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Cultural/Gastronomic

Rioja — a little piece of heaven!

I have been travelling to Spain for almost 40 years now. My first visit was back in 1975, shortly after I had entered the travel industry and working for a Waterford-based travel agency. I spent a week on the Costa del Sol and familiarised myself with the regional capital of Malaga and the tourist resorts of Torremolinos and Fuengirolla and the small hillside village of Mijas. It was my first ever trip outside of Ireland

How good is your geographic knowledge?

I recently retuned from an enchanting city less than two hours flying time from Dublin which is served by direct flights three times a week by a major international carrier. The city is not large by international standards — being somewhat smaller than Belfast but almost twice that of the Province's capital when you take its greater metropolitan area into consideration. It is located approximately 15 miles inland on a river and yet will play

There’s more to life than getting a tan!

Us Irish are obsessed with getting a good colour. Like many of our fellow northern Europeans, we crave the heat of the sun on our backs, probably because for the most part, it tends to be such a relative novelty for us — this summer just past notwithstanding! It should therefore come as no surprise that the most popular holiday destinations out of Ireland all tend to be sun destinations in either the southern Mediterranean

Where’s the best tourist destination in the world?

When people find out that I'm in the travel industry, one of the most common questions that I tend to get asked is 'where is the best place you've ever been?' It's an impossible question to answer in many respects — not least because every destination has its own charm and unique selling points but also because you can't very well compare apples with pears. Add to that, the fact that such exercises are ultimately

Some things are hard to quantify …

When people talk about destinations around the world whether they be cities, regions or indeed whole countries, their merits tend to be measured in terms of specific and tried and tested attributes such as quality, value-for-money, culture, friendliness and so on. Similarly, specific travel products such as airline catering, hotel facilities, coach bus seating also tend to be referenced against a range of generally agreed upon criteria. Well I'm here to tell you that the

Macho Peak(u)?

I know. That's got to be about the worst title yet for one of these blogs but the child within me just couldn't help it! I am of course talking about Machu Picchu — the jewel in the crown that is Peru — one of the most ecologically diverse countries on the planet and also one of the most visited countries in South America. Peru has so much to offer and whilst Machu Picchu may

The Lost Continent?

The above blog title is of course just another feeble attempt by yours truly to make a play on words. The continent that I am referring to — in case you haven't guessed — is South America and the reason I decided to give the blog that title is because, of all the continents (with the obvious exception of Antarctica), South America is still waiting to be found by many Irish holidaymakers. I'm by no

A rising tide raises all boats …

We all know that tides are the result of the daily tug of war that goes on between the earth and the moon and occur twice every day across most of the world. In some places — most notably the Mediterranean — the fluctuation between low and high tides is minimal, whereas in others, the difference can be huge. I had always been lead to believe that the greatest tidal differences in the world were

The Tip of the Iceberg!

Here's a trivia question for you: Where in the world would you have to go to in order to get up close (safely) to an iceberg? Greenland? Spitzbergen? Iceland? Antarctica? What if I was to tell you that icebergs inhabit a stretch of coastal water that is located just over four hours flight away — roughly equivalent to a flight to the Canaries — and that you can get a direct flight there almost any

Travel Back in Time

In case you haven't already noticed, we celebrate the centenary of the First World War this year — referred to in its time as 'The war to end all wars'. Sadly, that turned out not to be true so all the more reason that this generation should never forget the lesson that all war is ultimately futile and not — as Clausewitz once stated — 'War Is Merely the Continuation of Policy by Other Means'. If

Food, glorious food!

One of the great joys of travelling around the world is the food that you get to eat in all those various destinations! Great, that is, if you are an adventurous eater like me. But what if you're not? Many people are what could be called 'plain eaters', of the meat and two veg variety and it can often be a problem trying to find food suitable to their palate when they're abroad. One place

Malaysia is in the news these days for all the wrong reasons!

Which of us hasn't speculated already about the fate of flight MH 370? This modern day Marie Celeste-like mystery has had us all transfixed for the past five weeks and still with no satisfactory conclusion in sight. I happened to be in Malaysia a few days after the flight went missing and was struck by how much life was continuing on as normal for this vibrant country of some 30 million people. True, all the

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