Posted by admin on June 16, 2007 under Europe Accommodation | 
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I came across this interview with Maria Liberatti on her virtual book tour to promote her new book, Basic Art of Italian Cooking
. The book is being described as a recipe novel versus a mere cook book. It’s about more than following the recipes, an attempt to evoke the whole experience and atmosphere of preparing the meal and bask in pleasure of eating with family and friends. The book aims to appeal to those interested in travel, food and culture.
. The book is being described as a recipe novel versus a mere cook book. It’s about more than following the recipes, an attempt to evoke the whole experience and atmosphere of preparing the meal and bask in pleasure of eating with family and friends. The book aims to appeal to those interested in travel, food and culture.
photo by Albree
I do enjoy the food when I visit Italy. I agree with Ms Liberatti when she advises travellers to look for restaurants serving authentic local food to enhance your trip experience. If you are really into Italian food and cookery why not go on a cooking holiday in Italy.
Technorati Tags: Italian cooking, Italian recipes
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Beth business focus on providing advice and inspiration to female travellers. I met Beth through the social networking site stunbleupon.com.
1 What is the aim of your business?
My businesses include a publishing company and a website. My publishing company, Globe Trek Press, just published my first book called Wanderlust and Lipstick: The Essential Guide for Women Traveling Solo andforthcoming books will be available in 2008 including an anthology of otherwomen’s travel stories. My website,
www.WanderlustAndLipstick.com, is aplace for women travelers to gather and share information about theirtravels (through a forum and blog area) as well as to get inspired to create their own dream journey.
2 What prompted you to start your own business?
I started my own businesses because I found a lack of information available for women travelers and wanted to help inspire and help women get started in their travels.
3 What has been the hardest aspect of having your own business?
Pacing myself and not working too much!
4 What is the funniest thing that has happened to you running your own
business?
Well, less “funny” than “fun” is the fact that every day I come into contact with so many interesting and well-traveled people. I love it!
5 Is there anything you would do differently with the benefit of hindsight?
I would have quit my day job a lot sooner than I did
My comments - thanks Beth. Your last comment about wishing you had quit your day job sooner is really making my think as i still have my day job and am constantly thinking when/if I should/if I give it up and just concentrate on my business.
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Posted by admin on June 13, 2007 under Europe Accommodation |
Welcome to my blog, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
From April 2008 Visit Britain will only promote attractions in England which sign up to its code of practice. The aim is to improve the quality of attractions. There is a ВЈ25 registration fee so with around 6000 attractions that will bring in around ВЈ150,000. Most of the stipulations are common sense such as information about opening hours, cost, accessibility, cleanliness etc. Some such as “having regard to managing the attraction in a sustainable way, considering public transport, locally sourcing food and other supplies” could be rather meaningless if for example an attraction considers it is not on a bus or train route and that buying local food costs more and then disregards the issues.
Bamburgh Castle, North Northumberland
I wonder how much inspection there will be to ensure that the standards are being met? Do you think this code is a good idea or just more bureaucracy?
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Posted by admin on June 12, 2007 under Europe Accommodation |
I finally managed to do another podcast today. With my lack of editing skills I’ve to go for an “all-in-one” as when I tried to cut, paste and edit there are all these gaps and/or words cut off. The podcast is mainly about my trip to the Scottish Highlands last week with some other travel news.
Download the podcast
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Travelodge.co.uk has deduced that some guests find it difficult to sleep alone when they are travelling without their partner and come up with the Cuddilow, a large pillow with 2 arms to snuggle into. Free Cuddilows are being trialled at Travelodges in Newcastle, Durham, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham.
While some may argue that it’s easier to get a good nights sleep on your own with no snoring partner and the whole bed to yourself perhaps this the best of both worlds, plenty of room to stretch in a peaceful bed but something to cuddle into? I assume there is a discreet method of requesting and delivering the pillow to your room. If you’ve tried the Cuddilow I’d love to hear your opinion.
Technorati Tags: hotels, pillows, Cuddilow
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I discovered Scotsites.com when I was stumbling in the Scotland group and asked Bruce if he would do a guest interview for the blog.
1 What is the aim of your business?
The aim of ScotSites is to bring together the best of Scotland on the internet. To be honest that sounds like an impossible task, but having seen so many web directories that list Scottish sites I thought that something better could be produced. Using the idea of different categories I thought I could create my own version of the web directory, but with a twist.
2 What prompted you to start your own business?
Having set up one site about travelling around Scotland, I already had a lot of information on the country. So incorporating this into a site more specific to Scotland, rather than just travelling, I set up ScotSites. The impossible task isn’t quite that, but it will remain a work in progress for some time to come… hopefully it will provide links to a variety of useful and interesting sites on Scotland in a logical manner!
