So, leave your central Paris apartments or Paris accommodation and make your way to this lovely place. The zoo is special as it houses more than 200 species of animals. Monkeys leap around the trees, and the Giant Panda is the star of the show. As well as this, over-seven-year-olds can ascend the 65m Grand Rocher – either by lift or by walking up the 352 steps. Furthermore, there are notices at the entrance to the zoo stating feeding times and information about new born animals that you should go and see. One of the rarest residents of the zoo, the Madagascan “Aye-aye” is situated just after the giraffes. Rare due to native superstition, the characteristic long, spindly fingers of the Aye-aye are said to frighten villagers, who view the Aye-aye as a harbinger of evil. Others believe that should one point its long middle finger at you, you would be condemned to death. Some say the appearance of an Aye-aye in a village predicts the death of a villager, and the only way to prevent this is to kill the Aye-aye.

You can get to this exciting zoo by taking the metro to Porte Doree, walking to bois de Vincennes (5mins) then through the park alongside the huge boating lake to the entrance. The zoo is situated at 53 av de St-Maurice, 12th and is open in Summer from 9am-6pm Mon-Sat, 9am-6.30pm Sun and bank hols. During Winter the zoo is open 9am-5pm Mon-Sat and 9am-5.30pm Sun and bank hols.

Now known as “Le Bus”, the club was reinvented in September 2006 and can be found at 6 Rue Pierre Fontaine, 75009 in the centre of this fantastic city. If you are looking for a great night out with your friends, this is certainly a place to visit. The relaunch saw the appearance of old celebrities who used to frequent the place, amongst them, the Beatles.

Another must visit in the French capital is the wonderful party boat “Batofar”. This red beauty is moored opposite 11 quai Fran?ois-Mauriac, 13th and plays mainly hip hop music. Inside you will find a splendid array of international DJs, rappers and alternative music lovers, making this destination a really good night out. What is more, go there after a lovely rest in your apartments in Paris or hotels Paris in Summer, and you’ll find that the terrace is open from 7pm in the summer.

Furthermore, would you believe it, Paris has got a club called… “Lizard Lounge” – the meaning of which is rather negative; “A habitu? of cocktail lounges” but this doesn’t mean the club isn’t good, in fact, just as in the Lizard Lounge in most of the cities of England, this club is literally bouncing with the number of people who go there on a Friday night. After setting off from your central accommodation in Paris, you will find the club at 18 rue du Bourg-Tibourg, 4th, the club opens from 4pm-2am daily. This club is spread over three levels and full to the brim of trendy people and trendy djs. Local disc jockeys play here where they can be found in the basement or DJ bar mixxin’ it up.

The most talked about club in Paris at the moment – it has appeared in numerous magazines, programmes and papers; “Paris Paris” is where the party’s at in 2008 and for the foreseeable future… This really hip club is situated at 5 avenue de l’Op?ra, 1st and open from 11pm-5am Tue-Sat. Unbelievably admission is free but they make up for this by charging roughly €10. Although getting in is easier said than done, once in, you’re immediately part of the electricity of the crowd, who dance to the hip hop and rock crews battling it out with iPods…

The perfect place to start on your art quest is at MAC/VAL. This contemporary art museum opened days after the end of the banlieue riots in November 2005, and this museum is a proud display of cultural vitality outside the city centre. You will find many Parisians frequenting this art gallery, admiring its forward thinking and inventive ideas, an achievement in itself as it is difficult to get the Parisian art clique out of the city centre and into the suburbs, where this art museum is located, in the south-eastern suburb of Vitry-sur-Seine.

The MAC/VAL had the ultimate opening night and the launch was an ultra stylish TV advertising campaign that showed serious looking gallery-goers getting splattered with paint and concluded with the slogan Venez prendre l’art (Get a breath of fresh art). The main ideas of the gallery’s organizers is to put an alternative slant on art, to produce new and exciting installations and to make art accessible and appealing to the general public. In order to do this, the gallery chose to make the entrance fee low (€4) which seeks to encourage people who might not usually enter a gallery, to do so.

Some of the examples of recent work in the gallery include installations from the likes of Gilles Barbier, J?sus-Rafael Soto and Christian Boltanski, and the work generally ranges from the 1950’s up to the present day. The most famous of the 110 works in the gallery include Jean Dubuffet’s Chaufferie avec chemin?e (boiler with Chimney). MAC/VAL also organizes temporary exhibitions and has a 150 seat cinema, documentation centre, bookshop and public garden. It’s in-house bar/restaurant La Transversal also has an excellent reputation. So once you’ve got your Paris apartments or your Paris hotels sorted, you’re good to get arty!

The club is playing in the A-league, which is the best league for Italian professional football. The only time that they’ve ever has to play in B-league was in 1951, but in 1952 they went straight back up to the A-league. In this league the club managed to win the championship 3 times (1942, 1983 and 2001) and have managed to be runner up at least ten times. Since 2006 they managed to win this position 3 times in a row.

An example of a famous player of the current team is the striker Francesco Totti, but there have also been some very well known people playing for the team in years gone by. One of them was the ancient director of the German national team, Rudi V?ller.

The AS Roma Ultras hass the biggest and oldest fan group of Italy. It has also a lot of tradition. They support the AS Rome as good as they can and they are well known among other football fans. The home matches of the club take place at the Olympistadium in Rome. This was re-opened in 1960 during the Olympic summer games. It has space for approximately 83.000 football fans. It is not however one of the biggest stadiums in the world ( the Gelora-Bung-Karno-Stadion in Jakarta is on ranked 10th place, having 88.306 seats). Nevertheless it is well worth a look.

