Istanbul Leather Shopping

One of the bonuses of a short stay in Istanbul is the opportunity for shopping. There are some great bargains to be had in the bazaars and highstreets of the city, and if its leather you're after, look no further. You'll find that shopping for leather in Istanbul can be a very social

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/shopping-for-leather-in-istanbul/

Istanbul Mosques and Minarets

We dedicated our first full day in in the city to visiting some of the “must see” Istanbul mosques, museums and monuments. Because there are so many of these, and with a limited amount of time, we had to be quite selective.

In part, this was made easier for us by the opening times of some of

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/istanbul-mosques-minarets/

Istanbul Eateries and Accommodation

We would only have 2 nights and days in Istanbul. To optimize our time in the city, and to find the best Istanbul eateries, we did as much planning as we could before leaving home.

After sorting out our transfers, our next priorities were accommodation and food. Following a good deal of online

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/istanbul-eateries-accommodation/

Valencia Eating Out

For our 4-day trip to Valencia, we had selected in advance a number of interesting restaurants with good reviews. The only problem was that these restaurants were dotted around the outskirts of the city and were not particularly easy to get to.

Our Valencia eating out plans therefore had to be

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/valencia-eating-out/

Istanbul Airport-City Transfer

Planning our visit to Istanbul from the comfort of our living room, using Google Earth as our map reference, seemed straightforward enough. To avoid the expense of taxis, we decided to arrange our own Istanbul airport-city transfer.

We would be arriving at Sabiha Gokcen - the furthest of the 2

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/istanbul-airport-city-transfer/

Turkish Airlines Inflight Experience

We were quite excited about flying with Turkish Airlines for the first time. Our expectations of the Turkish Airlines inflight experience were justifiably high, considering they are currently the No.7 airline in the world - recently overtaken by  who are now No.1 (see The World's Top 100

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/turkish-airlines-inflight-experience/

Rome Attractions

For a short 2-3 day break in Rome, you need to be extremely selective: There are just so many Rome attractions to see, and to see the sights properly you need to spend the time.

It also helps to pace yourself and vary your activities to avoid a cultural overload. There are only so many museums

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/rome-attractions/

Rome Restaurants

Rome is like one giant restaurant. Every street seems to host a series of eateries tempting visitors with their delicious Italian kitchen aromas. In our experiance, it's pretty difficult to get a bad meal in Rome, but if you're looking for inspiration, here are our current favourite Rome

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/rome-restaurants/

Rome Hotels & Guesthouses

We often use Rome as our launching pad for long-distance flights to Asia. Many of the bigger airlines offer a variety of flight options starting or ending in Rome. As a result, prices are often cheaper than flying out from other airports, since many Rome hotels & guesthouses can be booked at

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/rome-hotels-guesthouses/

Our India Travel Plan

Choosing the best dates and flights for a long-haul trip to the tropics involves a little more than just picking a few free weeks to visit shortly before you leave. When it comes to finding some of the best travel opportunities, whether the Seychelles, India or the Caribbean, it often pays to

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/india-travel-plan/

Ubud Bali Eating Out

With just 4 days in Ubud, we were keen to discover the best food that Bali has to offer. To this end, we did a little research in advance to ensure that our Ubud Bali eating out experiences did not disappoint.
Ubud Bali Eating Out - Our 4 Best Restaurants
Before leaving for Bali, we made a

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What’s the Damage? Final Venice Budget

A short trip to Venice is potentially one of the most costly city breaks you can take. Even with a Venice Budget, why is this city so expensive?

Well, we noticed a few things that might explain this. Apart from the artists and artisans, not much is created or grown in Venice: Goods and
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The Venice of "Don't Look Now"

If like us you’re a bit of a movie fan, then this section is for you. The Venice of Don't Look Now is encapsulated in a 1973 British-Italian thriller directed by Nicolas Roeg, adapted from a short story by Daphne du Maurier. It was filmed at a variety of locations throughout Venice, showing a
Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/venice-dont-look-now/

Venice Osteria and Trattoria

Considering that Italy is pretty much one big restaurant, there’s never any difficulty finding somewhere to eat. Whether a Venice Osteria and Trattoria or Pizzeria, there are plenty of places to choose from.

Unless you like to snack throughout the day, you can pretty much calculate that during

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/venice-osteria-trattoria/

Vaporetti Essentials: Get a Day Pass

Of course, one of the reasons we all go to Venice is to travel on their unique vaporetti transport system. Unless you are particularly flush with cash, you’ll want to do this in the easiest and most economical way possible. For a short weekend, a Vaporetti Day Pass is the answer.

The bad news

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Booking a Venice Hotel

Choosing the Ca ’Fortuny Hotel Venice was the result of some precise online research. Finding a good, reasonably-priced hotel in Venice that’s not too far from the centre can be a challenge in itself. It's therefore always a good idea to scrutinize the best deals that are currently on offer.

We

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/ca-fortuny-hotel-venice/

Venice off-Season

How much should a short 2-night break in Venice off-season really cost?

With low-cost airlines flying from numerous destinations, the return flight is possibly one of the cheapest items of a trip to Venice. However, even this can be deceptive: The budget airlines fly to Venice Treviso, not to

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/venice-off-season/

Temple of the Tooth

Before we left Kandy we took a few hours to visit the celebrated Temple of the Tooth. This is where they keep one of Buddha’s teeth as a holy relic. The relic is regarded as a symbolic representation of the living Buddha and is the focus of a daily series of offerings, rituals, and

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/temple-of-the-tooth/

Beneath the Knuckle Mountains

During our stay at the , we arranged several treks through the surrounding thickly-jungled mountain areas. Whenever we emerged into a clearing, we could see the Knuckle Mountains bathed in mist in the far distance.

