Finding An Amazing Mediterranean Cruise

If you are hoping to see and experience some of the many varied delights of the Mediterranean this year then a cruise holiday is perhaps the best way to go about it. You can book yourself on-board any number of fantastic ships and sail around some of the most beautiful coastlines to be found anywhere in Europe or the world.

The really good news though is that there is no shortage and even a relative abundance of bargains available on quality Mediterranean cruise holiday packages from fully reputable and reliable tour providers. So you could soon be seeing that sun-drenched corner of the Med you had in mind with more money to spend than you'd imagined. A little online research should enable you to turn up some significantly discounted deals on quality cruises from the likes of P&O, Celebrity, Thomson Cruises and others.

And if you're quick enough with your online research and your decision-making, and you have the requisite flexibility, then there's every chance you'll find cruise deals to suit your needs on the basis of a last minute package. The nature of the last minute offers made available vary but they could help you save some significant sums and cruise ships tend only to check out the most impressive coastal areas of the regions they visit. And there is always likely to be an enormous amount available on-board to keep you more than occupied and suitably entertained during the length of your stay.

There are packages to the Mediterranean on offer right now, as there are to more far-flung parts of the world from the Caribbean to the Galapagos and from Asia to Australasia. The list of possible destinations with cruise holidays is in fact virtually endless and any combination of family members, couples, individuals or groups of friends can be easily accommodated at any time of the year.

-niceurdaneta-

Read More

Head to the Mountains: Winter vs Summer

The picturesque alpine resorts high above sea level, nestled in the stunning mountain ranges of Europe, aren’t just a skier’s Mecca. They can be enjoyed whatever time of year; your chosen activity is the only thing that changes.

During the summer months, as the snow melts and the lush green mountainsides emerge, head to the Austrian lakes and mountains for some unrivalled landscapes and some of the best walking, hiking trails and cyling. During the summer, Krimml Waterfalls are highly recommended due to the outstanding natural beauty that resides there or, as a family, have a go at canyoning in Mayrhofen. As winter arrives, the Austrian Alps turn into a haven for skiers and snowboarders alike, making the range a very popular spot for all winter sport enthusiasts –a skii holiday in Europe which offers one of the most sought after spots.

For such a small country, the principality of Andorra has a vast array of activities on offer, whatever your interests. In the summertime, you can choose from gentle walks around the traditional villages homing Romanesque churches, or more thrilling hikes and climbs in the Pyrenees. It is also a very popular spot for mountain biking, fishing and horseriding. With dramatic scenery, lush narrow valleys and snowcapped mountain ridges, try and make the most of the gondolas that take you to the top of the mountains during the summer months and admire the breathtaking views. As winter falls, head to Arinsal or Soldeu for some of the best all-round skiing opportunities this area has to offer. 

Equally, Switzerland is also an ideal retreat for those after winter or summer sojourns. Lovers of the great outdoors will be in their element here during the summer, with trails galore for walkers and avid hikers. Head to Interlacken for some thrillseeking delights, with canyoning, rafting and paragliding all on offer for those who dare. The Swiss Alps offer some of the most dramatic slopes for winter adventurers, as well as snowshoeing, husky rides and glacial walking for those who want a change of pace. 

Whatever season you choose, the mountains are waiting to give you a holiday of a lifetime.

-niceurdaneta-

Read More

Best Place to do Rafting in Canada

White water rafting or simply rafting is a stimulating outdoor activity for recreation which is conducted with the help of an inflatable raft for the purpose of navigating one’s way in a river or water body. For increased thrill and excitement, rafting can be conducted in varying degrees of rough water. This can be termed as a leisure sport as long as one does not choose a setting which is more than what one can handle. Canada is a paradise for rafting lovers. This beautiful country has some of the most beautiful rivers in North America. In order to truly experience the power and thrill of rafting in Canada’s rivers you will need to get wet. Rafting in Canada is a great way of feeling your adrenaline pumping.

When it comes to the best place to do rafting in Canada, you will not find one synonymous answer from people because there are so many rivers in Canada that are perfect for rafting. Therefore you can try your hand at rafting in any one or all of the rivers. Kicking Horse River is one of the best places to go for rafting in Canada. Located in the Canadian Rockies, this river provides the ultimate thrill of rafting. You will be able to go for rafting tours here where you will be given the right equipment and also training. In addition to the thrilling rafting experience one can also observe the beautiful scenery and towering canyon walls. 

If you are in East Canada then you should head over to Kipawa River. The good thing about this river is that it is Canada’s best intermediate whitewater river with an impressive length of sixteen kilometers. You are bound to feel the power when you step into your dinghy and start paddling. The adrenaline rush which one experiences when rafting in this river is unsurpassable and the cost of rafting here is just USD 100, which isn’t a lot. Therefore true rafting lovers really do not mind flying all the way to Canada to experience rafting in Kipawa River. After all, they would also get air miles in Canada for this connection!

