Races are not just about the horses or the betting and when a big race comes to town so do a lot of other great things to do in the area. The Cheltenham Gold Cup is no exception and Cheltenham makes sure that there is no disappointment if you come to the races looking for entertainment. If you are a lady and really have no interest in the races there is no problem in going with your boyfriend still, or even just going with a group of girl friends as you will not be disappointed by the shopping or the concerts. If you go on Ladies Day you could even find yourself entered into the fashion contest without even knowing it. There are several categories that you can be entered into and all it takes is showing up that day in your favorite outfit.

There is also a lot of shopping to be done here and it’s not all for the racing enthusiast although you can pick up some nicnacks for those you know who like racing as well. Every year a large number of companies come together and show their wares at this race knowing that it is also a good shopping weekend with so many people in town to see the races in person. From distinctive silver and gold jewelery from Argent of London (http://www.argentlondon.com/) and bronze sculptures by Belinda Sillars, to British knitware from Woolovers and Turtle Dirt trapping mats there is a little bit of everything at this site.

There are also a lot of restaurants to go to in the area and you wouldn’t be able to eat at all of them even if you stayed through all four days of the races. Inside the stadium there are great places to watch the races, enjoy entertaining bands and get some great food such as the Panoramic Restaurant with, as I’m sure you can guess, a panoramic view of the the track. There is also the Gold Cup restaurant and a number of others. These places are nice when the race is out of season, but when it is a race day they are packed, so you may want to look into if there is another restaurant that fits your needs somewhere else nearby before heading in.

We visited my cousin, Yezmin, in San Francisco. While we stayed with her, we all decided to take a trip to Napa and do some wine-tasting in Napa Valley. It’s only about 3 1/2 hours from where my cousin lived and we all remember having a great time a few years back, when Yezmin came to visit us in France, and we all went wine-tasting back then. It was my husbands birthday, so we celebrated it with a full day of wineries; it was unforgettable, especially when Yezmin and this stranger totally hit it off.

But, this wine-tasting experience was very different. The road took us along Northern California’s rugged coastline, taking us past craggy clifftops, lonely lagoons and exclusive beaches. We turned East (inland), which took us through very lush valleys full of grapevines and olive trees that were in stark contrast of the bright blue sky. We felt like we were in paradise. We knew there would be no way to do all the wine-tasting in one day, so Yezmin pulled up the Internet on her Iphone and found us a nice place to stay and booked a room for the three of us in the town of Napa.

After we found the hotel and checked in, which was great by-the-way! I mean, just how easy it was for us to book a room from a phone; today’s technology is astonishing! We immediately went out to start our wine-tasting fest. Our first stop served a tasty antipasto and a cheese platter with the wine we tasted. We already knew how to taste wine, but the couple next to us didn’t, so the tour guide explained to them about how to raise the glass to the light to test the wines clarity, then shove their noses deep into the glass to smell the aromas, then swirl it around and finally taste the wine for flavor, sweetness, ripeness and bite. But, what I really appreciated from this tour guide was she told us how to come up with some really exotic words for our taste experience. She let us create several comments, like ‘this wine has a pizazz of infused oak flavour’, or ‘Succulent, yet not overstimulating’! We all had so much fun making up random sounding names .

We visited about 7 wineries during our two days in Napa, but we all agreed, that first winery was the best, because they let us know how to have fun with wine-tasting instead of acting all pompous.

After my father retired, genealogy became one of his primary occupations, and while much of his time was spent online searching through the newly accessible information on the latest technology known as the Internet, he would also travel to different areas of the country to explore cemeteries for clues to lost relatives, or simply to find the final resting place of his (and my) direct ancestors.  He managed to trace the family as far back as 1680, arriving in America just before the 17th Century ended.  That meant I had great great great great, (etcetera) grandparents who were involved with the American Revolution and the Civil War. Just twenty miles outside of Atlanta, Georgia, the town of Marietta is home to at least four historic sites of interest to the Civil War, including one park and three cemeteries: The Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, the Marietta National Cemetery, the Marietta Confederate Cemetery, and the Marietta City Cemetery.

