Up Front
What’s Hot and happening this summer in bmibaby destinations by Catherine Hanly & Emily Kerrigan
Málaga The notion of flamenco as a cheesy tourist show featuring ruffled dresses and plastic castanets gets thoroughly debunked at Málaga’s annual Flamenco Festival. In 2007, there are seven different themed series of concerts and shows, each consisting of seven performances, which take place around the city from 27 August to 23 September. www.malagaenflamenco.com
Edinburgh Imagine hurling yourself down a steep urban street with only a mountain bike between you and the tarmac – oh, and you have to do it in the dead of night! Fatface’s Night Series events allow adrenaline-seeking members of the public to compete alongside professional sportspersons, with the cover of night upping the excitement factor and helping to even out the competition. If you’re game, the Edinburgh Urban Night Ride is the only downhill urban night race in the world and takes place on the night of 6 October, with the accompanying party rolling on until the following night. www.fatface.com
while you’re there… If reality TV star David Gest feels like he’s missing ex-wife Liza Minelli, he can pop over to the Warhol exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland to gaze upon her day-glo face. The exhibition runs from 4 August to 7 October. www.nationalgalleries.org
How To eat for free When’s the last time you tried hedge garlic or chickweed? Foraging for wild food is the latest foodie trend and autumn is the perfect time to try it for the first time, with all manner of nuts, fruit and fungi to be found in hedgerows whether you’re in the city or countryside. The key to successful foraging comes in being able to tell what’s edible and what’s not – this is particularly true of mushroom hunting where a nibble of the wrong sort could lead to serious trouble. Beginners should try a Starter Day or weekend course at the Wild Food School in Lostwithiel, just 15 miles from Newquay airport. www.countrylovers.co.uk
Get a new perspective on Amsterdam with a visit to the newly-opened Twenty Third bar at the Okura hotel. Named after the floor it’s based on, this is the highest bar in Amsterdam. Sit on a banquette by the floor-to-ceiling windows and gaze out over the city whilst sipping champagne and trying the bar snacks from the kitchens of the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant, Ciel Bleu. www.okura.nl
bright idea! It’s hard to perfect your best J-Lo pout on the beach when your towel keeps falling off your sunlounger. Fear not – the people at Loungeabout have come up with a practical and good-looking solution. Their cheerfully colourful towels fit over the back of your lounger and tie with a cute ribbon at the base. They’ll obediently stay in place while you sashay off for a dip in the sea and help dry you off when you get back, ready to strike another pose. We like the Hot Pink and Burnt Orange shades. You can even get them embroidered with your name! www.loungeabout.net
bevvies for the bevies First brewed in Pilsen in 1842, Pilsner Urquell is the granddaddy of all Czech lagers. Blow the froth off a couple of cold ones and raise a glass to its inventor, Josef Groll, at the annual Pilsner Fest – the city’s gargantuan, beersoaked knees-up which runs from 3–7 October in Pilsner, just 90 minutes from Prague. Drinking is hungry work, which is why, once you’ve sampled winning brews straight from the barrel, you’ll want to feast on hearty Czech fare in the beer hall. Take a guided tour of the Brewery Museum (www.beerworld.cz), housed in a medieval malt house, and once you’ve doffed your cultural hat, get straight back to the fun with the Pilsner Urquell Beer Olympics, featuring such silly delights as Beer Mat Throwing, Bottle Bowling and Keg Jumping. Cheers!
