February 2012
We will be visiting Floriade, the horticultural expo held every ten years in the Netherlands at Easter, this amazing spectacle runs from April until October and if 1992 was anything to go on it will be worth the trip.
Last year I featured a new UK travel company - www.furtherafield.com
- two guys in Hay on Wye have launched this listing of mainly gay owned or
very gay friendly hotels. It looks very interesting. My review was published in the June 2010 issue of Gscene. Since then they have gone from strength to strength and extended their portfolio of special destinations throughout the UK and Europe. I will be looking at them again in the Spring and visiting one of the hotels featured on their website.
In October we stayed at The Crowne Plaza in London - Blackfriars, an excellent hotel and visited the fantastic Porchester Baths in west London. A trip to the famous Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath was quite amazing, and during the same weekend we went to Homewood Park, a stunning Victorian country house hotel. Whilst in Bath we were invited to the new Bath Thermae Spa, which was interesting. November saw us in Galway and Dublin courtesy of the Irish Tourist Board. The articles on Galway and Dublin were published in April and July respectively.
In November 2009 I interviewed Senator David Norris at his home in Dublin, a very interesting man and inspirational man. David stood for the President of Ireland in October but Ireland wasn't ready for him just yet, pity, they missed a great opportunity.
Hilton Hotels invited us to take a look at their latest central London Hotel, The Trafalgar, its their first 'unbranded' hotel in the UK, that means no one knows its a Hilton! This was a very interesting experience, the hotel was in serious need of a refurb, which has now happened. The staff and food are excellent, the view from their roof terrace is amazing.
Our trip with Brittany Ferries on their flagship 'Pont Aven' from Portsmouth to Santander was extremely interesting. Our six days in northern Spain was very enjoyable, we will be going again to Green Spain.
At the end of March we stayed the new von Essen Hotel Verta in London, which was quite astonishing. The von Essen Group has recently gone into liquidation which does make any difference to any of the 30 odd hotels in their group, all of which are open for business.
A week in Barcelona and Sitges in May was great. The Hotel Masia-Sumidors was simply one of the best we had ever experienced. No real star rating, just a rural paradise set in a beautiful location on the hills behind Sitges. This article has now been published in the July issue of Gscene.
