Happy New Year!

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New Australian Last Minute Site

Very interesting notice for those who lives in Australia or wants to visit it. One of the most popular travel brands Lastminute announces the publishing of their new re-launched travel related site Lastminute.com.au. The new site is very clear, with simple navigation and attractive design in classic tradition of the brand. The navigation bar presents all the main areas of business, and you see them in the big banners on the page too.

If you look for a hotel, you can save till 70% with last minute accommodation. Other very interesting offer is "Secret Hotels" that I've not seen in other related sites. Those are exclusive LM deals with very low prices. And the news about hotels do not finish here. You will find "top 5 in the" and "top 10 most wanted". What can I say you, personally I prefere to know everything possible about the hotel I have to go before I book a room because it happend to me to book making a call and to find something completely different from what I expected to find -"a nice gift" when you come in completely new place late in the night.

Other of the main LM areas are last minute flights that have international and domestic sits with very interesting fares. Personally I often use LM because I find always the best offers there. Not only cheap flights but all the necessary information I could need when I look for a solution that matches good for my necessities. You will find other new services visiting this new site.

Some Christmas Pics From The Cities Where My Friends Live

Vilnius

Посмотреть на Яндекс.Фотках

Prague

«Собор св.Вита» на Яндекс.Фотках

Riga

«Рождественский базарчик» на Яндекс.Фотках

Tallinn

«самый короткий день в году» на Яндекс.Фотках

Merry Christmas!

Many of you, who likes to travel are on your way to your preferite vacation place. Wish you very happy vacation, much snow or the best water temperature for those who will lie on the beach.

All the best to you!

And How Is The Weather In South Africa?

One of my friends in internet lives in South Africa. Now when I complain about the rains and cold, she tells me about her flowers and the garden. They have Christmas feasts with +40°C . It is not very good maybe. Christmas feast is born to make winter more happy. What have they in the middle of the winter, in july and august? No one great fabulous feast! Oh poor creatures!

Here are photos made there.


«ТАМ, где КРАЙ Земли: "12 апостолов", ЮАР............... а у s-s-nega - КРАЙ заССнеженной Земли!» на Яндекс.Фотках


«Whale» на Яндекс.Фотках


«Утром» на Яндекс.Фотках

When Is The Best Period To Visit Italy

One girl said me she wanted to come in Italy these days. I was surprized. November and December is not the best time to visit Italy. The weather is not good here in this period. It rains much. This year the rains began in the middle of Novembe and it rains without stop till today, more than 4 weeks. The earth is full of water and is very dangerous for mud flows. On the photo from Wikipedia you see river Tevere near Castel S. Angelo in it's normal situation. Now, watch this video how was it some days ago.

So, if you want to go in Italy, exclude November, December, July and August. Anyway, control the weather forcast.

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The Way To The Fable

«Дорога в сказку» на Яндекс.Фотках

This year is terrible in sense of Christmas prepatations of the commerce. The shops "celebrate" it from the end of October. I don't like it. They ruine the feeling of the greatest feast of the year.

Today I read about the new year tours that offer different tour operators. I understand, they have to earn money, that is why they offer anything. So, I thought: where I wanted to go to have the fabulous New Year Feast?

For me it could be Finnland, Lapland, other nordic countries. Or maybe central Europe. A castle and snow, snow, snow...
And where would you go for this feast?


«Скоро Новый год!» на Яндекс.Фотках

London And London Hotels Presented By Londoners

One of the most great lucks of a traveller is the possibility to find a resident that wants to be a giude for him/her. This is why London-hotels.co.uk, dedicted to hotel booking, is a site you have to visit if you want to have in depth information about the city and London hotels. This site is created by Londoners. And who knows better all the most interesting places and the best ways to follow to use the time of the trip with optimal results?

The site surprized me because I found there detailed maps of every part of the city and even alphabetical lists of sightseeings, streets and squares, hotels etc. How to reach the part of the city you are interested in, street guides, storical notes, stations and useful buildings are there in the area you visit. For a traveller it is really a treasure. The team presents B&Bs and cheap London hotels too.

You can find and book a London hotel from the site. There are hotels with direct to client rates and latest deals there. Use search tool to find the best solution for you and the map search to see and to read about the means of travel. It is really rare to find all these informations in one site.

New Year Tree In Brazil

After so long stories I wrote in the last period I wanted to tell you one interesting notice. Where is the most high New Year Tree on the Earth? No, you are not right. It is in Brazil. 85 m high it is on the lake Lagoa. It has 3 milions lights that are connected with 52 km of wire. You can see it there till Januar,6 and send me the photo!

And you thought that you have to visit Brazil only for Carnival!
Photo from a Carnival collection of Linkinn.com

Сascades Of Emerald Valley

This is the last post about my mountain-excursion in Emerald Valley in Sochi.
Caucasian Mountain-Tour, "Emerald Valley", first part
Caucasian Mountain-Tour, "Emerald Valley", second part
Dolmens Of The Emerald Valley, Sochi

As I said you, important points of this tour were cascades. In 2 different places. And than dolmens and a witches cave that was closed for visits in that period because dangerous.