Want to go for a rafting experience with a superb view? In that case Fraser River would be just right for you. You will be able to spot Mount Robson (the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies) here when you are rafting. The scenery is breathtaking, the water is perfect for rafting and the cost for rafting is also low, no wonder people get tempted to fly to Canada for the purpose of rafting.

-niceurdaneta-

Read More

Holiday Season: Travelling Abroad

Life can be full of stressors – the job, the financial woes, the annual car service being due... If you’re anything like the majority of Brits, you’ll be hoping to escape the rat race and the formidable English weather by jetting abroad this year; donning your sarong and arguing over who put their towel on the sun lounger first.

Depending on where you are in the country, or what sort of holiday you are looking for, there are so many options to cater for your individual requirements, right down to the airport you choose to fly from. One of the main reasons for your choice tends to be location – which airport is the nearest and the easiest to get to? But this doesn’t always have to be the main reason for flying from there. Sometimes, your chosen destination isn’t served by flights from your ideal airport but flight connections between domestic airports can mean that your dream holiday can soon become a reality.

Manchester airport is a hub of activity for holiday-goers. Offering both domestic and international flights, it’s one of the most popular UK airports outside of London. With a fantastic road network, allowing ease of accessibility (the Alderley Edge Bypass being a particular favourite), a Meet & Greet service to make car parking a breeze and more shops and food/drink outlets than you can shake a stick at, you can be sure to leave your stresses behind as soon as you enter the Terminal. As long as you don’t face any delays, that is.

You don’t have to do all the travelling in one day, either. Particularly useful if you live further than a few miles from Manchester, or if, worst case scenario, you are stuck in a delay of epic proportions; a hotel near Manchester airport could give you a well-deserved time out between journeys.

-niceurdaneta-

Read More

Visiting Mati For The First Time - Day 1

I've been hearing about the beauty of Mati since my college days and I've been always wanting to visit the place. They are saying that their beaches got very fine white sand and the entire place is completely picturesque.

Dahican Beach

One of my highschool friends KC just finished her hospital internship and she wants to have a summer vacation before she could seriously start her review for the medicine licensure exam this coming August. She wants to visit Mati so she persuaded me and our other highschool friend Dominique to accompany her. At first I planned not to join but then I realized that this would be the perfect time to fulfill my longed Mati visit.

Me and KC at the Facade of Hotel Beatrice

 Mati by the way is the only city in the province of Davao Oriental. It is also the capital. We left Davao City at around 8pm and rode the last trip of the van going to Mati. The van had limited stop-overs so we reached Mati in less than 3 hours. KC's cousin met us in the terminal and drove us to Hotel Beatrice where we stayed for the night. The supposedly rest time turned to be an infinite chit chat because one of our (Me and Dominique) college close friends, Jhepoy visited in the hotel. He's a resident in Mati and he has been inviting me since college years to visit their place. It was the second time for Dominique. 

Even though we slept late, we managed to wake up early and had our early beach hopping. Good thing KC's uncle lent us his car/s that made roaming around much easier. For those who would visit Mati without private vehicles, motorcycles are available for rent.

Inviting Waves

Our first stop is at the famous Dahican Beach. Just look at how beautiful it is. The waves are obviously huge which are great for skim boarding and surfing. Aside from the fact that I can't swim, I'm pretty sure there's no way I can learn to skim nor surf. So I just watched the kids enjoying it.

Skim Boarding

 After Dahican beach, we were looking for a place to stay for the night so we had the what so called "beach front desk hopping". We visited Masao, Gregorio and then finally Jambay. We decided to stay at Jambay and told the managing personnel to reserve one room for us.

Gregorio

Jambay

Masao

 It's almost lunch time and since your Mati visit won't be complete if you're not going to dine at Seaside, Jhepoy who happens to be the son of the owner called the resto and had our grand lunch prepared. For the detailed post of the grand lunch at seaside you may click here. 

After the sumptuous lunch, we went to Mayo, one of the baranggays of Mati and dipped into their cold lagoon. If you do not want to burn yourself to the hot sea water, better visit the Mayo lagoon. 

After several hours of enjoying the cool water, we headed to Jambay. Lucky for us because the tide is already high and the sea water is just so inviting. So we had another round of swimming while watching the beautiful sun to set. We enjoyed the rest of the night singing using the videoke machine while munching our delicious dinner from Seaside.