If you are in Rome and you have the chance to watch a match of AS Rome in the Olympiastadium, you should definitely take the chance! In order to have a perfect stay you should have a look for accommodation (Unterkunft Rom) in advance. If a Hotel in Rom is too expensive you might want to look for an apartment (Ferienwohnung Rom). Here you’ll have a lot of space and you can save some money in comparison to a lot of the hotels in the city. Enjoy your stay and remember to support AS Rome. Have a great time in Rome, and make sure to make the most of your time there.

New York Mets Tickets

When thinking of ideal places to retire, one has to include New York even though the rents are high, and the homes are expensive. However, if you choose the suburbs or areas in Manhattan where housing is affordable, you can live your retirement years in what is referred to as “the Big Apple.”

While New York receives millions of visitors a year, you can still enjoy the city that almost never sleeps. Let’s review some of the highlights of New York, and the benefits of choosing it as an ideal place to retire.

New York has the finest restaurants in the world, and in every corner of the city. For example: Little Italy offers the best Italian fare; Manhattan has cuisine as diverse as its culture; Chinatown offers the best delicacies; Queens has waterfront which have been highlighted in food magazines; and Staten Island, Bronx and Brooklyn boroughs have restaurants which offer you the finest and most regularly visited restaurants in every category imaginable. In addition, one can spend a day at the South Street Seaport and enjoy shopping and dine in wonderful restaurants there as well.

New York has more museums that most cities, and among the more famous are the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art; the Whitney Museum; and the Guggenheim Museum, to name a few. In addition, the most famous attractive of all is Central Park. Filled with lush greenery and trees; paths for cycling and running; this park is renowned as the most beautiful and well kept park in Manhattan. Moreover, on a wintry day, just after a snowfall, the scenes within are reminiscent of a Currier and Ives postcard.

With so much history in Manhattan alone, you can spend hours upon hours exploring all of the areas which are not only historic, but engage in the many stories this city has to tell. You can take a ferry boat ride to visit Ellis Island, which has been completely restored, and visit the Statue of Liberty as well.

New York Giant

If you love performing arts, you will love New York. Broadway is the “Great White Way” in which entertainment abounds. Musicals, plays, and thousands of theaters throughout the five boroughs are always offering the best entertainment anywhere. In addition, Lincoln Center is home to the ballet and opera; Carnegie Hall offers concerts; and Madison Square Garden hosts major concerts and sports events as well.

There is no other place on this planet that offers as many shopping areas as New York. Every borough has hundreds of stores and malls in which you can spend a day and still not see everything single shop. New York also has flea markets; the Fulton Fish Market; and the New York City Terminal Market, where you can buy fresh vegetables and fruit daily.

Living in Manhattan can afford you the opportunity to use the subway or bus systems to get around town, without having to worry about taking a car. Queens is only 45 minutes from Manhattan by car, while Brooklyn is a bit closer, and Staten Island and the Bronx are approximately 15 minutes away by car.

Retiring to New York is not just a place to live; it is an adventure unlike any you’ve ever experienced. It is filled with businesses and street vendors; parades and holiday celebrations for all ethnic groups; it is home to St. Patrick’s Cathedral as well as many other famous Churches, and Christmas week you can stroll along 5th Avenue and look at the incredibly beautiful window displays at all the famous stores such as Tiffany’s, Macys, and others. After which, you can sip a cup of hot chocolate at Rockefeller Center while watching skaters do their thing on the rink just out side your restaurant window.

Yes, New York is an ideal place to retire. It doesn’t matter if you live in any of the five boroughs; you are never far from where the action is. New York, New York – as the song says, will make you “want to be a part of it!”

new york city shopping

One might think that full appreciation of a wine tasting tour will benefit only true wine lovers, but after a third glass we can most certainly conclude, that everybody will blend in and feel great. It is best to start with local wine tours and then build up to wine tasting vacations in more distant territories. Article by Montagu Accommodation

For wine tasting beginners or if going abroad, it is best to take a guided tour to places where wineries are located. These tours usually include renowned and well-known wineries and guided wine tasting sessions hosted by professional wine experts. These sessions can be an exceptional eye opener for the novice, but also for the experienced wine enthusiast. One gets to taste a wide variety of wines at the places where they are manufactured. Also much can be learned about wine making, storage, food matching and also about history of the wine and wine lovers from local history – especially in Europe where this frequently includes kings and aristocracy.

The best thing is that there is also food served besides wine, and this completes an enjoyable event. Wine tasting tours can go on for hours, and if you attend organized tours – which is an exceptional way to spend your vacation – you get to travel around from winery to winery and learn about new places that often astound you with their beauty.. You also meet new, like-minded people so you can share your findings, thoughts, preferences and tastes. Guided tours include everything already organized – your meals, the wine that go with the meals, your hotel rooms, transportation and lastly the wineries to visit for the tasting sessions. Article by Montagu Accommodation

To attend a wine tasting session you do not need any knowledge as there are no prerequisites. Everybody can attend as sessions are guided, and one learns everything on the way. If you are a complete beginner, it is best to look around and copy behavior of others. This especially includes sipping the wine slowly, keeping it in the mouth for a few seconds, while moving it around all areas of your mouth and tongue, so that every taste sensor comes in touch with it. You can also close your eyes and most of all try to get as much feedback from your sensors as possible – and then compare your findings to what your guide is describing.

Wine tours are not only about wine tasting. Ultimately at the end of every tour you can buy wine that you liked, and for many this is a start of their own private wine collection. Attending such wine tasting session also teaches you a lot about the way the grapes are cultivated and collected, about local folklore, and finally how grapes get processed for the wine. The bottom line – while enjoying these tours you will have the best time ever. After a few local tours you really might consider a wine tour as a way to spend your holidays and after you have returned from your first wine tasting tour, you will probably make a list of all the continents and countries you want to visit to continue your quest for good taste. Article by Montagu Accommodation