Saas Fee - Travel Guide

Saas Fee is a small Swiss ski resort but has some great skiing available. The resort is around 1800 metres above sea level and it is possible to ski as high as 3600 metres. Saas Fee has an unusal transport system, normal road vehicles are not allowed in the town and there is a large car park situated outside of the town. They form of transport is the 'Electro', which are like small milk floats. If you have a ski pass the electro buses are free, this also includes the electro train which as the name suggests is an electro with carriages and resembles a toy train.

Skiing is usually an expensive holiday and visiting Switzerland adds extra expense. Here are some examples of the prices we paid when we visited Saas Fee.

• Cheese burger and chips (very good) £18
• Bowls of chips near the ski slopes £9
• 50cl glass of beer £4.50
• 50cl bottle of Swiss wine £14
• Chocolate bar from supermarket +£1.

Food generally is very expensive, even from the super market. We would recommend that if you stay at a hotel it is best to go half board. The hotel we stayed at was the Hotel Glacier, this is a great hotel with a good restaurant serving 4 course evening meals. You are also given 2 restaurant vouchers which entitles you to visit there more traditional Swiss restaurant under the hotel and one of their three restaurants at their 5 star hotel. We visited the Mandarin restaurant and the food would have cost over £100 but it was all inclusive apart from the drinks, where the wine is expensive.

One tip I would give is regarding the ski pass, we where advised by the tour operator (Inghams) that if you already ski it is best to purchase a all area ski pass not just the local Saas Fee one. We only needed the local one because the ski school does not go outside the Saas Fee area and there was enough skiing for us. So I would recommend that if you intend to have 5 days ski school a local area pass is all you need which for 2 people will save you over £40.

When it comes to tipping, it is not estential to tip, waiters and staff in Switzerland are well paid and the minimum wage is about 2000 a month. It is good to tip around 10% if you feel you have had good service.

Travel Tips - Insurance

Generally if you are going to take more than 2 trips abroad in a year then you should look at taking out annual travel insurance. 

It is usually best to buy travel insurance on the internet and direct from a insurance company rather than from the travel company. 

Always check the insurance policy for the cover limits, exclusions and excesses. 

Travel Tips - Foreign Currency

It is generally a good idea to take money abroad in different forms (e.g. cash, debit card, credit card). 

It is best to get the foreign currency from the high street provides and banks rather than at the hotel or airport. 

When withdrawing money from an ATM machine it is best to use a debit card rather than a credit card. 

Travel Tips - Internet Searching

Here is a list of some of my tips when searching for holidays on the internet.

• Try the main travel sites first and then look at the comparison sites. Some comparison sites add a cookie to your PC, so that if you then go directly to the company it will still show the comparison site price. 
• Always enter the correct child ages. This means entering the age of the child on the return flight.
• When using an internet company it is useful to use the search engines to find more information on the company including customer reviews, recommendations and possible problems. 
• Use Tripadvisor to find out reviews of Hotels, but take them with a pinch of salt, some reviews are old and may not be relevant or the reviewer over complains about very minor issues.

Gratuities - How much to tip when travelling

Below is a table of countries with their expected gratuities.

This is purely a guide to how much is expected when tipping in each country.

Country	Restaurant	Hotel	Taxis
Australia	Up to 10% for good service	None expected	None expected
Austria	12.5% included	10% included	10%
Belgium	15.5% included	None expected	None expected
Cyprus	10% included	10% included	None expected
Denmark	Up to 10% for good service	None expected	None expected
France	15.5% usually included	€2 tip to staff for good service	10-15% fare
Germany	10-15% tip	€2-3 for good service	10-15& fare
Greece	Up to 8% included, add extra for good service	Up to 8% included on the bill	None expected
Hungary	10-15% tip	Tip concierge	10-15% fare
Italy	10% included, add 5-10% tip	Tip €3 to porters for good service	None expected
Malta	10-15% included	Tip porters for good service	€3-4
Netherlands	10% included	None expected	5% fare
Portugal	5% tip	5-20% service charge included	5-10% fare
Spain	Tip for good service	Tip for good service	round up the fare
USA	10-20% tip	$1-2 tip per case to porter	10% fare

If you do not agree with any of these figures or would like to submit more information on gratuities please Contact Us

London - Travel Tips, Advice and Ideas

London is the capital of the UK and is a busy, exciting, diverse and entertaining city. There are many resources for finding hotels, restaurants, shopping and things to do while visiting London. This brief article about the last time we visited London and it includes advice, tips and ideas on some aspects when visiting London.

