Advantages: Close to The Beach
Disadvantages: The Rooms in the Original Building are Quite Dated

...The Choice... My passion for browsing holiday brochures on cold dismal nights continued, the hubby fancied the Cyclades- a group of Greek Islands scattered across the Aegean sea of Greece - for a change from our usual choices of Crete, and Kos etc.- and as ever it was left to me to choose the appropriate dwelling for our two weeks.away. I decided on Naxos, only accessible by ferry via a chartered flight to Mykonos (if partaking in a package), the largest Island in the Cyclades.. The week before Christmas of 2004 I booked and paid a small deposit of £90 to Kosmar - a Greek holiday specialist in the UK - the balance of £600 was due the following June - plenty of time to save. The hubby wanted to book flights and accommodation separately but I like the security of a package holiday! The Outbound Journey We leave Brum... Read review

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Advantages: Very warm welcome, great historic house, superb gardens
Disadvantages: Limited admission times to the house

...If you visit The Lake District / Cumbria, I strongly recommend that you go and visit one of my favorite attractions in the area which is Mirehouse Historic House & Gardens. Mirehouse is located on the A591 about 3.5 miles north of Keswick. You'll find some breathtaking scenery there. When you leave your car at the car park, you can either start having a walk in the forest nearby or just cross the street and enter into the large gardens surrounding the house. Our children certainly enjoyed the adventure playgrounds and the nature notes that you can find there, but you will also see a walled honey garden (The Bee Garden, created in 1780), a collection of different shrubs, meadows of wildflowers etc. Take a walk at the lakeside (yes, there is quite a pretty lake close to the house - Bassenthwaite Lake) and enjoy the impression... Read review

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Advantages: Invaluable for anyone owning or restoring a historic Lotus car. Excellent quarterly magazine. Modest subscription.
Disadvantages: Not enough colour in magazine. Few events for overseas members.

...I first joined the club in 1999 and was impressed by the high standard of the club's magazine "Historic Lotus". The club is a "must" for anyone with a historic Lotus car, particularly if it needs to be restored, as there is a wealth of experience amongst the members about who to go to for help, parts, materials and know-how, It is also a rewarding source of information on the early days of the Lotus company, and many of the pioneers are members of the club and contribute their memory of events. The club does not organise its own competitive events, but being affiliated to the Motor Sports Asoociation (MSA) it is often invited to track days and other events. The club magazine now appears quarterly, and the modest subscription of £20 for UK residents and £25 for overseas members has not changed for the last five years. Each... Read review

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Advantages: Classical music collecting on a budget using NAXOS
Disadvantages: no other record label reviewed

...Classical music – how to buy on a budget? This genre is a huge universe of material dating back at least 500 years. It is intimidating to contemplate starting a collection, even for some classical music lovers, due to the sheer size of the repertory, or repertoire, if you prefer. Moreover, the classical repertory is subdivided by composer, era, style of music (mediaeval, romantic, baroque, etc), region, types of instruments (and voice), size of ensemble (from solo to symphony), etc. In this op I will try to lower the intimidation factor to build a collection; part of which includes the fine NAXOS record label. Recommended reading: Jaxle’s op on “Classical Music and Young People” (30.01.2003) which makes a very good case for exploring the classical genre. How to get started in classical music? Start... Read review

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Advantages: excellent food, cheap, golden sandy beaches
Disadvantages: outside of Naxos town there is very little nightlife

...Having booked a week's holiday in Santorini and being extremely disappointed (dirty, very touristy and way overpriced!) a friend and I decided to escape to Naxos. The journey was quick (2 hours by ferry) and Naxos was almost the complete opposite of Santorini. We travelled in early October, but whilst the winds of Santorini were raging, the sun beat down on Naxos' beautiful (and completely deserted!) white and golden sands. We found accomodation by walking across Naxos town towards Agios Georgios Beach. We found the Galaxy Hotel after 10 minutes walking near the beach (there's a link to this hotel on www.naxos-greece.biz). As it was almost completely empty, they let us have a beautiful room overlooking the pool for 50 euros a night (30 quid!). This included an ample buffet breakfast, which included honey and yoghurt that we couldn... Read review

