Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

We’re just back from our first proper holiday since we took over running Mas Camps in April 2004.

It was strange to actually close up for the first time as we’ve been open non-stop since the day we arrived.

Not that it made much difference in the takings as the riots in France seem to have put just about everyone off coming here this year: a year ago when we booked the holiday we thought that we’d have been losing quite a lot of guests by being closed in March/April but in reality it was probably only one or two at best. Still, Easter is just around the corner and we are rapidly filling up with Spanish guests as usual.

Not quite full yet, but there’s still another week of booking time to go. Following the week in Turkey, we spent a few days in Amsterdam which is a bit of a nightmare in a car but a very walkable city with lots to see. This time (our first proper visit) we just strolled around the canals and visited Anne Frank’s house so we’ve a lot to see next time. Next stop was the first World War battlefield memorials around the Somme in northern France. The memorials are much larger than I’d expected them to be.

We’d hoped to spend some time in Rouen but the riots forced a change in plans and we ended up in a lovely little hotel in Evreux instead. This time of year, most chain hotels in France are full so it forces an exploration of the smaller hotels around the countryside which generally turns up a charming, and cheaper, alternative to the standardisation of the likes of IBIS.

Whew. I thought that I’d checked most of the reservations whilst we were in Turkey but there were over 20 new ones sitting for me to go through today.

This year the mix of reservations has changed considerably from previous years with most coming via our own website rather than via reservation systems. We make more money that way (no commission to pay to the systems) but they’re a lot more work.

We’re still pretty exhausted from the trip so haven’t really gotten into the swing of things yet. I made a small start on the assignment for the Spanish course but will have to really get into it tomorrow as it’s due for Wednesday.

We’ve had all kinds of car problems over the last couple of months with the Toyota which is now dead in the car park with no cooling system, in need of a new radiator, lacking a braking function and with very dodgy suspension following a pickup of rather heavy guests a few weeks back. We think that a couple of thousand euro will sort it out but we’re leaving it to the one side at the moment as we hope to trade it in against something like a Landrover at some stage in the not too distant future.

So, we’ve bought a new Suzuki Alto as our “2nd” car from Stockauto for 7500‚€ or so (yes, £5000 brand new!) and we think it’s now sitting in Paris (have to confirm this tomorrow). We’re currently working out how to get up there economically to collect it. The train is about 90‚€ which is notionally the cheapest way but requires an overnight stay in Paris which’ll bump up the cost. Airfrance is 260‚€ one way (really!) or 47‚€ if I bring John along (they have a “family travelling together” discount and he gets to go free), both plus about 30‚€ taxes ie around 90‚€ but there’d be another 10‚€ or so to get me into Paris. Renting a car is about 10‚€0 (if you’re renting one, www.PerpignanFlightsAndCarhire.com is the cheapest way to do it worldwide) plus maybe 40‚€ in petrol and 10‚€ in taxes (ie about 150‚€).

Following our little marketing onslaught about two months ago, we’re now live on www.activehotels.com,  www.bookings.net and www.travelextras.com and have received no bookings from any of them! We’re nearly live on Gullivers and Expedia which hopefully will do somewhat better.

No more word from the telly people but they appear to be running behind schedule a bit so who knows?

We’ve just received our first reservation in German. That’ll teach me to get bits of the site into languages I can’t understand!

Roy’ll be happy to hear that we’re finally getting the rugby traffic. There’s some match on July 8th and we’re almost completely full that weekend as a result of that. Wendy’s worried that they’ll all be wanting transfers to the match which will take a while in the Suzuki – three people a go means over five trips already and that’s just counting the people that we know are going to the match.

We’re starting to dispare of ever being able to collect on the child benefit over here!

It’s been a couple of weeks now since we started a full scale onslaught on the citadel but every time we think we’ve broken through, we find yet another letter on the doormat a couple of days later (always dated for the day that we were there) asking for more documents. Two letters ago it was asking for proof from the child benefit office in Donegal (yes, Donegal) that they’d stopped paying us; that was sorted by yet another visit when we were assured that the money would be with us within the week.

Saturday, the letter arrived. They want proof of income for 2002. Since the UK tax year is April to March, what they want is actually impossible to provide so we’re just going to weigh in with the April 2003 tax statement (if I can find it) which at least covers most of the time they’re looking for.

On other fronts, we went live on the main pages (hotel, guide and transport) in Dutch over the weekend and tidied up a few loose ends along the way so now the tabbed look & feel is reflected across all the pages in all the languages and the language bar has been shrunk to cater for the seven languages on the hotel & transport pages (most pages only exist in English, French and Spanish) as the old style was getting a bit unwieldy. We’ll be running with that style for the rest of this year.

