Travelers Thoughts

Since most women love to travel and we ALL occasionally need to get away, why not start planning a fun girls’ getaway with a couple of your friends or family. There doesn’t need to be a special occasion for a fun trip with ‘the girls’. No occasion at all can be the best reason to celebrate and take a little breather. It may just include a long weekend or three or four days, and needs to be relaxing and/or exciting, but definitely guilt-free.

This kind of small, female group travel is one of the hottest trends today and most resorts and hotels across the country are aware of it. You can find package deals almost everywhere, almost any time of the year. Promotional packages can include spa treatments of every kind, chocolates and champagne or gourmet dinners, tickets to the theater or other special events. They can include cooking lessons, dancing lessons, horseback riding or rock climbing — it will all depend on when and where you decide to go and with whom.

One drawback of the pre-planned getaway package is that the perks of the package have to appeal to all the women in your group. If they don’t, then the price of the package will not be worth it. You should be careful when you choose a promotional deal because sometimes the price of an all-inclusive package is just not worth the sum of its parts. You may have much better luck planning your time away by purchasing a la carte items to entertain yourselves.

While in those fun planning stages, the girlfriends can determine if they want to get away to be pampered or go hiking, be in the sun by the pool or go snow skiing, or just try something they have never tried before. (I’m always for being pampered and relaxing because I‘m practically an expert at it.)

Once your interests and activities have been narrowed down and your destination chosen, research some of the points of interest in the area. Contact the local chamber of commerce or visitors’ bureau. Check to see if there are any specials or discounts available at the hotels or resorts that look interesting in the area.

Pull in all those discount offers you can. Are you senior citizens? Does someone in your group have frequent flyer miles to share? Are any of you AAA members? All the breaks you can get in prices can be spent elsewhere on your trip (or not spent at all).

If you can plan six or nine months ahead (or more), you can all start saving towards the big event. Every pay period, each of you can set aside a certain amount. You may want to consider putting it all into an interest-bearing account. If you plan the financial end of it ahead of time, none of you will feel the squeeze when it comes down to booking the event(s) and coming up with the deposit money.

Whatever you do, where ever you go, allow yourselves enough time in your schedule to regroup and reconnect and enjoy those relationships. And remember, you are not abandoning your loved ones and your responsibilities. You are taking a well-deserved mental health break. You are not only entitled to some “Me” time, you owe it to yourselves (and your families) to leave the stress behind for just a little while. You will emerge a better mom or wife or sister or girlfriend for it. Have fun! Wish I were going.

Leave the mouthwash at home. Pack your most comfortable clothes and shoes, bring along your appetite and sense of fun, and DO NOT miss the Gilroy Garlic Festival next year.

Gilroy, in southern Santa Clara County, California is, of course, the location for the famous Gilroy Garlic Festival, an annual event that has transformed this little town into the Garlic Capital of the World. Millions and millions and millions of pounds of garlic are produced every year in this lovely farming area. Though garlic is not the only thing grown in Gilroy, it really put Gilroy on the map — so to speak. (Among many other varieties of produce, Gilroy produces a considerable amount of mushrooms too, another favorite of mine.)

Each year, since 1979, the garlic festival has been held and has been a fundraiser for local charities. Individual groups and charities also run booths at the festival, raising additional funds for their causes. Held the last full weekend in July (the last Friday, Saturday and Sunday), it is one of the largest food festivals held in the United States and considered by most to be the best garlic festival in the world.

Like most festivals, there is always something for everyone in the family — from food to entertainment to shopping. For the children, there is a world of fun activities waiting, including rides, face painting, bouncy houses, games, magic, arts and crafts. For the rest of the crowd, there is garlic inspired food of every imaginable kind. Yes, it is true there is even garlic ice cream. There are garlic recipe contests and cook-offs, celebrity cooking demonstrations, live entertainment, arts and crafts and so much, much more, even appearances by Miss Gilroy Garlic and her court. One of the highlights are the fun promotional products that the booths give out, love collecting that garlic swag! Even if you are not a fellow lover of this pungent bulb, there is plenty of food and fun for you too.

Um, now about that garlic ice cream, I am told the samples are free and free is for me; however, the basil and garlic stuffed sea scallops wrapped in prosciutto and served with a citrus beurre blanc sauce (one of the 2008 recipe/cook-off winners) has me absolutely drooling.

Garlic, in all its gastronomic glory, is also very good for you and has been used medicinally for thousands of years. It is claimed to help prevent heart disease, including atherosclerosis, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and cancer. Now if I can get help fighting off all those things with a few bowls of Garlic Seafood Soup, count me in.

Now if all this information has not convinced you to put this festival on your “bucket list”, then consider the following:

Garlic is known to repel mosquitoes and ticks. They despise or are overwhelmed by the scent of garlic and exposure to a high level of the toxins found in garlic can be deadly to them. So if garlic keeps away the mosquitoes and ticks, it goes without saying that it would make a suitable repellant against those other frightening, blood-sucking creatures of the night — VAMPIRES!

