Making life a holiday with interesting vacation and adventure ideas.

The interior of USA's Yellowstone National Park opens for the winter season on Wednesday, December 19, 2007. Visitors will be able to take commercially guided snowmobile and snowcoach trips over snow covered, groomed roads to popular destinations including Old Faithful and Yellowstone's Grand Canyon.

Xanterra Parks and Resorts provides lodging, food service, cross-country ski rentals and lessons, snowmobile rentals and snowcoach tours of the park. Details are available online at their Yellowstone website. Information on other authorized winter operations providing snowmobile and snowcoach trips into the park is available on the web at the National Park Service, Yellowstone website. Visitor centers will be open at West Yellowstone, Old Faithful and Mammoth, and the National Park Service website also has details of ranger-led activities and evening programs that are available throughout the winter.

The road from the park's North Entrance at Gardiner, Montana, to Mammoth Hot Springs and through the Lamar Valley to the Northeast Entrance and Cooke City, Montana, is open all year to automobile traffic. Updated conditions on all park roads used by automobiles, snowmobiles and snowcoaches are always available by calling (307) 344-2117. Starting December 19, visitors will also be able to check the status of park roads during the winter season online.

Labels: 2007, National Park, snowmobile, U.S.A., winter, Yellowstone

Here is a really nice shot of Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) in the spring. It was taken by Janet Burgess and shows the magnificent 140 metre high "Jet d'Eau" fountain in the background.
But why, you might ask, as Europe heads into winter, have I chosen to post a picture of Lac Leman in springtime. Well the answer will become clear if you take the time to click on this link, to a gallery of photographs that depict an incredible phenomenon whereby nature creates its own winter wonderland.

Labels: Lac Leman, Lake Geneva, Switzerland, winter, Winter Wonderland

Throughout most of Europe tomorrow morning (at 2am), European summer time comes to its official end and the clocks go back one hour. But to ward off the winter blues, there are plenty of festivals.

We begin this weekend with Halloween and then a few days later, the British celebrate with Fireworks night. It doesn't stop there though, in a multicultural world, these events are followed by the Diwali festival, or 'Festival of Light' also called Deepavali, on November 9. Diwali is a major Indian festival that is observed by Hindus, Jains and Sikhs around the world, to symbolise the victory of good over evil with lamps lit as a sign of celebration and hope for mankind.

Visitors to Leicester, England, have a unique opportunity to experience a 'Taste of Asia' for themselves, with a short break package in this year's official Curry Capital of Britain. The special packages have been put together by Leicester Shire Promotions, the city's tourism board, to showcase Leicester's vibrant Asian culture and exotic gastronomy, combined with its Diwali celebrations, which are said to be the largest outside of India.

Then of course, we move on to the Christmas markets, Christmas and the New Year parties.

Labels: 2007, Bargain Breaks, Diwali, England, festival, Festival of Light, Leicester, winter