The Best Hotel in Spain.

The award for the best hotel in Spain has believe it or not gone to the Hotel Anabel here in Lloret de Mar! (Visit their website)
Thomas Cook in conjunction with Neckermann have given the award to the Anabel based on surveys filled in by their clients, the majority of which come from Britain, Germany, Holland and Belgium.

The Anabel is a hotel which caters for families and couples ... they do not take bookings from
the groups of students and sports teams which we seem to see too much of in Lloret these days.
The owners claim that because of this the hotel is not always as full as they would like, but they prefer to give full commitment to family tourism and believe this is the correct route to follow in order to benefit both the hotel and its customers.
The Anabel first opened in 1970 and will celebrate its 40th anniversary next May 2010.

Lets hope that other hotels in town who take in all the rowdy groups take note of this, after all what is best for everyone, to be the known as the best hotel in Spain or the worst? As I'm sure that's the way some of the others are going!

Free Tour of Girona !

Girona can now be viewed with Google street view. For new users of this application this means you can go to Google maps and take a virtual tour by using your mouse to guide you in whatever direction has been covered by the cameras.
Once in Google Maps, type in 'Girona Spain' and zoom into the streets, then with your mouse drag the little orange man (see him in the top left of the map) onto your selected street and the map then turns into photo clear images of the street. You then click on the arrows to take your tour!
At the moment its not possible to see the old quarter as the streets are too narrow for the cars which carry the cameras. These will be done at a later date, usually done by cameras mounted on bikes.

Street view started in the U.S in May 2007, then last year the Spanish cities of Madrid, Seville and Barcelona were added.

Lloret de Mar Weather

Now that the clocks have gone back one hour and we are seeing the nights drawing in the weather does seem to be much cooler, especially when the sun goes down. Snow has been falling in Andorra (good news for the skiers!) and we have had some heavy spells of rain in Lloret but not too prolonged.
These photos were taken last Thursday evening, after a fine clear sunny day the clouds started to roll in then we had a thunderstorm, but the next morning we were back to normal with the sun!

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Costa Brava Rally

It looks as though its going to be a fine week - end for the Costa Brava rally. There are a few clouds about this morning and it does feel quite cool in the shade, but I think this will be ideal driving conditions out on the Cost Brava roads.
Here's a few photos of the cars which were preparing for the start near the Olympic Hotel this morning.

Spanish Mobile Phone Switch-Off

All Spanish 'pay as you go' mobile phones which have not been registered by Sunday will be permanently disconnected. The deadline is set at midnight on Sunday, after which the phone number and any unused credit will be lost forever.

The full story along with the reason behind this can be read on the Typically Spanish site.