From bargain nights in Las Vegas, and sparkling trips to the prosecco trail, to weekends learning fly-fishing or completing that first novel, ALANNA GALLAGHERhas 10 great ideas for the ultimate girlie getaway
NOTHING SALVES the soul quite like time spent with your girlfriends. It’s a bond that can last a lifetime so invest in your relationship by getting away with your female pals. Here’s 10 great girlfriend getaways to get your plans moving.
Cast off to relax
The new way to cast off the winter blues is to learn how to fly-fish. Head to the royal county and the grounds of Killeen Castle (Dunsany, Co Meath, 01-6893000, killeencastle.com) where a relaxing one-day course takes place next Saturday, March 6th. It costs €85 for the day and includes lunch – with the opportunity to barbecue your fish lakeside – and a two-course dinner in the clubhouse. Your tutor is estate manager Sean McManmon, who taught Tiger Woods how to fish – imagine the fun you can have digging for gossip between casts. In addition, Blackwater Lodge (Ballyduff, Co Waterford, 058-60235) is holding a fishing event for ladies on July 3rd and 4th and Ballina’s Mount Falcon Estate (Ballina, Co Mayo, 096-74472, mountfalcon.com) has classes for women starting in September. Beginners are welcome.
Follow the prosecco trail
Bubble wrap your weekend with a trip to Italy's prosecco country. Fly into Venice and explore the strada del prosecco, the prosecco trail (prosecco.it), but make sure you leave some time to explore Europe's most romantic city. The wine region is approximately an hour's drive from Venice, making it ideal for a weekend gourmet visit. Head for the village of Follina, where the best hotels are situated on the town's Piazza IV Novembre. Hotel Abbazia (00-39- 0438-971277, hotelabbazia.it), is a 17th-century palazzo with a traditional offering. It reopens on March 6th, with one night BB and a prosecco tasting costing €90pps. Follina is approximately 35km from Treviso and 60km from Venice.
Vino In Villa is the annual spring prosecco festival that takes place on May 16th and 17th and worth earmarking for a weekend of fine food and drink. Ryanair flies to Venice-Treviso on Saturdays and Tuesdays. Aer Lingus flies to Venice Marco Polo Airport on Thursdays and Sundays.
London calling
Expand your horizons with a culture and shopping weekend in London. Explore Kingdoms of Ife: Sculptures from West Africa, which opens at the British Museum on March 4th, or Italian Renaissance drawings, including Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Verrocchio, which opens at the same venue on April 22nd. Stay in one of London's best independent hotels, the nearby Twenty Nevern Square (twentynevernsquare.co.uk, 00- -44-20-75659555), a 20-room townhouse. It has two twin rooms, which cost £120 (€137) per room per night. A three-day weekend costs €270 per room. Aer Lingus, Ryanair, KLM, BMI Baby and Cityjet all fly to London.
Antiquing in Antwerp
TAKE A mini-break in Antwerp, one of Europe’s capitals of cool and renowned for its diamonds, high fashion and antiques. Serious collectors should check out antiquairs-antwerpen.be but for the rest of us there are finds in furniture, vintage jewellery and clothing available at the city’s many markets. On Fridays there’s old furniture and small antiques in Vrijdagmarkt, on Saturdays it’s antiques at Lijnwaadmarkt, and on Sundays the Sint-Jansvliet flea market is a must-do, while Dubieus Design is an open-air market for second-hand design, which is on June 26th on Lange Winkelhaakstraat (dubieusdesign.be). Follow the trail of the city’s sartorial hotspots, including the background of the famous Antwerp Six fashion designers, in Antwerp’s Fashion Walk. The Sandton Antwerp (Lange Herentalsestraat 27-29, 00-32-3-2020820, sandton.eu/nl/antwerp centre, 00-32-3-2020820) has two nights BB for two people for €179 on the weekend of April 2nd to 4th (antwerpen.be). Aer Lingus flies Dublin to Schiphol, Amsterdam daily. Train transfers from Schiphol to Antwerpen Centraal take approximately one hour and 50 minutes.
Write your way out of the recession
Take a mid-week writing workshop, pen your own blockbuster and give up the day job. Creative Writers Workshop founder Irene Graham (086-2523428, thecreativewritersworkshop.com) once advised the 18-year-old Daisy Cummins, aka Abbey Green, who now has a successful career as writer for Mills and Boon. A four-day course takes place in Markree Castle, Co Sligo from May 24th to 27th. Classes start at 1pm on Monday and run to 5.30pm, with a group dinner served that evening. Classes run through the day on Tuesday, and on Wednesday until 4pm, with a dinner that evening. The final class is on Thursday morning. The price per person in a single room is €725 and includes BB, the writing workshop, lunch on three days and two dinners. The cost for two to do the course and share a twin room is €575 each. Numbers are limited to 11.
Sun, sea and sand
Escape to the sun on the Lisbon coast. Cascais is a beachfront resort just 35km from Lisbon airport with plenty of hotels to choose from. Sunway (sunway.ie, 01-2886828) has seven nights at the three-star Baia Cascais Hotel from €734 per person travelling during May or June. For those who can’t commit to a week, you can also DIY this holiday. Aer Lingus has flights from €164 to Lisbon departing Thursday, April 23rd and returning on Sunday, April 25th. Stay at the Cascais Miragem (cascaismirage.com, 00-351-210060600), where four nights’ BB will cost from €540. Both aforementioned hotels are on the Avenida Marginal, overlook the beach and have indoor and outdoor swimming pools. Or enjoy the best of both worlds and merge a city break with some roasting in the sun. Sunway has a twin destination holiday of three nights in the four-star Sana Lisboa Hotel in Lisbon city followed by four nights lounging on white sandy beaches in neighbouring resort Estoril, which is a 35-minute train journey from the city centre. The price is €749pp, with transfers between hotels not included.