To examine all these sites properly, you may want to stay the night.  You can find more information by clicking here, where you’ll find two of the best places to stay in town.  Once that’s settled, you can concentrate more on the sites.  The Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park was where the Union Army met the Confederates who were settled in on the mountain ridgetops.  They delayed General William T. Sherman’s inevitable March to the Sea and the burning of Atlanta in what is now a 2,888 acre park.  In the Marietta National Cemetery, you’ll find a site created in 1866.  Four years earlier, with the Civil War death toll rising, national cemeteries were proposed.  This cemetery holds both Union and Confederate soldiers; the cemetery contains over 17,000 men, of which 3,000 are unidentified.

There’s also the Marietta Confederate Cemetery, which contains over 3,000 soldiers.  A woman named Jane Porter Glover gave a part of her plantation to bury twenty Confederate soldiers killed in a train crash.  From that incident, the cemetery grew and there’s soldiers represented from all of the Confederate States and also from Missouri and Maryland and Kentucky.  It’s the biggest Confederate Cemetery found to the South of Richmond.  Many of these soldiers fought in the Kennesaw Mountain battle as well as the Battle of Kolb’s Farm.  Finally, there’s the  Marietta City Cemetery.  The history of Marietta is contained on this land, honoring the former mayors and prominent town citizens.  Established in 1830s, a part of the cemetery contains the Old Slave Lot; no other cemetery in the state of Georgia gave space to burying slaves or free people descended from Africa.  No matter which site you visit, some or all will provide a greater sense of history and a glimpse into the lives of our ancestors.

Well you have booked that room at one of the New York hotels www.nyhotels.net and now you want to see a show or two. There are so many playing which ones should you see first? All the biggies are booked way in advance so if you didn’t get your tickets a while ago you will either pay extra for them now or not be able to get them at all. So what else is playing? Looped is playing and it is looks like a great comedy. It is about a Hollywood bad girl actress, Tallulah Bankhead, who causes all sorts of craziness while recording a looped line of dialogue for her last film. Critics seem to like it.

If you like shows with a message than you may be interested in Memphis by Joe Dipietro and music by David Bryan of Bon Jovi. It is about a white DJ and a black singer in a 1950s dance club of Memphis Tennessee who are fighting back the prejudices of the times while they are trying to bring rock n roll to the world. They are pushing a time in American history when black people and white people were not allowed to mingle. It is hard to play music for mixed audiences and it is hard to fallow a love in a mixed relationship.

If it is good enough for London’s Royal Court than it is good enough for Broadway. The Seagull has shining stars such as Kristin Scott Thomas who also played in the movie English Patient and Peter Sarsgaard who played in Jarhead. The story is set on a Russian estate with a classic love entanglements that happen between a group of writers, artists and actors. Should satisfy the need for drama in ones life.

People do love their pets, and vice versa.  They both have each other trained so well that there is an unmistakable bond between the owner and the dog, and there are stories that are heartbreaking about these relationships.  There are many stories about how, when a dog is lost, and wandering the city for days, they sometimes find their way back home.  When the dog is coming home, it’s not unusual for the owner to go outside and wait on the sidewalk, as if they knew the dog was coming.  There is a sixth or seventh sense that enters into the relationship between people and animals, and it’s easy to observe on the streets of New York.  It can be difficult to find a hotel for dogs in the city, but there are plenty of places to stay where the luxury is high, affording a splendid time here while you observe human and dog behavior.

The way humans interact with their dogs here is a fantastic thing to see, offering a view of the spectrum of animal behavior, where primal attachments can be very high, and sometimes a bit neurotic, perhaps.  At the same time, New York dogs are some of the finest in the world, having to adjust their senses for the overpowering stimulation.  Not only is the city noisier than most places on earth, it is also one of constant olfactory bombardment.  Dogs depend on their sense of smell to provide clues for their very survival, along with what they perceive as the survival of their human friends.

