Just think if you had booked a romantic weekend in an expensive hotel and this happens.
www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-32677965
It could have been worse, they could have gone to Brighton and Hove:)
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Golly!
We were there in February. (but not in those numbers!)
8o)
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>> Just think if you had booked a romantic weekend in an expensive hotel and this
>> happens.
>>
>> www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-32677965
Chinese people in France 'write' their phrase in English!
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4 days being bussed around all of france
fab time.
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>> Just think if you had booked a romantic weekend in an expensive hotel and this
>> happens.
All the expensive hotel rooms will have been booked by the chinese state political minders.
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I'm sure they will all have a rubbery time
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Glad I'm not down there at the moment. A few years ago we were in the Cafe de Paris in Monte Carlo when a Chinese party arrived for lunch and were promptly dumped by their French tour guides and left to cope on their own. The poor sods were eating bread rolls with knives and forks as we left.
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>> A few years ago we were in
>> the Cafe de Paris in Monte Carlo
Lovely bit of name droppng.
I am waiting to get "A few years ago while drinking a Belini in Harrys Bar in Venice" into a post sometime.
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That's just the way it is - and it had to be somewhere like that to make the point.
My friend happens to live, literally, around the corner. I was there a few weeks ago too. At the moment Casino Square is a nightmare of corrugated iron shuttering and ugly temporary shops on the lawns while massive redevelopment goes on. I don't know how they'll hide it from the TV at Grand Prix time.
Edit: Earlier this year we were invited to accompany friends to Venice for a 'free' holiday - but it's one place in the world (among many) that I would never, ever, visit. Well, just everybody goes there, don't they?
Last edited by: Mike Hannon on Sun 10 May 15 at 15:25
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>> Edit: Earlier this year we were invited to accompany friends to Venice for a 'free'
>> holiday - but it's one place in the world (among many) that I would never,
>> ever, visit. Well, just everybody goes there, don't they?
>>
The Clooney's ruined it for everyone.
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>> The Clooney's ruined it for everyone.
We got there first.
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>> one place in the world (among many) that I would never, ever, visit. Well, just everybody goes there, don't they?
You can't be serious Mike.
Venice has been a tourist trap since Shakespeare's day or earlier. For the tourist it is expensive and humiliating, the Venetians being incredibly venal and not at all polite, except in an ostentatiously satirical way.
Nevertheless the place itself, crowded with american and chinese and japanese tourists who have long outnumbered the pink, impoverished Britons, is such an incredible architectural riot, so redolent of all sorts of historical Scheiss (I abbreviate here), that if your wallet and cold British stare can stand it is completely unmissable.
A lot of ifs though, and in these accelerating times probably worse and dearer than it was when I went there. Wouldn't have missed it for the world. Food good too.
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"Venice has been a tourist trap "
My wife and I drove down there in summer '79 in our company, signal-orange Ford Escort estate; in those days, we could actually cross the bridge and find a parking space. A friend of our German friends had a sort of flat/bedsit down there and she gave us the keys. The most memorable thing about the flat was the pathetic few volts that managed to find their way down the electric wires. We couldn't both heat a tin of beans on the electric ring and warm water in the kettle for a coffee at the same time - the cooking/eating process for the simplest of meals took absolutely ages.
But, to a young couple (my wife was pregnant with our first child) - there can be few things as romantic as Venice on a quiet evening when the tourists have left, or very early in the morning before they return.
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>> But, to a young couple (my wife was pregnant with our first child) - there
>> can be few things as romantic as Venice on a quiet evening when the tourists
>> have left, or very early in the morning before they return.
I have walked the back routes of Venice on a foggy November night. Nothing is quite as atmospheric, and spooky as that.
Also arrived there by train. Stepping off a Trenitalia Frecciargento at Stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia straight onto a Vaporetto, and down the Grand Canal has to be one of the worlds great travel experiences.
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"I have walked the back routes of Venice on a foggy November night. Nothing is quite as atmospheric, and spooky as that. "
I can imagine; you can feel the history.
It is a fabulous place - you just have to choose your time to go. My late mother-in law went on a hot crowded day in July and all we could get from her was that 'it smelled bad'.
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My first (and I think, my only) visit was in July 1965 and the smell was so bad that I think we retreated pretty quickly. Been my reason for not revisiting since, although I guess they may have improved the sewage system since then :)
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"The poor sods were eating bread rolls with knives and forks as we left."
Ah - that must be the French getting their revenge on the Chinese! Back in January '98, a couple of us from marketing (I had just moved from technical) were invited to join the French division accompanying about 3 dozen customers for a long weekend's jolly in Beijing.
The outline details arrived in French and I remember reading something like 'tous les repas sont mange avec baguettes'. So, I thought that was considerate of the Chinese to provide the party with French bread at every meal ..... only to discover that baguettes was a translation for chop-sticks.
Apart from the very reasonable breakfasts provided by the Sheraton Great Wall hotel, all the meals were eaten out. They were mostly variations on gristle - sweet and sour gristle, crispy gristle, gristle and mushrooms etc - and the French tried their best to suffer this with (surprisingly) good humour. By the time we went home, the poor French chaps were not only a stone or so lighter, but were also suffering repetitive strain injuries from all the chopstick twiddling.
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I first visited Venice as a child, staying at Lido di Jesolo with my parents on a beach holiday. Have since returned at various times of year, flying cheapo Jet2 out of Leeds to Marco Polo, then Alilaguna Bleu line to Giudeca via Murano. An amazing way to arrive in an amazing city. And Giudeca is just a short hop skip & jump away from the main island, well served by public water taxi. I love the place...a perfect few days away from reality.
Thank you Priceline for dirt cheap accommodation at the Molino Hilton Stuky. Sadly room only. We couldn't afford to 'eat in'.
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Anyone fancy a luxury holiday? - neiltoo