 That ends the first day of my first ever Mati trip. -niceurdaneta-

Read More

Enjoying Eden Nature Park For the First Time

You're reading it right! For the first time, I was able to enjoy the beauty of Eden Nature Park of Davao City. Funny though because I've been living here for almost 7 years yet not a single moment I was able to visit this heavenly place. If not because of the pre-birthday celebration of one of my friends, then up to this very moment my idea about the place would only be based on their site's description.

For all those photo freaks like me, the whole day won't be enough to capture all those awesome pictures. You might be thinking right now how many cameras I brought for this escapade but believe it not, I'm a photo freak who doesn't own any digital camera. All of my pictures were taken from my loving BlackBerry Bold 9700. I'm just thankful that it's 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus plus a little help of Photoshop was able to satisfy my happiness. Please bear all those blurry pictures because my phone's camera can't capture moving objects because it is not like other digital cameras that you can manipulate the shutter settings.

We only spent half day in the park yet I was able to drain by fully charged battery. Supposedly the group has planned being there early, but just like the usual Filipino time phenomenon, our 8am assembly time has become 11am. We decided to eat our lunch first and off we go. The park is located at the foot of Mount Talomo, Toril, Davao City. It is approximately 12 kilometers from Toril proper. If you're situated in the downtown area of the city, Toril is way southward and is approximately 30 minute ride by private car. If you don't own a car, you also get to the place by riding a jeepney up to Crossing Bayabas, Toril. From there you will ride a motorcycle going up to the park for 50-60 pesos. According to the official website of Eden, the whole park contains 100,000 pine trees spreading throughout the vast 80 hectares land area. For a detailed information of the park, you can visit their site.

The group decided to ride a jeepney going up to the park and the fun begins...

Upon arriving at the area...

The park's map...

A walk under the woods...

My encounter with nature...

Of course your Eden Nature Park adventure won't be complete if it's without an Indiana Jones experience. We had ours on video...

For four hours, I was able to relax from my very tiring week. I know the next time I could enjoy this thing would be not so soon. I couldn't load all the photos here and some of my candid moments in the park were captured in my friends' camera and they just can't upload it immediately because just like me, they are also very busy during weekdays.


My friends would definitely get mad at me if I'm not going to mention them here. You can check their faces in their Facebook accounts


Sheryl Madlangbayan
Marian Elaine Dasal 
Kreng Balilahon
Marc Olorvida
Sheiryl Bacsarsa
Giovanne Vallecera

Read More

Stuck In The Province

I'm supposed to wake up early today, but it didn't happen. Wake up early and vote early, that was my main goal today. Sad to say, I slept late and obviously, I woke up late.

I thought the election process would be that fast, but it wasn't. I arrived in the precinct at around11:30 am and guess what, my priority number is 503, men! When I checked my precinct and asked the person near the door on what number are they serving now, he said "345 nice", he knows my name? how come? i don't know him? Men! that would be ages away from my number. I decided to go home and ate lunch. I surf the net for a while to check some emails and headed back to my election precinct. When I arrived there, I then asked the person near the door for the number, it's a lady this time, again she knows my name, "407 nice". That would be less than a hundred people before me. I decided to wait patiently.

Suddenly, a person came to me. I then recognized her to be one of my schoolmates in college. She asked for my precinct number. "it's 10A, y?" I replied. She immediately told me something very helpful, she said that there's no need for me to wait for my number to be called, ill just position myself near the door and tell the election officer that my precinct is 10A and he would let me in. hmmmm... intriguing... why not give it a try. I did what she told me. Whoah! the election officer recognized me. "What's your precinct number nice?" he said. Honestly I don't know him. I told him it's 10A. Immediately, he let me in and guided me where to go. No sweat!

After careful thinking and shading, I finally endured the voting process and casted my very precious vote. I then had my ballot feed inside the PCOS machine. CONGRATULATIONS! YOUR VOTE HAS BEEN COUNTED. I had my finger marked with indelible ink then.

Im so happy, it's still 2:59 in the afternoon and I could still go back to the city. It's still very early so I decided to go online and post my voting success. I didn't notice the time, it's already 3:30pm. I hurried up and fix my things. When I arrived in the bus station, a lot of passengers are there waiting. One of the passengers told me that have been for 2 hours already yet no bus came. What?!! this can't be. I need to go back to the city. I have a lot of things to do! men! I waited for about an hour and 30 minutes. A bus coming for the city arrived and the conductor told us that the next trip for the city would early morning tomorrow. No choice! I went back home. In short, I'm stuck in the province. Though there's no problem in it, but I need to be online and update my online job, and the internet connection here in the province is making me sick. It's so so slow!

I just hope I could wake up early tomorrow, for sure I would be fighting over seats for the huge number passengers going back to the city. I truly hate standing in the bus. Wish me luck.

Read More