I think there are few words to say in this post. The photos tell everthing about the beauty of the place. Incredible and unique beauty. Unfortunatelly I can not tell you the feelings you have there. It's like you are in a temple and the God is here, near you.

By the way, in summer these cascads are full of persons. They come to bath there, in the "plates" that are under every cascade.

Caucasian Mountain-Tour, "Emerald Valley", second part

After the bee's farm we had to stay in our minibus about an hour or two else till we reached the last aul and had to change vehicle.

There are not roads there, so the locals use these military cars, off-roads, to cross their land. We have seen them near every house that were there. I think, every family earns money transporting tourists. Our guide said, there are incredible quantities of persons that want to make a bath in the cascades we had to visit that day.

It was not so far till the house where we had to eat and to rest a little, but ... to reach it we had an other "extreem". Nothing terrible, but it is not very normal, this bridge.

In the house where we had to rest there was an other presentation of local foods. This time they were mostly wines. The daughter of the owner told us about the wines her father makes and we could taste them all. After that "second breackfast" with "chebureki" (puff pastry with meat inside -mmmmm.....) and we were ready to continue. After that good wine and 4 hours of the car I did not want other as sleep, sincerely, ...





I have to say you with all sincerity: when I came home and looked at my arm and side, I was afraid to see all that parts of my body black from bruises. Thanks God I did not look at my butt...

Caucasian Mountain-Tour, "Emerald Valley", first part

As promised in my previous posts, I wanted to tell you about a mountain-tour with light extreme I participate when I was in Sochi.

For me, the greatest extreme in that tour were tight deep-lunged torques that continued every 50-100 meters all the 4-5 hours that we needed to reach the place and than -to turn back from there, after the visit. Imagine that we were only about 70-90 km from center of Sochi but we needed 4-5 hours for one way.

I remember when I came in Sochi for the first time, it was in 80-th. There was the same torques way from Adler (where there is airport) till Sochi. They built a new highway from Adler some years ago, and you need only about 40 minutes to come in the center now. But in this, opposite, side of the region, you can admire the original mountain-roads. As you see on my photo.

Somebody told me once that it was a simple method to build ways in the mountains: to follow the steps of an ass. Because the asses knew where and how to go.

We were in a minibus with guide Golubkova Elena and driver Ruslan. They went with us till the last point of the tour. And it was hard enough, you will see it in my next posts. Here I want to show you only some photos from the road to taste the first beauties of the mountains of Caucasus.

This first is a general look on a mountain river how it is near the sea. It is river Shakhe, I think.

This other photo -to show you the mountain-road. Do you see that line in the middle of the photo? With rocks over and rocks under? Nice, no? It's a canyon of the river Ashe.

The first stop on our way was in a bee's farm. The owners built this pavilion where they have an exhibition hall of all products they have to sell. As you see on the second photo, there are many different products and they are really superb while produced in this zone. The team told us many interesting things about honey and it's derivative, we could taste some different honeys. Than we could buy everything we saw there.

We were at the beginning of our way and bought only glasses of "medovukha" -honey-wine. Mmmm... Great!!!



Continue next time...

Autumn Morning In Krasnodar

As I told you in some of my posts before, I went in Russia this autumn to try to receive Russian citizenship. I had some bureaucratic problems and tryed to resolve them one day in the capital of the krai (region that Sochi makes part of). I had to go with train there, and it was one night journey. I came in Krasnodar at 5:30 in the morning and had to wait half a day because the office opened at 16:30.

I never was in this town before and decided to combine "useful with pleasant". Here I discover my personal way to visit new places.

First of all I go to the newsstand (or in other stand) where I can buy a map of the place I want to visit.
Than I read about sightseeings of the place (or corners of interest)
Finally I decide the way I'll go to visit everything I want to see.

Here on the map you can see (not very clear but I hope you can) a point in the center on the railway where I began my walk. If I can I always prefere to walk. From that point I maped my way. Later I counted how many km I did that mornig, they were 11 (it is not my record: sometimes I go to Salerno at feet and those are 12 km-s from my house).

The first what I've seen was this church. I came to it from the back side and could not understand how could I find the entrance. After some attempts I found it finally. The photo is not very clear because it is first morning. But the architecture is interesting. So red...

I'm not a believer, so I rarely visit curches. Mostly for my personal interest (art, history, architecture...). So I was surprized to see this construction (photo lower). If you don't read in Russian, I'll explain you: this is a source of holy water.

I had clothes not good to visit this church (said some persons sitting nearby), so I wanted not risk to enter inside. Who knows, maybe they will beat me...

About a km later I found an other church. This time the building was in the best traditions of Russian white stone architecture.
By the way, I did not know that white stone churches (IX-XIII cent) were not white originally. They were picted all round the wall as those catolic of the same period (in Salerno for example). Rains and other bad weather conditions washed the colors and remained only white.

The other interesting thing I found were very different historical characters as main figure of numerous memorials.

I lived many years in Mariupol and was surprized incredibly to find buildings of the XIX, I think, cent. absolutely identical with those of Mariupol. I had the impression to walk in Mariupol in some places.

Very special is the location of this part of Krasnodar. There is a river and the lakes there. Unfortunatelly I had not time to delight the water but it was really nice to walk there.