Some cities are much more dog friendly than others.  Los Angeles has a pet culture that is very developed, and they also have more natural places where the dogs can run free.  The owners can run freer there as well, and this makes life easier for everyone who lives in the house or apartment.  Berlin is probably one of the best cities in the world for dog life, and it’s also reputed to be good for people looking to do creative things for less money.  In all these spaces, we can find the spectrum of behaviors, including medically altered physical structures, for people as well as dogs, but for now we seem to still understand each other well enough as we are.

Look here for a great room at an Annapolis hotel. There are some really nice and quaint places to stay. When you finally get here get out and explore the area with a start on the Annapolis City Dock. This is the heart of the town and it holds many of the original old buildings from when the town started in the 18th century. There has been few changes to the harbor over the hundreds of years and you will feel like you are in another time when you spend time here. There are many boats to check out and even some harbor tours that you can catch. This is where they have many festivities that change with the season. It is fun at Christmas time to come by at night and see the boats all lit up with lights. There is a historical monument on the dock for Kunta Kinte Alex Haley who was sold into slavery from this dock. You can see his story in the movie Roots.

The Historic Annapolis Foundation is another place to get the history of the town and the people who have lived here. You could get a tour guide dressed up in colonial style to take you along the dock and fill in the history for you. They have many tours for you to take both as a self guided with audio or an in person guide. They can see to it that you have a chance to tour the United States Navel Academy, see all the historical homes and buildings and even get you a ride on a horse drawn carriage to give it an even more timely experience. Some of the home tours offered include the William Paca House and Garden and the Hammond Harwood House. Both are well restored and have interesting information on the families that lived in them.

One of the many brilliant things about the city of Chicago is the live theater.  From the larger venues such as the Steppenwolf Theater or the Chicago Theater, to the smaller venues, you can find a wonderful live show playing every night of the week.  No matter where you book hotel accommodations in the city, one thing is certain, and that is that you will never be far away from one theater or another, and whether it is Improv comedy or dramatic plays, Chicago actors will serve you with one of the best performances you have ever experienced.

The longest running show in the city is called “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind”.  This was first performed in 1988, and has been running non stop since then.  The concept of the show is awesome, and many people go time and time again, as each night the show is different.  The show runs for an hour, and the goal of the company is to do 30 two minute short plays in that hour.  Each of the two minute scenes are written and rehearsed by the company, and depending who is performing that night, and whether or not there are new works in the repertoire…that all goes into consideration when they decide on the scenes that they will be doing.  Some of the scenes will be comedic, others dramatic, some political and some experimental.

However all of them illustrate the personal lives and stories of the each of the company members.  Holiday themed shows are produced around Christmas and Halloween as well as themed shows for various events taking place in the city at any given time.  While they do allow children into their performances, they must be accompanied by an adult, but they make everyone aware that there is no censorship on their stage.  They only take cash, and the do not take reservations, so anyone wanting to be certain of getting into the show, must show up early and be prepared to wait…but once you experience this company, you will realize, that they are well worth that wait.

You know, I always thought that certain symbolic aspects of various cities or more accurately some of the cultural stereotypes or maybe even city legends is the best way to phrase it, anyway I always thought they were just that, legends or myths. You know what I mean, like New York being a city that never sleeps or San Francisco being the city by the bay, okay well that one should be taken literally. But like London fog, well that’s really pollution, you know? So all of these legendary associations I just sort of thought were actual legends. But what I discovered recently completely blows the lid on all those earlier assumptions. And I apologize to any competing cities, but Philadelphia really does have the best cheese steak sandwiches in the world.