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Advantages: Good Restaurant, Excellent Staff
Disadvantages: A bit far from the resort centre

...Our recent honeymoon saw us visiting Sicily for the first time, looking for a hotel somewhere that you've never been before is quite disconcerting. You have to rely on reviews, star ratings and photo's found around the Internet. On a trawl through Expedia I came across the Sant Alphio Garden Hotel, a four star hotel in the resort of Giardini-Naxos. Looking at a map I noticed that the resort wasn't that far from Catania, where we were flying into and was close to other areas that we had thought we might like to visit, The photo's all looked quite nice too and the hotel itself looked clean and spacious. As an added plus the hotel also has an indoor spa and pool in addition to an outside pool, which I imagine would be delightful in the summer although at the beginning of March it looked a little too cold to venture into, not even... Read review

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Advantages: Good location, nice breakfast
Disadvantages: Small hotel- though this is necessary a bad thing

.... The rooms were pretty big with en-suite bathroom, private balcony offering a great view of the bay, tv, phone, and air conditioning and heating system which the guests can control. The room was very clean, as was the bathroom. There was plenty of drawers and a big cupboard for storage of clothes- something i found very useful. Price of rooms range from about £30-£80 a night. Overall I would definetly recommend Hotel Palladio for anyone looking for a reasonably priced 3 star hotel in Giardini Naxos.... Read review

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Advantages: Thoughtful, scholarly
Disadvantages: A bit polemical in the beginning

...not object to using the word in connection with the Jesus Seminar, a ‘village’ as it were of historical Jesus research quackery, in Johnson's estimation. Johnson finds the Jesus Seminar lacking in integrity in both method and conclusion -- he finds irritating ‘its indulgence in cute and casual discourse’. (p. 15) He finds their hunger for media exposure damaging to the overall enterprise of scholarship, and is deeply distrustful of the intention of their research and conclusions. The manner of determining historicity (the use of a coloured-ball voting mechanism, etc.), the exaggeration of prominence of the group of scholars who comprise the Jesus Seminar (a small amount given the large number of scholars in the world), and the tendency to depart from the stated purposes of finding an historical Jesus without theological taint and bias make... Read review

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Advantages: Good survey
Disadvantages: Could use a bit more development in some areas

...Graham Twelftree looks in this text at a sometimes problematic aspect of scripture – the miracles of Jesus. In our modern, scientific, rational world (or, at least this is the view of the world most seem to want to ascribe to the present day), there are distinct problems with the miraculous – did they really happen the way they are recorded? Were they intended as metaphoric stories? Do miracles still happen today? If not, why not? If so, how do we determine what is a miracle and what isn't, and why they sometimes happen and other times don't? Twelftree's book looks at the miracles of Jesus from several standpoints, primarily concentrating on the historical and the theological. Twelftree draws attention to the high percentage of space given to miracles in the canonical gospels, and contrasts this with some modern reporting... Read review

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Advantages: Suitable for all the family. Very interesting.
Disadvantages: Can be pricey and can't be done all in one day.

...If you want a fun day out that is suitable for everyone then I must suggest Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. There is plenty to do and its not possible to do it all in one day. However, saying that you can purchase an all inclusive ticket (passport). This allows you to visit all three ships and the various other attractions. This is currently £15.50 for an adult and £12.50 for a senior citizen and children. It sounds expensive but it works out much cheaper than paying for the attractions separately. The good news with this ticket is that it has an unlimited time period on it so you can always return at a later date. One thing to bear in mind is you can only visit each attraction once. There is also a season ticket, which allows you unlimited access to all the attractions for 2 years (this is £28 for adults). These are both the better... Read review

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