Archive for the ‘balearics’ Category
Package holidays?
It is absolutely freezing today, and on my way to the underground this morning I caught sight of a giant ad on the side of a bus for FlyGlobeSpan flights to Ibiza for £59.99, and found myself momentarily wishing that I had booked some sort of winter sun instead of flying off for xmas to somewhere that will be even colder than here.
Obviously Budapest is going to be awesome (as soon as I get some elbow-length fingerless gloves to wear under my sheepskin mittens, that is), and anyway, I’ve got no leave left until April, which means a winter sun holiday is pretty much off the cards, but as ever, just the thought of it had me googling. There are some amazing last-minute cheap deals on sites like beachdeals, and I’m particularly impressed by the cancellations hotline, which offers five-night breaks from Glasgow to places like Tenerife and Fuerteventura from as low as £116. The idea of a package holiday still fills me with a vague horror, of course, but when they’re that cheap, you can’t help thinking that it might be worth it for the sake of the flight and the all-inclusive accommodation, as long as one had the opportunity to strike out from the resort and explore a bit.
There was a recent article in – I think – the observer about Lanzarote, and how it has much more to offer than cheap accommodation, beaches, and restaurants selling egg and chips, like Timanfaya National Park, or the Castillo de San Gabriel. The same could be said for Tenerife and its mysterious black pyramids, while Fuerteventura is apparently the least discovered of the Canary Islands (which I would dispute; who’s heard of La Gomera, after all?).
The Balearics are similar, I think: Mallorca has a whole load of historical sites in addition to its beaches, and Ibiza claims to have good birdwatching and natural attractions, beyond the nightlife for which it’s most famous (in the UK, at least). The Islas Travel Guide seems to offer a pretty comprehensive and unbiased list of attractions for Lanzarote, Tenerife, Mallorca and Menorca.
But from the point of view of using a package holiday as a jumping off point for further exploration, it’s probably Cyprus that I’m most interested in: seven days in Paphos (from Glasgow) on a package holiday cost around £250, and there seem to be enough classical sites dotted about to keep me amused. Something to keep in mind for next winter, perhaps…
