Travel&Vacation

A Luxury retreat by its very nature needs obviously to be luxurious, but to be a retreat it also needs to be hidden away, not easy to find, and somewhere you can feel totally relaxed and away from everyday pressures. La Bandita  in Tuscany Italy easily fulfils all these requirements. If you decide to hire a car or even heaven forbid drive from another European country it is quite likely you won’t find La Bandita at the first or even second time of trying, indeed you will probably need to call La Bandita to get directions it is that well hidden away up a track needing four wheel drive.   You can stand outside La Bandita and look to all corners of the compass and you will see nothing but hills, some sheep and perhaps some sheepdogs. Try listening for the roar of traffic, or
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Once the florist came to deliver the white dendrobium (I collect orchids) and I read the note — "Happy Anniversary. Love, J" — I immediately jumped into action: In less than an hour, I’m driving my wife, Jan, to Laguna Beach, our favorite seaside village. It is a place blessedly stocked with eateries where a guy can get noteworthy huevos rancheros while his beloved browses chic shops along Ocean and Forest Avenues for bejeweled sandals during winter sales. Laguna Beach also happens to be where we spent a few days on our honeymoon years ago, so I have that going for me. Short of hiring a helicopter, there are only two ways to get to this gallery-filled artist colony, either along Orange County’s Coast Highway or down eucalyptus-laden Laguna Canyon Road, which curves like a
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A Romantic Wedding Destination could be The Four Seasons Tented Camp in the Golden Triangle on the borders of Thailand. It is perfectly legal to get married in Thailand, so it should be perfectly possible to do the deed at the Four Seasons Tented Camp, which after all is an hotel anyway. Even if the Romantic wedding destination were to be in a hotel in Bangkok, then the Golden Triangle would make such a fabulous romantic destination for a honeymoon.   Just getting to the Four Seasons Tented Camp in the Golden Triangle is a journey of which dreams are made of. Even if it isn’t to be a romantic wedding destination you will be treated like royalty from the moment you arrive at Chiang Rai Airport, and escorted to your Land Rover for the one hour fifteen minute journey on dirt roads
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WHISTLER, British Columbia (AP) — A dozen years ago, a roommate and I were wasting away another rainy winter night in Seattle when we decided to drive the pickup truck five hours north to Whistler. We left at 10 p.m., pulled into the lot near the lifts and spent a few fitful, freezing hours of semi-sleep in the cab until sunrise. We gladly paid about $45 each to blissfully ski on the softest, freshest snow in the Northwest — which usually provides wet cement. On the way home we stopped at McDonald’s. You couldn’t pull that off today. Whistler and its twin neighbor Blackcomb Mountain, about a two-hour drive north up the stunningly beautiful Sea to Sky Highway from Vancouver, is widely recognized as one of the top resorts in North America by skiers and snowboarders. It’s easily
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A Family Ski Holiday in France, or more precisely a family ski vacation in the Rhone Alps at Les Gets, staying in the most luxurious hotel that is the Ferme de Montagne is just about as good as it gets. The Ferme de Montagne manages to create the atmosphere and accommodation of a top class ski chalet whilst in reality it is one of the very best small luxury hotels you may ever stay in.   A ski holiday, especially a family ski holiday be it in France or anywhere else, does require some specific things to ensure its success, and this isn’t just snow!! It isn’t even the weather conditions, or the quality of the slopes at the end of the day. Children by and large will be happy whatever theweather as long as there is snow, and slopes, but for the parents, one of the absolute
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Karen, our leader — this is a Yosemite Association hike, so we have a leader — has given us introductory tips, the main one being "Don’t step on your own snowshoes or you will fall on your face." The morning is bright but cold, "28 degrees," Karen reads from her thermometer. Last evening’s storm has feathered the trail and surrounding forest with snow. There are stops for water, for granola bars. Sooner than expected, we reach Dewey Point. Here we gape. At 7,385 feet, the point is a granite prow that lunges out over Yosemite Valley. But I’m not awestruck. I’m befuddled. I can’t tell where I am. All I see are massive gray granite walls outlined in snow, gorgeous but strange. I could be in the Himalayas. "Where," I ask Karen, "is Half Dome?" Karen
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NEWARK, New Jersey (AP) — An air traffic controller mistakenly gave a passenger jet the frequency for the wrong airport, an error that put that plane and another landing at Newark Liberty International Airport much closer than they should have been, authorities said Thursday. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the near miss, which occurred at 2:10 p.m. Wednesday between a Boeing 737 and an Embraer 145. The Boeing operated as Continental Flight 536 arriving from Phoenix and the Embraer was Continental Express Flight 2614 arriving from Halifax, Nova Scotia. According to FAA spokesman Jim Peters, an air traffic controller at the New York Terminal Radar Approach center on Long Island, which guides planes landing at New York area airports before turning them over to
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A Great Mexico Travel Special should include time spent on the Mexico Caribbean Coast, where you will find so much to do and so many things to enjoy. You can easily organise a Mexico Vacation Package that will allow you to travel around Mexico seeing some of the Country’s amazing sights and then allow you to finish with a relaxing time on the Mexico Caribbean Coast.   On the Caribbean coastline of Mexico there are spellbinding soft white sand beaches, and clear unpolluted turquoise blue seas. There are lagoons, coves and inlets, and that is the reason for the popularity with tourists, and many many thousands of Mexico vacation packages are sold every year to the Yucatan Peninsula. That is not to say it is all like Cancun and Cozumel, busy and energetic, because there are many
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WASHINGTON — For U.S. and Canadian citizens, the jig is up. Beginning January 31, citizens of both countries must present proof of citizenship and a government-issued ID when entering the United States at land border crossings and sea ports. Currently, U.S. citizens can enter the United States simply by making an "oral declaration" — that is, saying they are citizens and convincing the border officials that they are. No written documentation is required at land or sea ports. Citizens don’t need a passport, a driver’s license, or even a receipt from their local power company or dry cleaners. The same is true for residents of Canada and Bermuda seeking entry into the United States. But as the government continues to tighten border security, the centuries-old practice of
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Mozambique holidays may not be the first thing you think of when you are looking for a beach front property, but you could do a whole lot worse than to check out the Mozambique channel, and Benguerra Island home to the luxury lodge called Benguerra Lodge. This is a beach front property with style, more a boutique hotel really, but in the wilderness of an offshore island on the edge of the Indian Ocean.   Benguerra Lodge is small, very intimate with four different kinds of accommodation from the Bungalows, through the Cabanas, to the Casitas to the Villa. There are two Bungalows in the trees, less than 15 metres from the beach with a seaview. They have no windows or doors to maximise the sea breezes. They have blinds which can be drawn, overhead fans, mosquito nets, and en suite
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