3of the best fun and free places to go Botanic Gardens Glasgow Heaton Hall Manchester Belfast CastleWondering what Belfast Castle , Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens and Heaton Hall in Manchester have in common? Well, they all made it into the Top 10 free admissions attractions in the UK and Ireland. The list was compiled by the FreeToDo Travel Guide, which features more than 1,000 attractions, activities and events in Britain and Ireland with free admission. It costs £8.49 and covers everything from museums to food and wine tastings and festivals. www.freetodo.net
Bordeaux Health and safety nannies may have banned conkers from British playgrounds(!), but in the French countryside it’s still taken deadly seriously. If you think you – and your conker – are hard enough, head for Abjat-sur-Bandiat (about 30 miles from Bordeaux) for this year’s French Conkers Championships. There’s a number of junior and adult categories, and competition can be fierce. Last year’s female competition had to be declared a tie after 15 minutes of concerted conker bashing led judges to declare it “impossible to decide who had won”! 30 September. www.ffconkers.org
We Love… this hilarious new book by Terry Ravenscroft, a former writer for, among others, Not The Nine O’Clock News, Alas Smith and Jones, The Morecambe and Wise Show and The Two Ronnies. Air Mail is a collection of letters he wrote to more than 40 international airlines, and their genuine responses to his outrageous questions and requests. It’s laugh-out-loud funny and a great holiday read! Air Mail, by Terry Ravenscroft (Michael O’Mara Books, £6.99)
did you know? Bordeaux has been crowned a UNESCO World Heritage Site thanks to its 347 historic monuments, including three churches already protected by UNESCO. Along with all that wine, it’s even more of an excuse to visit!
Ibiza This summer, two of Ibiza’s premier club nights teamed up with bmibaby to launch our new service to the party island from East Midland and Cardiff. Superclub Eden in San Antonio hosts “Judgement Sunday” every Sunday until September 16, and “Dusted” every Monday until September 10. These amazing club nights bring world-famous DJs to the decks to play to sell-out crowds each week. Check out Marco V, Lisa Lashes, Trophy Twins and the more eclectic sounds of Eddy Temple-Morris at “Judgement Sunday” – which is headed up by BBC Radio 1 DJ Judge Jules – and Norman Jay, Jon Carter, Hoxton Whores and Deep Groove at “Dusted” – San Antonio’s most credible house night. Watch out for more promotions and competitions in 2008!
festival fever! The Belfast Festival is celebrating its 45th birthday this year by bringing together its usual high-quality blend of comedy, cabaret and classical music. Already confirmed are Bill Bailey (31 October and 1 November), Sean Hughes (26 October) and “modernday Dietrich” cabaret diva Ute Lemper (above, 26 October). For gravitas, take in superstar counter-tenor Andreas Scholl at the Grand Opera House (2 November). www.belfastfestival.com
Netherlands “Strictly Come Dancing” will never seem the same after a trip to the World Championships for Same Sex Dancing. This is the third year the competition has been held, so if you’d like to catch a whole new take on the foxtrot or tango, then head for Nijmegen (120km from Amsterdam) on 13 October when the world champions prepare to defend their right to rumba. www.nijmegen2007.nl
5 minutes with…Esther Levy – Coolhunter Ever found yourself in a new city, wishing you knew how to make it past the clipboard girls at the trendiest nightspots? Professional coolhunter Esther Levy offers visitors to Barcelona and Marbella just that with her A Friend in the City concierge services. yeahbaby asks her to look into her crystal ball (Swarovski, darling!) and tell us about the latest travel trends…
Coolhunter sounds like a great job to have on your passport Well, you’ll need a great dose of intuition (something that can’t be taught), and the ability to hunt out mainstream and cutting edge trends and innovative lifestyles. Or you can take my course in coolhunting! Does cool have to mean expensive? Well, Marbella is and has always been a jet set destination, so the only free thing here is the smile you’ll get from the people who love the lifestyle here. That said, if you can get a hold of a car when you’re here, then visiting its surroundings is free. I recommend Tarifa and Ronda. You have a lot of celebrities on your books. Are they particularly demanding? I usually study their profile before they arrive and try and be all that their best friend would be. But I must admit I have received phone calls at 7am asking me to find them a specific brand of eye make-up remover and drops to help open a pair of hungover eyes! You must have a ton of friends on Myspace… I haven’t had the time to sign up yet – I’m too busy meeting them personally. Although I am in “a small world” and I’m a resident in “secondlife”. What will be the biggest travel trends in 2008? The biggest thing will be travelling