So go to the Gilroy Garlic Festival, stock up on lots and lots of garlic, and you can take it with you on your next trip to Transylvania. Oh, be sure to tell Vlad I spoke well of him.

If you have not visited southern Italy, especially on the Adriatic coast, then Puglia could be the trip for you. A vacation spent in “trulli” accommodations will ‘truly’ be an experience like none other.

These gleaming whitewashed houses are the most curious looking rounded structures I have ever seen. They are built of stone (whitewashed yearly), with gray stone, cone-shaped roofs. If you see trulli from a reasonable distance, they may look like stone tents scattered across the countryside. In villages where there is a heavy concentration of trulli houses, you might swear it is some kind of mythical fairytale land and expect to find gnomes busily scurrying about hoarding their treasures.

Though the origin of these oddly shaped stone structures may not ’truly’ be known, it is said to have taken place thousands of years ago in the Middle Ages. At this time, anyone who built a dwelling on the king’s land was taxed so heavily that none could afford it. In order to avoid the unfair taxes, these early tax evaders built the teepee shaped structures of dry, un-mortared stones. Upon learning of any upcoming visit from the tax collector, the structures were dismantled and scattered. After the tax man had gone, the dwellings were rapidly re-erected and life continued.

To my knowledge, Puglia is the only place in the world where these trulli houses exist. Today, however, they are permanent structures, fortified with stucco. The cone shape usually still comprises the common area, with the interiors usually being sparsely decorated. With the exception of the bathroom door, the other rooms (bedrooms) are separated by colorful and interesting curtains (though this may not be true of trulli rental apartments or villas).

The climate in Puglia is fairly warm with its summer lasting from Easter until October. In addition to these amazing housing structures, the beauty of the Adriatic coast is unparalleled. The crystal clear turquoise waters are accessible for swimming as well as fishing and other water sports, and uncrowded beaches for sunning can be also found all along this stretch of the coastline, making Puglia a perfect destination for summer travel.

In the whole of Puglia, accommodations range from modest trulli rentals to trulli villas complete with pool, to a bed and breakfast arrangement or five-star hotel. You can choose to stay in the hillside towns or the seaside villages and the entire area is considered a true bargain compared to the rest of Italy. The people of this region are known for their always pleasant and welcoming spirit and their incredible generosity. In spite of its rustic simplicity, Puglia has something to offer every travel budget — from the lowest to the highest — with the most humble to the most luxurious accommodations.

Consider some vacation time in this region of Italy that is still relatively unknown to the tourist trade. Get off the beaten path of tourist-trodden Venice and Rome and give Puglia a try. The largest producer of olive oil in all of Italy (and before long destined to become a mecca for tourists), Puglia promises to not disappoint you. Benvenuto! A presto!

Ahhh, the lovely Irish countryside of County Mayo, the breathtaking views of the Atlantic, the beautiful and serene Stella Maris Country House Hotel and Restaurant, and a memorable Ballycastle pub crawl! What could be better — of course, I failed to mention the renowned Stella Maris breakfasts and dinners that they are talking about all over Ireland and elsewhere. Just thinking of it all makes me imagine with an Irish lilt to my thoughts.

So here is what I know personally. In the mid-1800s, the property was used as a Coast Guard station while the British ruled Ireland. Then in 1914, it became a convent for the Sisters of Mercy who taught primary school for the village of Ballycastle and later lace making and music. In 1960s, a new school was built in the village of Ballycastle and the property subsequently was sold the Whelan family who then operated it as a small, family-run hotel for many, many years.

When the branch of the Whelans who had continued to run the hotel decided to sell it, fate intervened. The lovely Frances Kelly, who had lived in Ballycastle as a young girl and had worked at Stella Maris alongside her sisters after it had become a hotel, returned to Ireland for another visit after having pursued her education in culinary arts in the United States. When Frances learned that the property was up for sale, she and her husband, Terrence McSweeney, purchased the property, and began renovations on this unique property to the point that it is today — a beautiful and luxurious environment for a choice clientele who could appreciate the tranquility that West Mayo has to offer.

Today, Stella Maris is a member of Ireland’s Blue Book of Country Houses and Restaurants, as well as Historic Hotels of Europe. It also has been named one of Ireland’s Top 100 Restaurants, with it‘s many home-grown vegetables and herbs and local fishes and lamb, and, of course, Frances overseeing every detail of the modern Irish dinner specialties.

Situated very close (40-minute drive) to both the Enniscrone and the Carne/Belmullet golf courses, two of the finest links in all of Ireland, this meticulously restored structure provides the perfect lodgings for the golf enthusiast. With its 100-foot glassed conservatory, the views of Bunatrahir Bay will comfort and delight you. There is both fresh and salt water fishing, bird watching, hiking and biking all available in this area, as well as strolls to the famous Downpatrick Head. One version of the story of Downpatrick Head is that it is where St. Patrick cut off the head of a giant serpent, dividing the Head from the mainland and driving all snakes from Ireland.

And now I am there, if only in my imagination, and I swear I can almost feel the wind on my face and the sound of the birds and crashing waves. Is it my imagination, but as I look out upon that vast Atlantic, do I almost see the roundish curvature of the earth…?