Blue Life

By David Davies

 With its strange, barren lunar landscape and extraordinarily civilised and cosmopolitan city culture, Iceland is one of the most fascinating and alluring countries in Europe.

Most people who visit here find themselves drawn back by the people, the culture and even the changeable weather.

Five Tips For an Enjoyable Visit

Before you take the plunge and book your holiday here are five tips that should make your time more enjoyable:

Icebreakers

Icelands very own low-cost airline Iceland Express offers flights from both London Stansted and Gatwick, and from many other European cities.

If you’re flying from the UK and you’re planning on parking at Gatwick it pays to book in advance through a company such as Essential Travel they offer up to 60% discount on the list price of Gatwick Airport Parking.

Danger: Hot Water!

Iceland is situated on a geothermal hotspot and the islanders use this very much to their advantage with Geothermal power plants supplying much of the islands electricity and hot water pumped straight into the home already pre-heated.

This disadvantage of this to the uninitiated is that the water is very nearly boiling when it comes out of the tap a scalding 80 degrees in fact. Exercise caution when turning on the shower and dont mind the faint whiff of rotten eggs, its just the natural sulphur in the water.

When Dining Out, Ignore the Guidebooks

Most of the guidebooks that cover eating out on the island list the famous old school restaurants like Tvier Fiskar or Einar Ben. These are good for experiencing Icelandic specialities like puffin or whale; however eating there midweek or off-season you can easily find yourself the only table in the restaurant.

If you want something a bit more lively, take to the streets and see where the locals go the restaurants in downtown Reykjavik are funky and cosmopolitan with modern European bistro food taking center stage rather than rotten shark.

Dont Faint When You Get the Bill!

Eating, drinking, shopping and pretty much everything in Iceland is more expensive hardly surprising when you realise that most fresh produce has to be imported.

However, unless you choose to dine at the most expensive restaurants in the capital, you can expect to pay slightly more than New York prices around $80 meal for a three course with wine would be typical.

Pubs too are slightly more expensive with beer coming in at around $8 a pint not far off the typical $6-7 were getting used to paying in the US.

Nightclubs are a different story you could easily pay around $20 for a beer but its common for Icelanders to do their drinking at home before heading out.

They Grow Bananas in Iceland

Oh yes, despite being on the Arctic Circle, Icelanders have rather cleverly used geothermal springs to heat large greenhouses and grow bananas!

Finally, one last tip that stands for pretty much any destination is: make sure you have adequate travel insurance. Specialists such as AA Travel Insurance can provide appropriate cover whether youre planning on going bananas in Iceland or you’re just there to admire the scenery.

David Davies is a travel advisor and recommends that you take out travel insurance or annual travel insurance policy depending on the nature of your travels.

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The Acropolis of Athens

By David Davies

 The Acropolis of Athens is one of the most spectacular ancient sites in the whole world, a legacy of perhaps the most influential civilisation that has ever existed and a testament to the enduring ideas that underpin most of what we currently know and believe in the West. With many companies, such as TravelZoo, now offering low cost holidays to Athens, visiting this unique site (now designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site) is now easier than ever before.

Once you arrive in Athens you’ll notice it’s hard to miss the Acropolis: the name itself means high city. It’s an apt description - from practically anywhere in the city you can see the rock jutting above the skyline with the iconic pillars of the Parthenon visible on its flat summit. Twenty-one sites, varying in their state of preservation, have been identified on the mount - here’s a quick guide to two of main the monuments within the site.

When you first arrive at the Acropolis you will enter through the Propylaea, the impressive monumental gateway that leads into the site. Building on the Propylaea ended in 437 BC and it was still partially unfinished due to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta in 431 BC. The gateway was consecrated so that people who passed through it were spiritually cleansed before entering the main sacred site. It also had a more prosaic function as it helped stop slaves and thieves from entering the Acropolis - both of which tried to enter on a regular basis. Slaves would try and enter in order to seek protection from the god and goddess to whom the monuments were sacred in the hope that the gods would declare them freemen of Athens. Thieves, on the other hand, would seek to enter in order to steal from the rich Athenians who frequented the site, while the more ambitious would set their eyes on the treasury, which was also built on the site.

On the southern of the Acropolis slope is another feature well worth taking a look at: the Theatre - or “Odeon” - of Herodes Atticus. Although this was built in 161 AD, making it one the ‘newer’ monuments at the Acropolis, it has been partially restored and is still in use today. The Greek rhetorician - and educator of Marcus Aurelius - Herodes Atticus, originally built the monument for his beloved wife Aspasia Annia Regilla. Originally the building would have been three stories high, with a great stone wall front, and a wooden roof. In the time of Herodes Atticus it would have held 5,000 people, who came to watch the many musical concerts that took place there. It was restored in the 1950’s using marble - although the wooden roof hasn’t been replaced. Each year this site is used to host the Athens Festival, which runs from June to September, and has also hosted other theatrical and musical events.

Whether you’re just visiting the Acropolis or planning to abseil down its side, when visiting Athens it’s worth making sure you have adequate travel insurance. There are plenty of travel insurance offers online from specialist providers such as the AA

David Davies is a travel advisor and recommends that you take out travel insurance or annual travel insurance cover depending on the nature of your travels.

A French Cycling Holiday

By David Davies

 Recently, four of my good friends returned from a cycling holiday around the southern French coast. They went for two weeks, camping and staying in tiny little B&Bs on consecutive nights, drinking far too much French wine and getting rather horrific saddle rash. Now, let me be quite clear here, cycling holidays are not my idea of fun. Horribly tight clothes and tiny tiny shorts, sat in an awkwardly painful saddle all day and having to spend eight or so painful hours scooting around country lanes only to pass out at the campsite, wake up and do it all again.

However, this lot seemed to have quite a good time. They went over a for a fortnight and spent the day cycling in four hour blocks; from nine in the morning to roughly one where they would stop at whatever little restaurant looked like it would actually serve a group of sweaty Englishmen, and then from whenever they got back on until about eight in the evening.

To me it just sounds like unnecessary drudgery but to them it was rather a liberating experience; travelling to their own schedule, stopping when and where they wanted, using the roads they had mapped out for themselves and just generally making a right go of it. What is more, by the end of the fortnight they were probably in the best shape they had been for their whole lives. According to their version of events after the first day you feel fine but the next day you are in so much pain that you cant actually imagine going on.

But go on they did, covering obscene amounts of distance through pretty little French villages and the picturesque countryside. It also turned out to be a very cheap holiday. They drove, taking the channel tunnel to France, parked up in a long stay car park and then cycled a massive circuit about the countryside before returning to their vehicle.

Taking only what they needed they managed to keep their costs well down (tents are much cheaper than hotels). They actually said the best bit of money they spent was on their travel insurance after some sneaky-fingered French thief decided to make off with one of the groups iPod and (luckily enough, defective) torch. They got their travel insurance with the AA and because they had got the right policy by the time my friend got back to the UK a nice new iPod was already waiting for him.

David Davies is a travel advisor and recommends that you take out travel insurance or multi trip travel insurance depending on the nature of your travels.

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