I always get a thrill when I hear of people cruising for the first time.
And before I forget to get angry I’m reclaiming that word ‘cruising’ which has come to mean something else.
My old friends Dougie and Julie are floating around the western Med at the moment and the last time I checked they were in northern Italy. Bella, Bella.
Every sailing though will inevitably be compared with a round-the-world trip for my very own Scary One.
Who came back as a kid from Australia on a working ship.
It doesn’t sound like much work was done though and she was supposed to have been schooled on board.
But all she tells me about are parties, particularly the Neptune and the Equator one. And going through the Panama Canal.
They have an 11-night Mediterranean Fly & Cruise on MSC Opera from €799pps which is exclusive to Click&Go http://www.clickandgo.com from November 30.
So you’ll take in Rome, Genoa, Malaga, Tenerife, Lanzarote, Morocco, Cartagena in Spain and then back to the Eternal City.
Christmas on the river
Oh, I wish it could be Christmas every day.
And in a shop in my old stomping ground of Edinburgh, on the Royal Mile, it was.
And guess what? As you would expect the man who is most associated with December 25, sent them a letter which was proudly displayed at the front.
Yes. Cliff.
If you like an oul’ Christmas Market (misseltoe and wine) then Cassidy Travel has a Rhine River cruise, stopping off at the Christmas markets of Rudesheim, Koblenz and Koln.
It’s part of their first dedicated Christmas Markets brochure which I’ll bring you more on.
Bur for now, the Rhine cruise in December is from €759 which includes flights from Dublin. http://www.cassidytravel.ie.
Right, the world’s leaders aren’t going to stay in a caravan park but I do heartily agree with the G7’s choice of Biarritz.
In a former life, and former newspaper, when I had to compete with others (the cheek of it!) to be picked to go on a travel trip, I landed Biarritz.
The newspaper’s system, as far as I could figure it out, was that the first one to reply was rewarded, though I suspect that quality control came into play too.
It went down though like a fart at a funeral among the women in the office that I was being sent to a Thalassotherapy Centre for some water-based spa pampering.
Water everywhere: At the Sofitel
The Hotel Spa Biarritz Le Miramar – Sofitel is where you should go when you’re in town.
And I fancy that The Donald, The Boris, the Emmanuel and The Justin all like a pandering.
I’ve also got a soft spot for The Angela and have been concerned to see her shaking, so she certainly deserves some spoiling.
You too can avail of some treats, and God knows, you deserve it.
Jump in: The Sofitel, Biarritz
I can still feel the seaweed wraps and a shiver goes down my back thinking back on the water hosing I got from the assistant.
The previous time I’d been hosed down was by a life guard in a swimming baths in Glasgow for messing about.
There are some things that will scar your kids… seeing their Dad smoking a Shisha pipe is one.
It’s not as if they put any drugs in it, or at least I think they didn’t, more of a sweet-smelling tobacco. Still impressionable seven-year-old minds and all that.
Bodrum in Turkey was perhaps my favourite of our family holidays, possibly on account of the Turks making a fuss of our Ally (like Ali, they said).
And our Laurie befriending Shannon.
And me taking second place in the talent contest, doing a Highland jig in my kilt.
Click&Go has half-board Turkey holidays among a clutch of great offers.
A seven-night stay at the 4* Ambrosia Hotel from €399pps. Travel in October. With return flights from Dublin to Bodrum. http://www.clickandgo.com.
And if you’re looking for another Turkish treat my Istanbul trip this summer is in today’s Irish Sun.
I do hope the PR woman who was taking her first media group on what was then the inaugural Swansea-Cork Ferries trip was not put off by us all getting sea-sick.
And continued with her career.
It proved a thoroughly enjoyable introduction for another tyro, me, into the world of travel and Press groups.
Not least because it also included the use of Citroen cars for a spin around the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula.
These days, mainly because The Scary One has taken the wheel. I prefer to walk.
And that’s not because she throws me out of the car.
I’m off to Tenerife next month and am also trekking in Austria.
The beautiful Dingle Peninsula
And that means I won’t be able to avail of this intriguing walk in Kerry.
Courtesy of The Rose Hotel in Tralee this is a Walking Weekend organised for September 27 and 28.
Check in on the Friday evening and on Saturday guests will join Wild Water Adventures on a guided walk with a choice of three routes.
The Dingle Way (Easy 2.5 hours), Loch a Duin Valley (Moderate 4.5 hours) or Mount Brandon (Strenuous 6 hours).
The Walking Weekend package costs €160pp.