Tee off in sunny Spain
Golfing girls should go to sunny Spain where some of the world’s premier courses are available at value-for-money prices. Limerick Travel’s Fly For Golf (flyforgolf.com, 061-204444) is a great resource for packages. Stay four nights in Platja D’Aro on the Costa Brava at the four-star Platja Park Hotel on a BB basis from €389 in a twin room and €460 in a single. The beachfront hotel is only a five-minute walk to downtown’s bars and restaurants. Included in the price is three rounds of golf: one is at the PGA Catalunya Stadium, which holds the Spanish Open every year and is the home of the qualifying school for the European Tour; a second is at its sister tour course; and the third game is at Golf D’Aro, a resort course. This price also includes economy car hire for the duration. Flights with Ryanair to Girona departing April 15th cost from €195 excluding luggage and golf bags.
Do outlets in Tuscany
Bargain hunt big labels in Tuscany's fashion outlets. The prices are fantastic, admits Off the Railspresenter Sonya Lennon: "You get to buy catwalk pieces that don't hit the stores here." Mary Hanahoe (086-8096000) who organises weddings and outlet shopping trips in the region says: "Be ruthless. Only pack a change of underwear, leaving loads of room in your suitcase for new purchases." She suggests you base yourself in Florence and hire a car for the day to do Space, the vast Prada outlet just outside the town of Montevarchi, about 40 minutes drive from Florence. Use a sat nav as it is tricky to find. Alternatively, take a train from Florence to Montevarchi. A taxi to the store costs about €18.
Reckon on spending three or four hours browsing through this very sophisticated store which has discounts of 40-70 per cent on Prada, MiuMiu, Jil Sander and more. Handbags and shoes are the best buys. Also, The Mall is a 70-90 minute drive from Florence in Leccio. Here, shops include Bottega Veneta, Gucci, YSL, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Balenciaga, Marni, Yohji Yamamoto and Burberry, as well as the nearby Dolce Gabbana outlet. Or take a shuttle bus, which costs €5 return and departs from some hotels. Stay at the mid-priced Hotel Pierre (Via de’Lamberti 5, Firenze, 00-39-055-216218, hotel-pierre-florence.com) where four nights from March 31st to April 4th costs €680 for two, including breakfast. Ryanair flights to Pisa for the same dates cost approximately €205.
Fly and flop
If all you really want to do is head to the sun, flop on the beach and work on your suntan, then bikini ready yourself for a long weekend in the Canaries, where all manner of accommodation is available, from two-star basic apartments to five-star luxury. Stein Travel (steintravel.ie, 1890-408408) has three nights, departing April 17th, in Gran Canaria at the three-star Morasol Aparthotel in Puerto Rico for €442pp and €599pp BB at the five-star Hotel Villa del Conde in Mas Palomas. On Tenerife they’ve a three-night, half-board package at the four-star H10 Tenerife Playa Hotel in Puerto de la Cruz, departing April 21st for €426. While on Lanzarote there’s three nights at the Kon Tiki Club Apartments, opposite the beach at Puerto del Carmen for €451 or the rather fabulous five-star Princess Yaiza at Playa Blanca for €618pp BB. These depart April 16th. Prices include flights, transfers and accommodation.
Vegas ladies
Despite its perception as a stag-party destination, Vegas is attracting more and more women, with Sunway’s Tara Flanagan reporting a rise in the numbers of Irish girls travelling. It ticks all the destination boxes. “You don’t even have to be a gambler to enjoy the sights,” she adds. Las Vegas City Centre is shopping central, with superbrands Chanel, Dior, Manolo Blahnik et al distracting you as you walk through the lobbies of the hotels.
For foodies, the metropolis has 17 Michelin-starred restaurants. The accommodation is first-rate, and it helps that hotel rates are down approximately 30 per cent. Almost every hotel has fantastic pool facilities. Despite the distance, the prices for Vegas make it a serious getaway contestant. Sunway (sunway.ie, 01-2311888) has a number of packages to Las Vegas, including return flights, four nights’ accommodation, airport taxes and fuel surcharges, and are based on travel in April. Stay four nights at the three-star, medieval-themed, Excalibur Hotel from €655 per person based on two sharing. Single rooms are from €799pp. The trendy four-star Planet Hollywood is opposite the Bellagio. Four nights there cost from €735 per person based on two sharing. A single room is from €949pp. Or opt for a five-star experience at the recently opened Wynn. Four nights cost from €749pp based on two sharing. A single room costs from €989pp.
Drink tequila-laden cocktails at the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino’s Isla Mexican Kitchen. Wash away hangovers in your bikini at Rehab Sunday’s pool party at Hard Rock. The best people-watching poker games take place at the legendary Golden Nugget while hipsters hang out on Fremont Street, where the open-air Neon Museum (neonmuseum.org) is a must-do. Happy campers should also check out the Liberace Museum, a shrine to the kitsch of old Vegas.
You can’t go to Vegas without taking in a show – see Cirque du Soleil’s O at the Bellagio (€160pp). When the neon and the hard sell gets too much, take a chopper and head out of town to drink in the marvel that is the Grand Canyon. Helicopter flights cost approximately €250pp. Or you could hire a convertible and make like Thelma and Louise. Dream Rentals (dreamcarrentals.com) have all manner of exotic cars – Ferraris, Vipers, Porsches and other convertibles – all perfect getaway cars. For more ideas see visitlasvegas.com and timeout.com/las-vegas/. The best time to go is January to March and October to December, when the lowest prices are available.