Travel Agent Guru

Paris – City Of Lights – Part 1

travelagentguru — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:58:11 +0000

The more times one visits Paris the better it gets. Paris has so much to offer that it will be injustice not to visit the city again. The first time you’ll explore the famous tourist sites, but next time if you go back, you’ll experience the city in a whole new different perspective than before.
Paris has it all. Art, Museums, Flea and Open Markets, Culture, Food, History, Architecture, Cabaret, Bus Tours, Monuments, Operas, Parks and Gardens and the list goes on and on.

One of the reasons we love to visit Paris is because it’s a great city for walkers and one really gets the feel for the city as the scenerys and sites of colors and styles changes, so most of the attractions and sites we tried to see was by foot.

We walked up from our Hotel to the Notre Dam and took a guided tour inside the beautiful Gothic Cathedral. We admired the magnificent architecture structure especially the Flying Buttress (arched exterior support).

We walked up the world famous Avenue des Champs-Élysées.
Champs-Élysées is one of the greatest Avenues in the world & it’s the perfect place for people watch. The avenue extends from the Arc de Triumph at one end to the Place de la Concord at the other. During the day, you’ll find fast-food joints and chain stores along with fine dining establishments and expensive boutiques. At night, clubs and cabarets pulse with life as crowds walk both sides of the street.Famous marches, celebrations and events have taken place down its length. It remains the most expensive strip of real estate in Europe.

Around sun down time we continue toward the Eiffel Tower so we can see it all illuminated from the Trocadero area in the 16th arrondissement. The Eiffel Tower lights up every evening from sunset to 1am (2am during the three months of summer), coupled with the lighthouse on the Tower top that sends out its light beams during the same hours. As for the glimmering lights, this ten minute show is added during the first five minutes of each hour on the hour. We spent the entire evening just hanging out in The Trocadero section which was very relaxing and quite.
Please stay tune for the Part 2

A recent trip to Israel

travelagentguru — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:19:19 +0000

My husband and I just came back from a wonderful trip to Israel – The beautiful, and enchanted. We loved every minute of it… We arrived Thursday October 23 around 3:15pm – the flight was on time and pleasant. We left from FLL and connected in EWR for a total of 14 hours flying time. We flew Continental Airlines and the service was great. I particularly loved the in house entertainment system, so I even managed to watch two good new release movies.

My husband’s brother in low picked us up from the airport and off we went to Netanya, my husband’s home town where his parent waited impatiently. The first initial reaction was so overwhelming, since his parents haven’t seen him in while and big excitement was in the air. We spoke and eat some good delicious fresh Hummus, fresh from the market with warm pita bread, olives bursting with freshness and aroma and colorful salads.

So this is how our vacation started and that night we went to bed early being so tired from the flight but I already knew in my heart that this is going to be an extra special time for us.

The next day we rented a lovely Hyundai Tuscan SUV and drove up the coastal road to Haifa to see my mom and sister. The first visit reaction was also extremely overwhelming. Nothing like it.

Haifa is a beautiful mountainous city overlooking the bay and port. The entire city is situated up on mountain Carmel, so getting to my mom house involves driving up a winding coastal road with breathtaking views. LOVE IT !!!!!!

Having the rental car was a blessing; it made our stay extra special and convenient. We kept driving back and forth from my home town Haifa to Netanya.

We saw our good friends Nava and Oz. Nava recently opened her own coffee shop in the bustling Tel Aviv. The place was busy when we visited so it made us feel good to see this kind of a reaction to her new place. The coffee shop serves more than coffee. It features delectable deserts and signature entrees.

One day we drove with relatives to the Northern Galilee and the Golan Heights. Along the way we stopped at an incredible herb and farm facility. They grow, manufacture and market almost 500 spices and medicinal herbs nationwide and worldwide. Their visitor center exhibits the ever changing of common infusions, herbal mixes and spices. Of course my taste buds woke up and I ended up buying few selections of some rice mixes and fresh herbs and teas. This is their link: http://www.derech-atavlinim.co.il/english.asp.

For all of you interested to check out their web site.

The highlight of the trip was a marvelous wedding we went to but this info is for a new post maybe in the next few days….

So the reason for me writing this to you is keep traveling and exploring different places, different cultures.

Tagged: Groups to Israel, Haifa, Israel, Jerusalem, Kibbutz, Religious Tours to Israel, Sea of Galilee, Tel Aviv, The Holy Land

Memories from Costa Rica

travelagentguru — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:22:45 +0000

I wanted to share with you a great place to travel – the enchanted Costa Rica and the Manuel Antonio Park.

We had the opportunity to visit about two years ago and felt we saw the “Garden of Eden”. Mainly the name “Garden of Eden” is due to the incredible selection of unusually interesting birds, butterflies, flowers and wild orchids along road side also a large variety of trees and animals seen nowhere on earth.

Costa Rica has more than More than 200 species of mammals, around 850 species of birds, almost 200 types of amphibians and 220 species of reptiles inhabit these lands.

We mostly stayed in the Manuel Antonio area. We pick this area because the proximity to the beach and the rain forest. We were glad we did.

The hotel La Mansion Inn was wonderful. The manager of the property communicated with me at least 4 rounds of emails, back and forth just to make sure that I’m well cared even before setting foot at the hotel. The hotel is small and intimate with gorgeous sunset and breathtaking ocean views,
We arrived in Jan Jose airport at 5PM and after clearing customs and going to arrival area I saw a man holding a sigh with my name on it. I immediately felt safe and at ease mainly because I didn’t have to worry about how to get to the hotel by my self -no rental car or buses will be needed, just sit back and relax and enjoy the ride.

We hopped on his comfortable and roomy SUV. The driver was extremely friendly, outgoing and took us quickly through the city. There we were off to the country ride to our hotel. The ride took around three & half hours and went into the country right across to the west through hills and vast valies

Manuel Antonio is in the Central Pacific side of Costa Rica in the middle of the rain forest and covered with jungle like tall trees with monkeys and sloths calling these trees home.

Right in front of the entrance to the hotel, the gardens have Birds of Paradise, Orchids and pretty butterflies.

We spent our days in this magnificent area admiring this vast nature and with each day we were there we noticed stress level is just melting away into these captivating forests.

Every day we walked to the beach through a trail inside the forest to experience nature, we also did Echo-friendly tour with a local company called: Titi Canopy Tour.

This is an adventure tour, a mile long traveling from platform to platform on suspended cables attached to a small, personal, high tech harness. What a way to see and feel the forest….

At night the topical plants emit this irresistible fragrance designed to attract specify insects. The most abundant flora in the rainforest is the ferns. The forest has numerous variety ferns, some reach several feet high. It’s interesting to see the height of the plants because they all need light to survive therefore they climb so high, some of giant size leaves – I just loved it all……

Thanks for reading my blog

Tagged: Adventure Travel, la Mansion Inn, Manuel Anthonio, Travel to Costa Rica