Discount Euro Travel

The thought of thousands of years of history is enough to convince to travel across Europe again. A week or even a month in Albania is not enough to discover its magic and explore its culture. I plan to go back there this Holiday season with my family. To go there is just easy, if you're asking me. All you need is to choose the most excellent hotel in Albania and reserve it now.

The newly-opened food plaza in our neighborhood, which is three blocks away from the house, is a place filled with classical music, kind waiters, and food that requires one to learn French and Italian vocabulary before ordering. I'm not very comfortable with these kind of restaurants. I'm happiest in places where I can pick the food that I want without the worry of bringing an English-Italian dictionary. Good thing my wife, Mara, knows European cuisine by heart so it's like bringing a walking Italian dictionary.

The waiter or the butler who was wearing an all white ensemble greeted us with the sweetest and the most indecipherable greeting I've ever heard. "He said welcome and good night," Mara whispered. We were thinking of ordering a plate of Carbonara and a roll of Vienna bread. Carbonara is the only Italian pasta that I eat aside from lasagna and spaghetti. This is because the three noodles are the only European food that I know. I like it because it has bacon, and bacon is from America.

According to a quick Internet search, Carbonara is actually the sauce and not the whole meal. It is an Italian pasta sauce that is made from eggs, black pepper, pig's cheek, and jowl bacon. Other ingredients include cheese, milk, garlic and parsley. The term carbonara came from the word carbone which means coal. Many Italians believe that the sauce got its name from charcoal miners who love the food so much. So, I thank all the Italian coal miners for introducing the dish to the world.

It was our first date together. The woman who was to become my wife, the lady I call Mara, got up from the table within minutes of her arrival and excused herself to wash her hands. I found her gesture very adorable. She was like a little meerkat, leaning over the faucet to tidy herself before eating. At the same time, I found it weird, as I quintessentially don't wash my hands before eating, unless I'd spent the day coal mining, or running an offset printing press.

It was in that first date when I first ate the best dessert I'd ever tasted. My wife is English, so it would be a given that the love for treacle tart runs in her blood. I'm in love with treacle tarts in the same way I love my wife. Anyway, treacle tart is a pastry dessert that is similar to a pie, but different because the top is open and not covered with pastry. You can add fruits on it if you want to eat something healthy.

Based on what I've read, Harry Potter, the bespectacled boy in the popular Harry Potter films loves treacle tart so much in the same way J.K. Rowling loves her earnings. It's no question that the wizard loves the dessert. Even muggles like me have fallen in love with the sweet tasting, delicious dessert. I don't know how to make one, but my wife does, and she's good at it. Sometimes, I have this feeling that she uses her wand to create it.

The era where people drink nothing but tea is back. If you'll fancy a visit to the nearest mall, you'll be surprised with the many variants of tea available in the market. We have the Green tea that is popular because of its healthy compounds. There's traditional Black tea, but only elders who knit maroon sweaters drink them. Orange, red, and yellow tea are best for people who have too much marijuana. I wonder when they will commercialize a silver tea.

According to the latest survey on food, tea is still the most popular beverage and not Gatorade. This is despite the fact that the sports drink has less salt and more electrolytes. Drinking tea every afternoon started at the advent of the eighteenth century in Britain. During those days, the English folks only had two meals in a day -- breakfast and dinner. To bridge the gap and ease hunger, they invited their friends and neighbors to have an afternoon tea party.

A tea party wouldn't be complete without tea's loveteam -- crumpets. Crumpets are round yeast-raised breads. I like crumpets when they're toasted and smeared with butter or strawberry jam. If you'll visit London, try to hang out in a tea shop where they serve the yummiest crumpets so you'll feel the 18th century tea experience. It would be nice if you're wearing dress robes covered with laces and frills; so people will think you can do time-travel.

When I visited Europe a few years ago, I noticed that most of the cities, towns, or villages I toured had many parks. Of course, I'm not referring to the historical tourist attractions since European cities obviously have plenty of those. In fact, you can name a few and I probably had been in some of the places you have in mind. Anyway, what I am talking about simply are the regular parks where people often go during afternoons.

With the setting sun and the cool breeze, the afternoon is always the perfect time to take a walk at the park. While I was in Europe, I used to go out for a walk whenever I had the chance. Although there was nothing really extraordinary about it, the mere fact of enjoying the nice weather and simple, yet beautiful views was already soothing.

It is fun to see families go out together and spend the afternoon playing with their kids. Families like to spend most of their time together at the park. That was what I noticed during my stay in Europe. Of course, this practice may just be ordinary compared to the other customs of the continent, yet it is as equally valuable as those mentioned. A walk in the park is always a perfect time for family bonding.

Seeing my wife, Mara, overly engrossed with a TV show called "The Naked Chef", I commented, "The food looks yummy. But why is the cook not nude?"

She looked at me with utmost scorn and said, "They call it that because the bloke uses simple ingredients."

"Oh!" I picked up the remote.

Mara snatched the remote from my hands. "What are you doing? He'll be making Belgian waffles next!"

Now, Belgian waffles are my favorites, and learning how to make them is one of my simple dreams in life. I fell in love with these sweets the first time I tasted them in Brussels. I think people started making them a year after Belgians became Christians.