It includes two nights accommodation with dinner on one evening, guided walk, packed lunch and transport.
To book or for further enquires please contact The Rose Hotel visit www.therosehotel.com.
A little bit of sunny Scotland
Scotland, Barbados: Dwayne and I
I love finding Scotland abroad… in the world’s place names.
Here I am in sunny Scotland (obviously not the original) in Barbados.
Equally I have travelled in other lands where my Scottish forbears have gone before.
The Deep South of the US has a rich Scottish history with Ben Lomond and Banff revealing its Caledonian links.
But you can be deceived. Nevis in the Caribbean has no connection with Britain’s tallest mountain, Ben Nevis.
The Caribs first tried out Ouailie (Land Of Beautiful Water) while the early British settlers called the island Dulcina (Sweet Island).
Until they settled on Nevis from the Spanish Nuestra Senora de las Nievas (Our Lady of the Snows).
Does it even snow there though?
Tropical Sky www.tropicalsky.ie has savings of up to €1,200pp on seven-night stays at the 5* Nisbet Plantation Beach Club.
For travel completed before December 19, if booked before August 31.
The holiday now costs from €1,899pp. Includes return flight from Dublin.
Exotic: Thailand. Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi on Pexels.com
You wouldn’t immediately associate Thailand with Halloween, it’s just that our holiday providers like to link dates and places.
In fact it isn’t Buddhist and Halloween is a Christian festival, but being Buddhist they do channel the spirits.
And go for miniature spirit houses outside their homes and businesses where they present gifts to their forefathers.
Emirates Holidays www.emiratesholidays.com is offering a ‘fangtastic’ (their words) seven nights at the 4* Santhiya, Koh Yao Yai from €3,729 per family.
That’s two adults, two children (under 11 sharing).
Including return flights from Dublin. Depart October 26.
Me, I’m a practising Boozist!
Malta pleasers
In neighbouring Gozo
It’s getting around to that time of year again when I made the besotted Miss F the happiest woman in the world.
I bent down to tie my shoelaces in Malta and she shrieked YES.
I’m glad that’s all over – the Post-Leaving Cert holidays.
By the time it got to my two the destinations had changed.., it was Lisbon and Amsterdam.
For me and my buddies it was camping in the French Riviera. And, no, of course it wasn’t Cannes.
But St Raphael.
The boys of ’82: Chris, Martin, Bandanaman and Adam
And yes, I’ve had to add that to the list of places I’m banned from.
Castle Douglas, the Lowenbrau and Hofbrau Huis in Munich, Kirchberg in Austria and a hotel in Interlaken, Switzerland spring to mind.
Of course your guys will have booked their richly-deserved hols by now.
But this just gives me the chance to flag up the French Riviera.
Which doesn’t have to cost you un bras et une jambe.
I found seven nights with Click&Go http://www.clickandgo.com for the sample date of September 15 staying at the Appart City Nice Acropolis Aparthotel including Ryanair flights for €933.04.
And family mid-term breaks too are a thing of the past…
I’m in danger of getting nostalgic here but that quickly passes as I remember the Son and Heir ordering a T-bone steak in Majorca as a kid.
And only eating the chips!
But that’s only because I didn’t have this parenting lark sussed out, and I know you do.
TUI http://www.tuiholidays.ie have Dublin to Gran Canaria, seven nights’ self-catering, staying at the 2*+ Jardin Alantico, Playa Del Ingles for a family 2+1 from €1,599 on October 24.
And on the same date, Dublin to Gran Canaria, seven nights’ all-inclusive at the 3* Marina Elite Resort, Balito Beach, 3*, family 2+1 from €2,479 and family 2+2from €3,079
The Deep South
There’s a hairy little Jim waiting for the King
Cities take on a magical quality when you hear them in a pop song.
Unless it’s ‘I was sick and tired of everything when I called you last night from Glasgow.’
Sure Abba might have ‘wished it was the last show’ but Moscow rhymes too.
When I realised a lifelong dream to visit Memphis I just had to reenact every line from the Mark Cohn song in Insta.
I’m not sure though if it did the trick and my friends ‘could really feel the way I feel’.
Luxury Gold www.luxuryvacations.com does, and has a nine-day odyssey, Southern Grace, from Nashville through Memphis to New Orleans on September 27.
So you’ll be musicked out by the end of it all with Country, Elvis, Rock’n’Roll, Blues and Jazz all on the menu.
Luxury Gold offers a saving of €355 per person if booked before August 31. Was €3,525, now €3,170.
The Deep South is everything I thought it would be, and more, and I am drawn to it like a magnet.
