Tag: https://www.visitvalencia.com/en

America, Countries

The Saga of Over 140 Tours

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I started a thread that’s started the whole world smiling, and with apologies to the Bee Gees mine’s is the Saga of Over 140 Tours.

My old employers from my student days in Aberdeen, where we made lunches for their day trips in Grampian, have been in touch.

And they have flagged up their brochure Worldwide with the tagline Over 140 Tours to explore worldwide.

Now I know we’re all living longer but Over 140s?

Saga, as well as being my summer employers which funded my Top Deck Oktoberfest booze bus antics was also my parents’ go-to travel providers.

Worldwide vision

China in their hands: The folks at the Great Wall


Saga has built its reputation on providing the best travel for the over-50s.

And yes that’ll creep up on you although these guys speed up rather than slow down.

It’s not nicknamed Sex And Games For The Aged for nothing.

Saga are teasing us in their new Worldwide brochure with somewhere very close to home which is home.

Dream experiences

Islands of fun: The Azores

Scotland is new on the menu alongside Valencia, the Azores and India.

Alongside old favourites across Europe, Asia, Australia, Borneo and more.

Of course Saga offers dream experiences across the travel spectrum…

You know… solo tours, stay and explore, small group tours and escorted tours.

Now as Saga like to start as they go on they’ll take the stress out of your door to airport experience by giving you a VIP driver.

Either to London or your local airport.

Mighty Mississippi

Mr Happy: Mississippi

And because it’s what would make my missus happy then I’ll flag up the sample Journey on the Mighty Mississippi.

Journey on the Mighty Mississippi is a 15-nighter down the grand old river from £5,945.

That includes your travel insurance with 11 excursions and visits.

Welcome to the Jungle: Elvis’s Jungle Room

And…

  • Tours of Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans
  • Entrance to Studio B, Country Music Hall of Fame, and Graceland
  • Complimentary shore excursions in every port on the cruise (‘Hop-On Hop-O’ coaches in Vicksburg, Natchez, Baton Rouge, St Francisville, and visit to Nottoway Plantation)
  • 3 days – free time
    7 nights in hotels, 7 nights cruise on
    American Queen and 1 in flight
    International flights.
  • Prices are based on return flights with British Airways (direct) or United Airlines (indirect) from London Heathrow.
  • Supplements may apply from other airports
    22 meals: 9 breakfasts 6 lunches
    7 dinners

 

Countries, Europe, Food

Pile in on World Paella Day

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For the day that’s in it and because I fear The Scary One is leaving us with ‘heat-ups’ (her word for leftovers) tonight, let’s pile in on World Paella Day.

It’s a date on the calendar I should have marked in her diary alongside our anniversary which was three days ago but didn’t.

So it’s just as well that my old amigi Sara and Kathryn from the Spanish Tourist Board in Dublin flagged it up.

And a wee Rioja: With Sara

By inviting the cream of Irish Travel (I’m confined to barracks just now) out for a big paella.

Which is paella round-grain rice, bajoqueta and tavella (varieties of green beans), rabbit, chicken, sometimes duck, and the lima or butter bean garrofo, cooked in olive oil and chicken broth.

Mellow yellow

Man v Paella: And the paella always wins

With the yellow colour we know and love infused by saffron.

Paella, meaning frying pan in Spanish, has come to be the city and the country’s biggest food export.

But foodies will tell you that the dish derives from Valencia, while historians will point to the Moors from North Africa who introduced rice cultivation.

Paella is of course international now and the Valencians even host a World Paella Cup with the best chefs from around the world.

And thankfully without those ubiquitous ‘celebrity chefs’ we have all come to loathe.

Less Oliver: And more Paellaman

You know the ones who pimp their paellas like mock cockney Jamie Oliver who uses chorizo by Jamie Oliver or the rice, chicken, squid, chorizo ​​and clam version by chef Gordon Ramsay.

OK, I don’t have anything against you putting in whatever the heck you like into the pan to make your paella because after all anything with rice in a paella, or pan, is eh, a paella.

It’s just Oliver’s fake chumminess and Ramsay’s fake fecking puts me off my food.

Although writer Ana Vega ‘Biscayenne’, citing historical references, showed that traditional Valencian paella did indeed include chorizo.

And he exclaimed: ‘Ah Jamie, we’ll have to invite you to the Fallas.’

Paella on the pounds

No need for plates… just dig in

And what we all want to know in these straitened times is can it feed the masses?

Well Valencia restaurateur Juan Galbis claims to have made the world’s largest paella with help from a team of workers on 2 October 2001.

He claims to have fed about 110,000 people and this is even larger than his earlier world-record paella on 8 March 1992, which fed about 100,000 people.

Galbis’ record-breaking 1992 paella is listed in Guinness World Records.

So pile in on World Paella Day, there’s enough for everyone.