Starbucks also sells waffles in strawberry and chocolate variants. They do taste good, but I'm not sure if they're from Belgium. I watched silently as the Naked Chef demonstrated how to make my favorite breakfast. According to him, waffles are "crisp raised cake baked in a waffle iron, a hinged metal griddle with a honeycombed or fancifully engraved surface that allows a thin layer of batter to cook evenly and crisply." Everything went fine, but I was a little confused because he insisted on giving ingredients in ounces and pints. Personally, I think it would be easier to move to Europe.

The third task in the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie wherein the four triwizard champions need to get the cup of eternal glory took place in a magnificent and eerie hedge maze. As a matter of fact, the idea of getting inside the maze myself gives me goosebumps. However, the adventure and the excitement you'll get as you go through it is incomparable.

Fortunately, even we muggles who don't have the slightest trace of magic can experience the hedge maze if we want to. All you need is a plane ticket to France and 8 euros to enter the enchanting world of Le Labyrinthe des Merveilles in Haute-Garonne. It is actually a 20 hectare vegetable garden transformed into a labyrinth to give French people and foreign visitors a magical and scary feeling of being trapped inside a long and winding maze.

Inside the maze, you'll get to meet lots of good wizards and fairies that will help you get through the right passages. Don't worry guys, there are no acromantulas, boggarts, nor dementors inside the maze in France. But there are bad wizards and witches so, it will be best if you prepare. There's no need to bring your fake wands and jinx everyone inside the maze, okay! The enthralling maze opens every October 1st.

I don't believe in ghosts, but I love ghost stories so much especially those that happened in real life. Now, if the stinking dung inside your Mezosoic skull can't decipher what I just said, it means: you're a maggot! Anyway, European countries have a lot of haunted castles. Haunted European castles house a lot of ghosts, and history said that it's the people who died because they're undersexed or they didn't have sex at all, whichever you prefer. But I'm lying, so if you gave a hearty, obnoxious laugh with what I said, then you proved that you're a maggot!

Anyway, among the haunted castles in Europe, The Tower of London is the scariest because it was a living witness to multiple murders, hangings, tortures, and beheadings. Thomas Becket's ghost was the first recorded apparition in the castle. Becket was the archbishop of Canterbury and was murdered under the command of Henry III. The guards in the ancient times also said they've seen the ghosts of the two lost princes, hands held together as they vanished through the towers. The decapitated ghost of Queen Anne Boleyn was also seen in the towers as she led a procession of ghosts to the chapel. Most of the ghosts are those that were kept prison and beheaded without proper trial and decent burial.

Berry Pomeroy Castle is one of the foulest and the ugliest castles I've ever been in. No wonder many people died in that castle because they weren't able to stand the shame living in a place full of shit. I've been there last week and wished I went to hell than entered that doomed place.

A quick Internet search told me that the Pomeroys lived in the palace in the 11th century. But all of them died in tragic and gory accidents. The story I've read said that the Pomeroys are royal dipshits and they killed themselves to escape from the cursed abode. I'm lying, but article is not.

The only interesting rumor about the place is it's haunted by ghosts. People said the ghost of Margaret Pomperoy, who died because of starvation, haunts the castle's dungeons. The Blue Lady, another ghost that was allegedly molested by her own father intrudes the towers seeking for justice. It's a pity we haven't met when I was there, or else she'll be haunting the whole castle because I'll rape her to death! If you're a moron and you believe in ghosts, then you earn yourself a new title: Coward Asshole! Do me a favor. Rot yourselves in hell!

When I had the opportunity to visit France last week, I tried to go to someplace new and try something that I've never done before. Since I don't drink too much liquor, I braved myself to go to Bordeaux where shops are famous for their wine tasting events. This attempt is my simple way of convincing myself that my life is still fulfilling and wonderful because its rants about how the world sucks has been consuming me for the past months.

The first winery I stopped at offered food tasting too. I immediately went towards the various cheese delicacies where garlic breads were cut into small strips that seems to remind a person that he is just tasting food and not having lunch. This is what I loved about French, they let you take samples again and again as long as you don't treat their shops as extensions of your kitchen. The staff was pouring grape wines from a bucket so I immediately grabbed a glass to taste them. After sipping every wine, I noticed that people pour the remains back to the bucket where they get it. Thinking it was rude and wasteful, I grabbed my personal digital assistant, took shot of the monkeys, and Bluetooth the image, only to know later that it's a normal custom for tasters to return excess wine to the bucket.

The Rock of Gibraltar is located in Gibraltar off the southwestern tip of Europe in the Iberian Peninsula. The rock is a big monolithic limestone formation which many people call the "Pillar of Hercules." Geologically speaking, it was created when the African tectonic plate collided tightly with Europe some 55 million years ago. During those time, the Mediterranean Sea was sort of a lake but when the Atlantic Ocean broke through the Strait of Gibraltar, the Sea was formed. The rock formation is 426 meters high. It has attracted many tourists to the place, awe-inspired at how the Rock could be how it looks now. The white appearance of the rock was due to the lining made of Portland stone that was constructed in the 1800's.

Inside the rock are the Great Siege Tunnels which are complex system of criss-crossed tunnels and underground fortifications. The tunnels were built in 1782 by the British. This was during the Great Siege by the Spanish over the island of Gibraltar. The fortifications were then rebuilt after the Siege. It has become useful during the World War II, where the civilians were evacuated to the United Kingdom and also to Jamaica.

There's an idiom that goes " solid as the rock of Gibraltar" which is used to signify that a person or situation is difficult to overcome. Needless to say, the strength of the Rock of Gibraltar against aggression has made it a significant emblem in history.