Thursday, July 13, 2006

Speaking of holiday resorts

We have finally -- finally! -- booked a summer holiday. Just 5 days away in glamourous Latvia! Yep, Latvia. Land of bogs and cold winters! Near Lithuania and Estonia! Exporter of wood and wood products! Producer of beets and potatoes! Famed now for cheap stag weekends in Riga and taking part with gusto in the Eurovision Song Contest! Latvia!

I blame marketing for this turn of events. On the way back from London, I picked up a free copy of a shockingly edited "magazine"/advertising supplement called Spavox. This is devoted to spas, and had a feature on one in the Latvian seaside resort of Jurmala. It ticks a lot of our boxes for a holiday: relatively short flight, not too hot, Internet access, and cheap. Especially cheap. (Have I ever mentioned that PJ and I are super, super cheap?) So, I did a little bit of surfing on Monday, we emailed the featured hotel on Tuesday morning, got a remarkably swift response in English, and had the whole thing booked up about an hour later. Bingo! So, we're doing a 3-night spa package and then a night in Riga. I'm envisaging beefy Russian masseuses modeled after Rosa Klebb, sorting out the knots in my back while turning up the heat in the steam room to torture those who annoy. It's going to be great!

Latvia!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

HI There,
Latvia and Riga is very preferred travel destination for Finnish people....who are also very "cheap" by nature and don't want to travel too far away from home country. My parents and sister have visited Latvia many times and every time they love it.
Enjoy your holiday, your finnish collegue.

Anonymous said...

What a coincidence that you were inspired by Spavox magazine to pick Jurmala for your holiday. I picked Spavox up free on Eurostar and booked through Spavox to go to Jurmala too. I think I got a good deal - what price did you get direct? Hope you enjoyed it.
Belgian Waffle

Norfolk Dumpling said...

The magazine is clearly exerting some sort of subliminal pull; spooky! I'll blog all about our trip next month, but do let me now how you got on.

We had to book direct as we didn't want to fly to Gatwick and then to Riga; we figured out that the price was pretty much the same either way, though.

Anonymous said...

I thought Spavox was inspiring and well presented! Just got back - it was brilliant and exactly as Spavox described it. Hope you have a great time too.
Belgian Waffle