light – making the most of the maximum weight you can carry for free. Only the cleverest fashionistas will be successful with that. Also, travelling out of season where possible to avoid the masses and – of course – using a service like mine to make the most of a stay in a foreign city. Are you a gadget freak? I think the coolest things to own are those that are priceless. Technology might be cool for the baby boom generation but the Net generation prefers finding treasures like a box filled with confessions from some unknown Casanova, at a flea market. What’s your favourite…. Shades (Tom Ford), trainers (Nike – customised, of course), jeans (Seven for all mankind), scent (Aire de Loewe – an unforgettable Spanish scent). If someone came to you wanting you to organise an amazing “money is no object” 24 hours in Barcelona, what would you recommend? I’d start by grabbing breakfast at the old-school Pastelería Mauri (Rambla Catalunya, 102), wander through La Boquería Market, have a massage at the Hotel Arts, lunch at Casa Calvet (Carrer del Casp) followed by the Picasso Museum (Carrer de Montcada) in the afternoon. In the evening, cocktails at Noti, (Roger de Llúria, 35-37) followed by dinner in the city’s World Trade Centre, finishing up with your name on the guest list for DJ Javier Navines’ night at Kasbah, (Plaça de Pau Vila). To take advantage of Esther’s A Friend in the City services in Marbella or Barcelona, contact her at
coolhunting@o2bgroup.com or tel: +34 952 913 970
Murcia Any festival that features a wine fountain has got our vote. The town of Jumilla and its surrounding area are synonymous with fine wines, and every year the Fiestas de la Vendimia celebrates the harvest with a bigger and better party than the year before. 2007 festivities run from 10–19 August and begin with the treading of the first grapes in Jumilla’s Plaza Mayor, giving way to a week of wine tasting, vineyard fun and open-air parties. www.fiestadelavendimia.com
In the hilarious new animated-adventure, Ratatouille, a rat named Remy dreams of becoming a great chef – despite the obvious problem of being a rat in a decidedly rodentphobic profession! He finds himself living beneath an exclusive restaurant in Paris and meets Linguini, the garbage boy, who discovers Remy’s amazing talents in the kitchen. Together, they turn the culinary world of Paris upside down! Written and directed by Academy Award®-winning director Brad Bird (The Incredibles), this fantastic new Pixar movie will take you to a world where the unthinkable combination of a rat and a five-star gourmet restaurant come together for the ultimate fish-out-of-water tale. Released in the UK on October 5, this movie is a holiday must for kids –and the young-at-heart! www.ratatouille.com
Nottingham GameCity 2007 is Nottingham’s annual celebration of videogames and interactive entertainment. This fun cultural festival received great critical acclaim for the inaugural event last year – indeed The Times called it “…the most inventively programmed new arts festival of the year.” This year, events will take place across the whole city from 24–28 October. You can enjoy talks by game-makers, exclusive looks at new games, art exhibitions, tournaments, tea-parties, gigs, gongshows, piano recitals, parent and family workshops, dance events, public debates, club nights, pub quizzes and much more. We especially love the retro arcade trails that will take you all over Nottingham in search of Pac-Man and Space Invaders! Find out about GameCity 2007 and other great events and activities in Nottinghamshire at www.visitnotts.com
hot meals Lunch hours in Birmingham just got hot. And we’re not talking about the wasabi on your takeaway sushi. www.lunchdatebirmingham.com is a tasty idea that puts you in touch with single guys and dolls who work around the corner from you, gives you their mobile number so you start flirting and test the waters before you even meet, then pairs you up for a quick sarnie together in your lunch hour. Think he might be the bread to your butter? Great! Move on to dinner. Not biting? No problem, your next sandwich sweetheart is only another mouse-click away. Great news if your love life is suffering from time famine or commitment phobia. Your Lunchdate Little Black Book is about to get you hooked.
Travel Lingo flashpacking If you’re looking for an authentic travel experience, but you’d rather spend the night in a five star hotel rather than a grungy hostel, then you’re a “flashpacker”. A new attitude to travel, flashpacking is all about keeping up the buzz for travel you had in your younger, poorer days – but with cooler gadgets, nicer beds and a better wardrobe!
techno notes There’s nothing more annoying than having your mobile or digital camera run out of power when you’re nowhere near a plug socket. That’s why we love the o-range Solar Super Monkey Backpack, which lets you recharge your electrical toys while on the move, thanks to a solar cell in the backpack’s outer casing. Handy and eco-friendly! £119 www.ebags.co.uk
