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Advantages: A five-star stay? Disadvantages: ?with just three-star facilities
simplicity often trumps ritzy ostentation. Attentive service matters, but nothing is nastier than the kind of smarmy obsequiousness that always seems to mask a sneer. And so on. Maybe it's simply down to that indefinable essence known as character or personality.
These inconsequential musings are prompted by my trying to pinpoint what it was about the Casa San Blas at Cusco that I liked so much. The hotel is certainly not without its limitations and even its failings, but it's a nevertheless a charming and delightful place to stay. Let's try to summarise what it has to offer.
* Location *
The Casa San Blas is situated just a few minutes' walk from Cusco's Plaza de Armas (central square), and is therefore convenient for all the main sights of the ancient Inca capital, such as the Qorikancha (Sun Temple), the Cathedral ...
Advantages: One of the best examples of Catalan Modernism Disadvantages: Very expensive
My husband has a job, which more often than not requires him to work on Christmas day and through most of the Christmas period. Whilst this is the perfect reason to turn down all invitations to spend Christmas with family, it's not the greatest way to celebrate the big day with a 14 hour shift. So last Christmas I decided that we'd have our very own Christmas but just a few days before the rest of the world. And so I booked a long weekend in Barcelona.
Our hotel - The Gallery (review already posted many moons ago) was just off the Passeig de Gracia, one of Barcelona's key boulevards where you can find my favourite of the buildings designed by Antonio Gaudi - the almost impossible to pronounce, Casa Batllo. Earlier in the year I had attended a big industry conference in Barcelona and we'd had the conference 'gala' dinner in the Casa ...
Advantages: Beautiful scenery, very friendly people and whales Disadvantages: Not really a beach island.
We've been twice, both times were via Cruise Ships, and late in the year. These were not big, fancy ships, just average Joe UK ones.
Dominica is a beautiful, lush, green, uncommercialised island that the locals should be very proud of. The locals themselves are very friendly and polite.
On our first visit we braved the enslaught of taxi drivers that rush to greet Cruise passengers. You just say where you want to visit and they tell you their price. We got together a small minivan (approx 10 passengers) to go to the Falls.
Our taxi driver was a young man who rented the vehicle. He took us up the very windy roads, stopping frequently to either point out things like pineapples growing by the roadside or local houses to explain their way of life or at a roadside shack so we could buy a cool drink. He spoke to us all the time ...
