I just love these two articles showing two completely different sides to Sardinia so I thought I'd share them with you
WHEN Patrick Behr heard that Sardinia’s famously decadent Billionaire nightclub would be hosting its annual opening gala during the last weekend in June, he decided it would be the perfect occasion to discover the night life in the island’s chic northeast corner, better known as the Costa Smeralda, or Emerald Coast.
So Mr. Behr, a world traveler who lives in Frankfurt, booked a table and was soon shooting off to the Mediterranean resort with a friend in tow. Around him, Billionaire was living up to its bombastic name. Italian television stars and soccer gods strode over Oriental carpets to chat with European TV crews. The club’s white-haired owner, Flavio Briatore, reclined like a sultan amid bottles from the club’s Champagne list, which featured a methuselah (a mere six liters) of Cristal for 35,000 euros. Periodically Mr. Briatore, a 50-something Formula One mogul, arose to greet club visitors, who last year included Denzel Washington, Lenny Kravitz and Bruce Willis...
See http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/travel/17Next.html?pagewanted=1&sq=sardinia&st=cse&scp=3 for the full article
To know Sardinia intimately, residents say, you must visit the interior of the island. Only tourists cling to the coast, along with pirates and conquerors and other sailors of blemished repute. If you are in quest of the Sardinian spirit, you must go where the earth turns brown and dry, the cork oak raises its battered silhouette against the horizon, and the winds whistle across the hills. There is something mildly forbidding -- though infinitely compelling -- about the interior of Sardinia. Seasoned travelers, even seasoned Italian travelers, still mention the legendary banditi, for example. Although many Sardinians dismiss them as antique and absurd, others will warn you in a low voice that if you are very rich, or display a high profile, you might want to use a little prudenza in your demeanor and dress.
The most striking thing about the interior is its emptiness: well-paved, vacant roads; small, provincial museums with only a handful of visitors to disturb the dust; tiny towns whose slumber is heavy and unbroken until market day or on Sundays, when bells summon everyone to church...
See http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E7DA1130F935A15754C0A96E958260&scp=6&sq=sardinia&st=cse for the full article
Saturday, 24 January 2009
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Sardinia Holiday Concierge website
Come and check out our website at http://www.sardiniaholidayconcierge.com
What is a Travel Concierge?
Since I set up the Sardinia Holiday Concierge, people keep coming back to me saying "that sounds like an amazing idea... but what exactly is a travel concierge?". For all of you out there who are unfamiliar with the term, I hope you find this helpful...
With package holidays rapidly becoming a dull, uninspiring option for the modern traveller looking for a more personal, tailor-made holiday we have all become very good at researching our chosen destination online, in guide books and through recommendations from friends. Armed with this information collected after hours of reading, surfing and conversations we then go on to select our destination, accommodation, restaurants and activities, but how many times have you found that the hotel with the 5-star rating was shabby and disappointing? How many times has the restaurant with a fantastic write-up failed to deliver? How many times has your day of sight-seeing been a wash-out as the guide book you used to plan it was out of date or out of touch?
A Holiday Concierge will save you many hours of phone calls and emails by taking over making all of your hotel, restaurant and activity bookings for you, so you never again have the frustration of spending a fortune on an international phone call trying to communicate with the owner of a guest house whose English is basic to say the least.
A good Holiday Concierge will live in your selected destination, be impossibly well connected and will have up-to-date information on where’s hot, where’s not and which amenities have opened or closed down since that last edition of your guide book was published. This means that they can make suggestions and dispense advice on all aspects of your holiday, often coming up with ideas off the beaten track, so making your holiday even more special and personal.
What is more, whilst bookings for the best tables in restaurants, requests for fresh orchids in your room or private viewings at art galleries have habitually been seen as holiday demands reserved for diva-esque pop stars, a travel concierge will be able to go that extra mile for you, giving you a VIP tailor-made holiday on an affordable budget. Don’t be afraid to ask if you have any special requirements at all... no matter how silly your request might seem, no task is too big or too small for a good travel concierge.
You could compare a holiday concierge with a personal assistant, on hand (often 24 hours a day) to take care of bookings, arrangements and those priceless extras for you. Leave the mundane and often frustrating task of sourcing suppliers and making plans to them so you can sit back, relax and indulge yourself in simply enjoying the best holiday you have ever experienced
Although a concierge is often seen as an expensive luxury, it is no longer just the rich and famous paying for such services, busy professionals and parents with young families are starting to use them too and prices are often startlingly reasonable.
So, it appears the question is no longer “what can my holiday concierge do for me?” but “what would I do without my holiday concierge”
With package holidays rapidly becoming a dull, uninspiring option for the modern traveller looking for a more personal, tailor-made holiday we have all become very good at researching our chosen destination online, in guide books and through recommendations from friends. Armed with this information collected after hours of reading, surfing and conversations we then go on to select our destination, accommodation, restaurants and activities, but how many times have you found that the hotel with the 5-star rating was shabby and disappointing? How many times has the restaurant with a fantastic write-up failed to deliver? How many times has your day of sight-seeing been a wash-out as the guide book you used to plan it was out of date or out of touch?
A Holiday Concierge will save you many hours of phone calls and emails by taking over making all of your hotel, restaurant and activity bookings for you, so you never again have the frustration of spending a fortune on an international phone call trying to communicate with the owner of a guest house whose English is basic to say the least.
A good Holiday Concierge will live in your selected destination, be impossibly well connected and will have up-to-date information on where’s hot, where’s not and which amenities have opened or closed down since that last edition of your guide book was published. This means that they can make suggestions and dispense advice on all aspects of your holiday, often coming up with ideas off the beaten track, so making your holiday even more special and personal.
What is more, whilst bookings for the best tables in restaurants, requests for fresh orchids in your room or private viewings at art galleries have habitually been seen as holiday demands reserved for diva-esque pop stars, a travel concierge will be able to go that extra mile for you, giving you a VIP tailor-made holiday on an affordable budget. Don’t be afraid to ask if you have any special requirements at all... no matter how silly your request might seem, no task is too big or too small for a good travel concierge.
You could compare a holiday concierge with a personal assistant, on hand (often 24 hours a day) to take care of bookings, arrangements and those priceless extras for you. Leave the mundane and often frustrating task of sourcing suppliers and making plans to them so you can sit back, relax and indulge yourself in simply enjoying the best holiday you have ever experienced
Although a concierge is often seen as an expensive luxury, it is no longer just the rich and famous paying for such services, busy professionals and parents with young families are starting to use them too and prices are often startlingly reasonable.
So, it appears the question is no longer “what can my holiday concierge do for me?” but “what would I do without my holiday concierge”
Sardinia Holiday Concierge
Welcome to the Sardinia Holiday Concierge blog. Our aim is to make the beautiful island of Sardinia more easily accessible to those who want to visit, so please feel free to post any hints or tips you may have...
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