I’m hoping to add photos of the various festivals to our festivals & events page so we’re hoping to get along to a reasonable number of them during the year. Locally, there aren’t any ’til February and supposedly the first one is the hunting festival at Arles-sur-Tech which the tourist office site says is always the first weekend in February ie this weekend, so off we went. Nope, ‘taint this weekend. One thing that the tourist offices here are consistently dreadful at is publicising festivals and the like but you’d think that if they’d listed something as happening this week, it would.

The level of bookings seems to be starting to pick up a little. Not by a massive amount but then we normally get most bookings a few weeks ahead so starting to get summer bookings now is a good sign. The mix of sources seems to be quite similar to last year, in spite of all the additional listings ie about a third each from our own website, from the reservation systems and by phone. As with last year, we haven’t much of an idea of where people are getting our phone number but as the breakdown is similar, it’s probably from the website (the French rarely book online).

We had a family of Belgians in the other day. They’re always good to have as they nearly always take the evening meal and aren’t bothered about the cost (almost completely the reverse of the French). Anyway, the coffers for February are starting off on a decent footing as a result. Thanks to a considerable increase in our restaurant charges, we pulled in virtually the same amount as we did for the Dutch hiking group last year and that was including a big chunk of cash for an airport shuttle from Carcassonne!

On the restaurant front, that’s one area that we’re hoping to promote a whole lot more this year. Due to the awkward time of John’s arrival last year we didn’t really push the restaurant over the bulk of the high season which was something of a shame as the restaurant pretty much doubles the income from a room. Wendy’s planning on giving her coffee shop a go over the next few weeks though I don’t know that we have enough passing trade at the moment.

Our Sunday run was cancelled today as it’s absolutely pouring. Weather-wise, the neighbours say that January & February are generally a bit of a write-off but that things pick up in March. I’ve had to take the jumper off over the last few days so I guess the temperature must be starting to get back to normal.

The OU parcel arrived a few days ago (via my parents); we’re none too impressed with airmail that takes a fortnight from Belfast to here. Anyway, so far, so good with the Spanish. I’ve managed to complete the exercises in about 30 minutes when they are supposed to take about an hour; that’s about the same ratio as I had with the first French course three years ago. So, Jackie, it’ll be no problem for you this time next year either :))

Hi folks,

We picked up the truck Thursday two weeks back and spent the next two days packing up the house, right up to midnight on the Friday! A 0740 boat meant very little sleep that night and a hurried departure (just made the boat and no more).

Somehow we managed to get down to Dover by about 11pm that night (way further than planned but I wanted to get past Birmingham, then London and then there weren’t any hotels `til we reached Dover). Around then the police stopped us and were all set to arrest us for having an overweight lorry but it was only 4900 kg so that was OK but left us checking in around midnight.

We slept in and caught a ferry around noon and all was going swimmingly `til Wendy started flashing the lights etc. That’s when we discovered a shredded tyre. The towing guy pointed out that the other inside tyre was about to go too. French towing guys are generally useless. That’s all they do. Anyway, on Sunday we were stuck in northern France as nothing is open on Sundays here. The garage they sent us to on Monday didn’t do trucks and neither did anyone else in the area so we’d to call the rental place again (the out of hours guy on Sunday was totally useless: he said “just jack it up and change the tyre” which a) is dangerous on a truck and b) isn’t possible on a loaded truck with the gear they give you). Anyway, eventually they organised a guy to sort us out but that meant another night in Cambrai.

Tuesday and Wednesday went fine at least and we ended up here around 7pm on the Wednesday, with the whole truck unloaded by Thursday lunchtime. Too late to leave it back before the Easter break though so I didn’t get back to Belfast `til Wednesday afternoon (after three days of driving), just in time to catch the plane to here on Thursday morning.

Nearly forgot… got the truck virtually taken apart in Dover by customs. I don’t think they believed me when I said I’d not bought anything!

Anyway, I’m here now.

We got our very first customer on Sunday the 11th and, contrary to JS’s expectations, they paid EUR6 each for a continental breakfast. They even gave us a tip!

Can’t get rid of a French couple who turned up on Tuesday so I guess we’re doing something right and the people from our first travel agent booking are arriving this Sunday.

Everyone was off for Easter so I couldn’t get the wine shop stocked, hence lack of crates at the door of Rosepark, David. However, I should be back in October (possibly earlier too) so could probably fill the trailer. Incidently, David, could you recommend a wine magazine? We’re trying to stock up our lounge with magazines to cater for the various types of clients but didn’t see any wine mags when I looked the last few days (turned up here with a way, way overweight bag of mags!).

Sooo, when are y’all coming over to visit?

Arnold