Three times a lady?
Desperate Housewives minx Eva Longoria and basketball champ Tony Parker wed at
the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, near Paris, today after holding their hen
and stag parties in St Tropez. They started their week of French
fabulousness staying at the Château de la Messardière (00 33 494 56 76 00, www.messardiere.com),
where doubles start at £325 a night, and partied at the wonderfully kitsch
Caves du Roy and the VIP Room. Vaux-le-Vicomte is closing its grounds to the
public for the first time, and Parker has booked Lionel Richie and Jamie
Foxx to perform at the ceremony. Find your own château hideaway through
www.thebigdomain.com.
Jewish guide
Jewish Heritage Travel by Ruth Ellen Gruber (National Geographic, £12.99) is
an updated guide to hundreds of synagogues, cemeteries, Jewish quarters,
museums and other sites across Eastern Europe. It’s also the only Jewish
guidebook to the region that covers tiny villages and hamlets as well as
major cities.
Wild about Harry
Harry Potter fans who can’t be bothered to get on their broomsticks and fly to
a bookshop at midnight on July 20 can settle down in their PJs and have the
latest tome delivered via room service by 1am if they’re staying at the
Alton Towers Hotel (08704 585146, www.altontowers.com).
Prices start at £41.25pp a night, based on four sharing a family room. The
book is included.
Ace of spades
Buckets and spades are an essential part of family holiday kit, but a
nightmare to pack. To save buying new ones each year, the Scrunch range of
collapsible silicon buckets has added the diminutive Scrunch Digger, in
blue, green, orange and yellow, for £3.95 each. Available from Smarter
Products (www.smarterproducts.co.uk).
Go west
If you are heading to the west of Ireland for the summer festivals and races,
stop off in Galway City for a pint of blarney at the storytelling evenings
in the Cottage Bar, Lower Salthill. Two-hour Celtic tales sessions take
place every Monday and Wednesday at 8pm, tickets £6.76 (10 euros). Details:
00 353 85 7247215.
Gym rats?
Male fitness freaks will be able to join members of a women-only gym for
“health breaks” this summer on Lefkas, a Greek island in the Ionian Sea.
Healthy Options, a tour operator that offers “wellbeing holiday experts” on
trips, has teamed up with Sequinpark, a women-only London gym, to sell
week-long exercise breaks.
Activities will include yoga, “herbal walks” (during which “you are shown what
herbs grow naturally and told how they are good for you”), cycling, massage,
nutrition and “vitality” advice, and aqua-safaris at an hotel near Vassiliki
Bay. Breaks start at £549pp. Details: 0844 4992909, www.healthy-option.co.uk.
And they’re off...
Murray Walker, the motor-racing commentator, says that people watching the
British Grand Prix live at Silverstone tomorrow should wear ear plugs “at
the very least” or risk permanent hearing damage.
Walker says that fans – many of whom follow Lewis Hamilton, the new
British superstar, around the world – should wear “ear defenders”,
head-phone-style devices sold at tracks. Details: British Grand Prix (www.silverstone.co.uk).
News in brief
Wizz to Wroclaw
Wizz Air will fly from Luton and Doncaster/ Sheffield to Wroclaw in Poland
starting next February from £40 return. Details: www.wizzair.com.
Voodoo for you
Holidays to see “voodoo villages” and “fetish markets” in Togo and Benin are
being offered by the tour operator Explore. Details: 0870 3334001, www.explore.co.uk.
Hot air
The debating website www.spiked-online.com
has a “Hot Air Calculator” on which people can register their distaste for
“miserabilist, miserly and curmudgeonly” antiflying groups.
Snap happy
The winner of this year’s Travel Photographer of the Year competition will
receive a £2,500 bursary and have the chance to spend two days photographing
the Dalai Lama in northern India; entries close on October 3. Details:
www.tpoty.com.
Web of the week
www.ferrygreen.com
Planning to travel by sea to avoid airport hassle? Go green and book through
this site, which claims to be the only ferry ticket agency in the UK to
offer carbon-neutral travel with all major ferry operators. Carbon emissions
can be offset by planting a tree, supporting energy efficiency or investing
in the European Union emission-trading scheme.
