Direct Holiday Lets Blog

Customer loyalty is vital to all kinds of businesses in all kinds of fields and the travel industry is no exception.  Incentivising past customers to keep coming back is, after all, much less expensive than attracting new ones.

Frequent flyer programmes came into existence nearly 30 years ago when American Airlines introduced their AAdvantage scheme to reward their customers for their loyalty.  Since then, it is estimated that more than 100 million individuals have chosen to participate in one or other of the airlines’ programmes.

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Even if you don’t intend doing anything more with your holiday than lying and sunning yourself on the beach by day and relaxing in restaurants and bars in the evening, learning something of the local language can enrich your experience tremendously.  Far from needing to become fluent, even just a few words can help you to win hearts, immerse yourself in the culture and even save you money!

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Trying to keep children occupied when you are travelling on holiday can be a nightmare.  What to us may be nothing more than a short hop and a few hours of inconvenience can feel like a lifetime of boredom and frustration to them.  Away from their familiar surroundings and their beloved toys, and often without much of an idea as to what to expect when they eventually reach their destination, the whole experience just makes them nervous, cranky and downright difficult.

Unless you happen to live and be staying right next door to your departure and arrival airports, the chances are that it isn’t just the flight that your children are going to have to endure either, but probably a car or coach ride at each end too.  If you don’t go prepared, it won’t just be the children’s tempers that will have reached boiling point by the time you get there – your blood pressure could well be off the scale too!

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Aside from standing out as one of the coastal resorts on southern Spain’s Costa del Sol to retain much of its traditional charm and avoid the fate of becoming littered with high-rise concrete buildings, Nerja has another very special claim to fame.  Just three kilometres from its town centre is where you will find the spectacular Caves of Nerja, or Cueva de Nerja.

Discovered by a group of schoolboys who were hunting for bats in 1959, the caves proved to be an important find indeed, as they not only offered up proof of man’s existence in the area more than 20,000 years previously, but also contain the only known examples of cave paintings dating back to the Upper Palaeolithic era, somewhere between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago.  Although what is known as the Show Gallery was opened up to the public the year after its discovery, the Upper and New Galleries were not discovered until 1960 and 1969 respectively.  Even now, only the various ‘halls’ which go to make up the Show Gallery are fully open to the public, although some of the other chambers and caverns can be explored by over 14 year-olds joining a speleological group, details of which are available by calling or visiting the Caves.

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Experiencing the weather, the sights and the culture of far-off places can leave many of us with thoughts of buying a property abroad, either as a holiday home or even as somewhere to live permanently in the immediate or more distant future.  In most cases, however, the image that we have in our minds is one which is based on our experience of summer in our favourite location, and of course that can often be very different to how things look at other times of the year.

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Situated almost exactly at the halfway point between the former and current capitals of Crete, Rethymnon is the third largest town on Greece’s largest island.  Dating back to the 3^rd century AD and being in a location which was strategically important to its European neighbours, it wears the influences of the many attempts to hold it captive, most notably those of the Venetians and the Turks.

Like its neighbours, Chania and Heraklion, Rethymnon is a delightful mix of the ancient and the modern.  Old shuttered buildings dating back to Venetian times nestle comfortably alongside more recently-built shops, restaurants and cafes, leaving no visitor to the town short of interest.  Whether you want to explore the ‘Fortezza’, the Venetian fortress which sits at the heart of Rethymnon and overlooks the town, soak up the atmosphere of the narrow alleyways and streets which sit behind the harbour, shop in the many modern boutiques that the town has to offer or do like the Greeks and simply while away the hours looking out to sea over a leisurely cup of coffee, you will never find yourself short of things to do, whatever the time of day or evening.

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