firms offer. To get the most savings and value for your money, compare the discounts offered by doing an online search.
If you are looking for the best way to get a discounted car rental upgrade, try arriving at the rental car center as soon as it opens. They will most likely be short on economy cars, and they will be almost forced to upgrade you because they will not have the car you reserved.
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The picturesque town of Paphos in Cyprus is a popular choice for holidaymakers seeking some class and culture on their Mediterranean holiday. The town itself and the surrounding area boast a multitude of luxurious accommodations as well as a good variety of cheap hotels so that a break here doesn’t have to break the bank.
The Capital Coast Resort & Spa is a new hotel in Paphos which is a good example of the quality of Cyprus hotels in the area. Despite being brand new, the resort can already claim to be award winning having been named as Leading hotel in Cyprus at the recent Hotels4ucom and Medhotels.com awards.
Boasting lovely views over the sparkling blue waters of the Mediterranean the hotel enjoys a priviledged location. It offers a full complement of amenities and facilities to service its selection of studios, one, two and three bedroom suites with attractive, contemporary interiors. Self catering, half and full board packages are available to allow for a range of holiday budgets.
Facilities are comprehensive, including plenty of dining, sports, relaxation and kids options. An a la carte restaurant, pool side bar, cocktail bar and roof top bar easily cater for all the food and drink needs of guests. Meanwhile, an onsite gym, swimming pools and various sports courts cater for the more athletic types. A Wellness Spa centre can also be found onsite, including a Finnish sauna, steam room and Jacuzzi.
Families can enjoy peace of mind thanks to the facilities on offer for kids, including a nursery and creche, and children’s swimming pool plus playground. A mini market and currency exchange are just an example of the other benefits on offer.
Holidaymakers wishing to explore the exciting Paphos area will find the Capital Coast Resort and its comfortable and stylish accommodation an excellent base. Whether looking for luxury or cheap Cyprus hotels the region will have something to suit. Aphrodite’s birthplace, the Troodos Mountains and a wealth of pretty villages and Byzantine monasteries and churches are just some of the sights waiting to be enjoyed.
If you are ever lucky enough to be able to bring a visit to the Garden Route in South Africa, you are in for a real treat. Kilometers of white sandy beaches on one side, flanked by mountains and rain forests on the other side make for a holiday paradise. The route starts in the west at Mossel Bay and ends at the Tsitsikamma rain forest near Plettenberg Bay in the east.
Arriving from Cape Town, you will first encounter Mossel Bay. This historical old town with its many finely preserved colonial buildings has an atmosphere and charm all of its own. It lagged behind the other Garden Route towns in development for many years, but nowadays it bursts at the seams with luxury hotels and guest houses. Standards are high: We could not help to notice that our hotel even had baby bath tubs available for those who travel with a baby.
A few kilometers to the east lies the resort towns of Klein Brak River and Groot Brak River. Both have been popular holiday spots for South Africans for decades. When it’s winter in the Northern hemisphere, it’s of course summer in South Africa. This makes the country the ideal winter holiday location for people from the North.
Sixty kilometers east of Mossel Bay you will pass the commercial hub of the Garden Route. George has many good restaurants, shopping malls and cinemas. This is where holidaymakers come to stock up on beer, movies and groceries. Twenty kilos east of George you’ll find the well-known seaside resort town of Wilderness. It’s trademark wide, sandy beaches and may restaurants draw thousands of tourists every year. I once spent a lovely evening at one of these restaurants where they had live music and the leader of the band had a Martin acoustic electric guitar, just like my own back home!
Leaving Wilderness, the road criss-crosses through a series of lush green hills and valleys where you will catch a periodic glimpse of the Indian Ocean to your right. A few km further to the east the road passes through Sedgefield. This is a timber-producing area with many lovely lakes. Despite asking around, we couldn’t find the fine costume jewelry wholesale distributor mentioned in our guide book.
Sixty kilometers east of George lies another historical town. Thirty years ago Knysna only came to life during the peak holiday seasons, but today this town can barely cope with the thousands of tourists descending upon it from all over South Africa and Europe during virtually the whole year. The waterfront area is particularly popular – not surprising taking into account the many excellent restaurants you will find there.
The last town on the route is Plettenberg Bay. This is where the wealthy and well-known hang out to see and be seen. There’s a legion of upmarket hotels and guest houses and just as many restaurants. A few km further to the east you arrive at the eastern border of the Garden Route – the Tsitsikamma rain forest. Here you will forget for a few hours that you are only 200km away from the semi-desert Karroo region – it’s a haven of waterfalls and ferns and you might even run into one of the few remaining elephants in the forest.