3 What has been the hardest aspect of having your own business?
The work load has to be the worst part of this sort of thing. Mainly working alone means that there’s no one else to boss around and make do all the work. However, when you are doing something that you enjoy then its not quite as bad! The other side of the coin is “meeting” people with like-minded interests through various forums… and sometimes even meeting up in person as myself and my partner did with a couple of friends from the Netherlands last year (and my partner did so again!)
4 What is the funniest thing that has happened to you running your own business?
It wasn’t actually something that happened to me, but something that I made others believe. Imagine if you will the the proposed line of super-huge pylons to run from Beauly to Denny. I made my protest clear especially as part of the route was to go through the Cairngorms National Park and another across Sheriffmuir battlefield. I’m actually against the pylons running across the hills spoiling the views as it is, but on the 1st of April last year I announced that I was due to start working for the company that was actually responsible for constructing the pylons. As a result I was doing a U-turn as far as my viewpoint on the actual pylons was concerned. Of course, being the 1st of April I figured that everyone would get the joke, but I had an Ace up my sleeve. My partner announced the same day that the discovery of polar foil was going to help reduce the amount of melting currently being experienced at the North Pole. Obviously everyone spotted the anagram (polar foil = April Fool) so my own was greeted by a group of people that were sympathetic to my position and agreed not to discuss the proposed pylons any further… the web master also offered to remove the topic completely so I wouldn’t get in trouble with my future employer!
5 Is there anything you would do differently with the benefit of hindsight?
With the benefit of hindsight I would have started ScotSites first and created a travel site from that rather than create ScotSites from what was supposed to be a travel site. However, there’s no real regrets as the whole web site idea started through travelling around Scotland in the first place and wanting to share what we’d seen and discovered along the way! Ultimately, either site would have been a logical progression from the other anyway!
My comments - It is a big task to bring together the best of Scotland on your site but then why give yourself an easy challenge. I know all about the workload when you have your own business. However, Bruce, as you say, if you are doing something you enjoy the time passes so quickly, except perhaps when I comes to things like doing tax returns and trying to grapple with IT, in my case.
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Posted by admin on June 11, 2007 under Europe Accommodation |
I stumbled upon a site, epassportphoto.com that claims it can provide you with free passport photos. Has anybody used this site to successfully produce passport photos? I know that it costs around ВЈ5 for a 4 passport photos at a booth or photographers, so it could save you a few pounds but only if the photos are accepted. Otherwise you would have the hassle oF re-applying. The Times has highlighted a couple of potential hazards.
Firstly that the process may deform the original photos and secondly if you take up the free hard copy offer your photo could be misused, especially if that firm is based in another country.
Photo by Daniel Morris
I think I’d probably play it safe and go to my local photographers, who knows exactly what the photo should look like and pay my ВЈ5.
Technorati Tags: passport photos, free passport photos
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I suspect that my husband thought I was joking when I came into our holiday cottage near Ullapool, on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands, last week and told him I’d just seen three pigs trotting by when I was sitting outside reading.
I suppose the first thing that comes to mind is the nursery rhyme “Three Little Pigs“ We both came out and at first there was a no sign of the pigs. We walked round the back of the cottages and there they were. It was difficult to take photos and they didn’t stay still for long but the three of them stuck close together. As far as I know there aren’t wild pigs around the Highlands but I’d have expected farm pigs to be kept in a field, maybe they’d escaped.
Technorati Tags: pigs, Scottish Highlands
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Posted by admin on June 10, 2007 under Europe Accommodation |
When I was in the Scottish Highlands last week I realised the importance of bridges to this area. Ferries are affected by weather, breakdowns, restricted timetables and can be full in busy periods. A bridge offers a much simpler means of making a short crossing over a body of water.
A bridge was finally built from the mainland to the island of Skye in 1995. The tolls for the bridge were high, around ВЈ9 for a return trip, there was a lot of protest and civil disobedience until the tolls were finally abolished in 2004. The islanders compared the tolls they paid to the tolls over the much longer Forth and Tay road bridges which only charged 80p return.
I’d never seen the Kylesku Bridge before but I thought that it was very elegant and on reading up on my return I noticed that it has been called one of the most beautiful bridges in the world and won several awards after it opened in 1984. There are parking places where you can have a picnic and/or walk across the bridge at both sides of the bridge.
Technorati Tags: road bridges, Scottish Highlands, Skye Bridge, Kylesku Bridge
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You may think of Scotland as a wet, cloudy and gloomy place but this was Oban, on the west coast of Scotland, basking in the evening sun on Friday last week. I think it looks more like the Italian Riveria! McCaig’s Tower, the classical folly in the background only adds to the illusion.
Oban is one of the main ports to Scottish Islands where you can catch a ferry to destinations such as Mull, Coll, Tiree and the Uists.
Technorati Tags: Oban, McCaig’s Folly, Scotland
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