It's clear to see how these mountains got their name. Local residents

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/knuckle-mountains/

Valencia Long Weekend - Airport Transfers and Accommodation

With the budget airlines offering ridiculously cheap flights from all over Europe to a variety of destinations in Spain, a Valencia long weekend is hard to resist. Add to this a relatively low cost of living and accommodation options, and you're onto a winner.

We budgeted €350 per person for a

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/valencia-long-weekend/

Polwaththa Eco Lodge

From Kandy, we had arranged a pickup by tuk-tuk to take us up into the surrounding mountain jungle to the Polwaththa Eco Lodge.

We were looking forward to a peaceful break, close to nature and away from the hustle and bustle. Our tuk-tuk driver arrived on time shortly before noon. We paid Rs

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/polwaththa-eco-lodge/

Valencia Long Weekend - Airport Transfers and Accommodation

With the budget airlines offering ridiculously cheap flights from all over Europe to a variety of destinations in Spain, a Valencia long weekend is hard to resist. Add to this a relatively low cost of living and accommodation options, and you're onto a winner.

We budgeted €350 per person for a

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/valencia-long-weekend/

Elephant Orphanage - Return visit, but none of them remembered me... http://www.sandspice.com/pinnawala-elephant-orphanage/ #ElephantOrphanage #Pinnawala #SriLanka

Elephant Orphanage - Return visit, but none of them remembered me...
http://www.sandspice.com/pinnawala-elephant-orphanage/
#ElephantOrphanage #Pinnawala #SriLanka

Kandy Lake Comfort

From Sigiriya, we travelled the short distance to Dambulla by tuk-tuk. We were in two minds whether or not to visit the Dambulla Cave Temple. The deciding factors were time and the weather. It was still raining, and we didn't want to delay our bus trip to Kandy. We were heading for the Kandy lake

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/kandy-lake-comfort/

Lion Rock Sigiriya

After spending our first wet night in Sigiriya, it was still raining the next morning. However, our plan was to climb to the top of the famous Lion Rock buddhist monument, and a wet day wasn't going to stop us doing that.

Before that, we had a look around the grounds of our guesthouse. It was

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/lion-rock-buddhist/

Ceylonica Beach Hotel Negombo

Our flight arrived in Sri Lanka in the early evening. Since Bandaranaike International Airport is actually much closer to Negombo than to Colombo, we decided to make Negombo our first port of call. This actually makes a lot of sense if you are first heading east to the central areas. We were

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/ceylonica-beach-hotel-negombo/

Our Sri Lanka Travel Plan

Our Sri Lanka travel plan was designed as a 21-day rollicking rollercoaster of a ride to the World’s End and beyond. It promised to be an eventful trip, with all content published from my tiny Samsung smartphone.



 
Researching the Trip - Sri Lanka Travel Plan
Our idea was to choose a

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Maldives Under the Reef

Maldives under the reef: Your first underwater experience of the Maldives is likely to be your local house reef. All the islands have their own unique housereefs. For many people, this is all you actually need. Just put on a mask and step into the shallows. You don't need to go further than a few

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/maldives-under-the-reef/

Sandbank Affaire

The Sandbank Affaire Makunudu Maldives is a special experience devised by the Management of the . This is a private evening excursion to a distant mini-island (the Sandbank). You are accompanied by just your waiter and a chef, and are treated to a Lobster BBQ with a bottle of wine.

Since this

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/sandbank-affaire-makunudu-maldives/

Makunudu Island, Maldives

Travelling with Emirates from Europe to Makunudu Island, we had an initial stop in Cyprus. We then had another stop in Dubai for our connecting flight to Male - The Maldives capital.
We had a couple of hours to kill in Dubai, so spent most of it queueing up to spend a penny in a toilet not big

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/makunudu-island/

Ubud Bali Hotels & Airport Transfers

Following an overnight stay in London and a short break in Hong Kong we were keen to reach the relative peace and tranquility of a 4-night stay in Bali. We had chosen two very different styles of accommodation for our Ubud Bali hotels: A family-run guesthouse and an upmarket Spa and Gallery

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/ubud-bali-hotels-airport-transfers/

Maldives Planning a Break

Maldives Planning a Break: The luxury of some of the smaller islands in the Maldives comes at a price. However, if included as a short addition to a longer trip through other countries in the region, this unforgettable experience can be enjoyed without drastically over-doing the budget.

The

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/maldives-planning-a-break/

The Dubai Mall

Dubai seems to be all about extremes: Not only do they have the tallest building in the world, they also boast the Dubai Mall: The largest shopping mall in the world, in which you can find one of the largest suspended aquariums in the world, with the world's largest acrylic panel.

Oh, and just

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/dubai-mall/

Burj Khalifa Dubai

How can you visit Dubai and not experience the slim eloquence, modernity and quality of Burj Khalifa Dubai - the tallest building in the world?

We're all used to the old high-rise skyscrapers of Shang Hai, Hong Kong and NYC, but the Burj Khalifa exudes a slim eloquence, modernity and quality

Read more... http://www.sandspice.com/burj-khalifa-dubai/