The manner in which I came to this realization is sort of classified. By me that is, I can’t actually reveal why I was there, but I was and I have my Philadelphia hotel receipt to prove it. What I can tell you about the trip is that before I took it a good friend of mine, actually a few, told me to be sure and have a cheese steak sandwich while I’m there. I sort of laughed, or rather shrugged, off their requests, but when I was there I discovered I actually was hungry for a cheese steak sandwich, after having smelled them for two straight days. So, I decided to perform my own experiment and I went about trying all of the sandwiches I could from all of the different venues.

In total I had over twenty cheese steak sandwiches in six days. That’s not a huge amount I know, but it was enough to convince me that Philadelphia is definitely the sandwich’s capital. Some of the best ones I remember I had at places like Pat’s King of Steaks and Jake’s. But hands down my favorite came from a place in South Philly called Geno’s Steaks. And lucky for me they are open twenty-four hours a day. Ooops, hang on I need to take this call. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it. She said yes. Stacey is going to marry me. So my reason for being in Philadelphia is no longer classified, I was afraid I would jinx it before, and it looks like there are more cheese steaks in my future.

For centuries, the island of Phuket was a stop on a trade route, where merchants and travelers from all over the world made stops, however the nature and the hospitality of the locals, and the wealth and beauty of the natural world, had those travelers and merchants stop permanently.  Therefore the cultural mix of foreigners over the many years, has given the island the cultural diversity that exists there today.  Early immigrants were as diverse as Buddhists, Malaysian Muslims, Traders from the Arab countries, Chinese, Sea Gypsies, Indians and all the countries of Europe.

The geography of the island is equally diverse, from some of the most beautiful beaches of Thailand, to the dense jungles and mountains.  Tours are available, in all manner of travel.  To find a hotel to suit your desired location on the island, go to www.phuketbeachresorts.com, where you will find exactly what you are looking for.  One of the most famous locations for touring, is the bay of Phang Nga.  Here you will experience the island from the water, aboard the eco-friendly transportation of the kayak.  This is a peaceful get-away, one that will take you past some of the most wondrous elements of the natural world, through caves and karsts of limestone, you can experience either in the day time tours or the night time star light tours.

For others it is an elephant trek through the mountains and the jungles of the island that provides them the adventure they are seeking.  Although for some, a long ride atop an elephant can prove to be a bit uncomfortable, so there are many guided hikes, either walking tours or jeep safaris which will lead you deep into the heart of the jungle and all of the wonders to be found there.  While there is much to see in the city itself, it is always refreshing to get out into the nature of an island that is so rich with natural beauty, and in Phuket, it is one of the best ways to fully embrace the island experience.

Corey couldn’t make up his mind over what he wanted to do first. He agreed to travel with his mom on a business trip to Washington DC, and normally he resisted going with her because there usually wasn’t anything for him to do. However, when he was presented with the opportunity to spend four days in one of the luxury hotels DC he really couldn’t resist. Not only did that particular trip sound incredibly exiting, but his alternative was to stay with his aunt because his older brother Steve would be working nights that week. And it wasn’t that he didn’t get along with his aunt, he truly loved her. It was just that she didn’t own a television, and as mundane and superficial as that might seem, Corey couldn’t imagine spending a whole four days without being able to watch any baseball games.

So, it was settled. Corey would go with his mother to Washington and she thought ahead to make reservations to tour the White House and the Capital, but other than that she decided to wing it and also to let Corey decide his own agenda while she was at work. This was a new element in their traveling structure. It had been at least two years since her son had agreed to go with her and Corey was thirteen now and his mother felt he was ready to make some of his own travel attraction decisions. At first Corey thought this meant he could roam around the city and do what he wanted while his mother was in meetings, but of course that was only unrealistic positive thinking. Instead, his mother was willing to drop him off at a secure place for an hour or so, but really meant that he could pick some of the places they would visit together during her free time. In addition to some of the standard tourist attractions they attended a dance performance on Saturday morning given by the National Theatre. It was his mother’s idea, but Corey had a great time and maybe even enjoyed it more than she did.