Getting There By Train 

We live in the UK so the best option to get into London is by train. We booked our train tickets a few weeks before we planned to go, which I would highly recommend. We decided to go 1st class because the tickets cost £10 more each way, which is not saving money, however it is a more pleasant journey and you get additional free extras, while travelling this includes drinks (tea, coffee or mineral water) and snacks (crisps and biscuits). If you purchase these from a shop they could cost close to £10. Also if you travel 1st class, you have the advantage that if you are early arriving at the train station you can use the 1st class lounge which includes free drinks and a more pleasant quiet surroundings.

London Underground

London has a large underground network, which gets very busy round the rush hours, is usually on-time with trains every few minutes. It is not cheap if you buy individual tickets, the best way is to either buy a travel card or to use an Oyster card. The Oyster is much cheaper than buying individual tickets and is quick and easy to use, you simply swipe the card across detection pads at the entrance and exit stalls at the stations.

The Grange Hotel St Pauls

Last time we visited London we stayed at the 5 star hotel The Grange, which is located next to St Pauls Cathedral. We managed to book the hotel using a well known web site which gives the option to blind book, where you do not know where you are staying but it gives a good description and doing some research using search engines you can find which hotel you will be staying in.

We stayed in a double room where you could see St Pauls from the window . The cost of the room on a Sunday night was £99, which we think for a 5 star hotel in London was great value for money. The Hotel is large and has good facilities including a spa and swimming pool.

The breakfast at the hotel is expensive and £20 per person, so we went to a pub opposite, The Centre Page Pub (picture above) which served a full English breakfast for under £5.

Our Evening Meal

In the evening we found it a little hard to find a restaurant which was near and open, this is because the area of St Pauls is near the business centre of London, which is mostly closed at weekends. We found a restaurant called Cotes, which is a medium chain French restaurant along the main road about 150 yards from the main entrance to St Pauls Cathedral. The food was good, but I would not say it was great value for money with 2 courses and a bottle of wine costing over £30 each, they also automatically add a service charge of 12.5% to the bill.

Marrakech - Travel Guide

Marrakech is a city of contrasts with busy crowded streets and alleyways and then the calm and tranquilness of the riads.  This is not a place to visit without first doing a bit of research and you should prepare you trip and know exactly what you should expect. This city is not for everyone, if you don't like cities then this is not the place for you, also if you prefer walking around cities quietly taking in the sights then this also might not be the best place to visit. Saying that Marrakech is a great place to visit and is very interesting with different sights, sounds and smells (some good smells some not).

The currency in Morocco is the Dirham and at the time of writing this 1 Pound Sterling = 12.6 Dirham. Marrakech use to be a cheap place to visit but with more tourists and foreign investm

ent this is no longer the case.

Shopping

Shopping in Marrakech involves bartering most of the time. The salesperson usually starts at a ridiculous amount, I would recommend you start at least a quarter of this, sometimes a lot less. Below are my top tips for shopping.

• Start with a maximum you are wishing to pay in mind.
• Always start at a lot less than this value.
• If you do not come to an agreement soon then walk away. The salesperson could go with your price, say that you have only just started looking around and you will look elsewhere and might come back.
• My best tip is when you arrive go to the government run Artisan shop, this is a group of shops selling different products similar to what you will find in the Souks, but they are not allowed to barter, so this will give you a good idea of what you should expect to pay.

Restaurants

Prices in restaurants range greatly in Marrakech, from cheap cafe style restaurants to impressive expensive ones with great atmospheres. Morocco is 98% muslim and alcohol is forbidden so some restaurants do not sell wines or beers. Although this large amount of the population cannot drink Morocco makes some good wine, I would recommend the red, although a lot of people do drink the local rose.

If you are looking for somewhere cheap to eat we would recommend the Restaurant Du Progres on Rue Ben Marine. This restaurant serves a great chicken tajine with citrus fruits, the vegetable couscous was a little boring but the meal with sparkling water (alcohol free restaurant) came to less than 8 pounds.

If you are looking to spend more, but not break the bank then we would recommend La Boheme off the main square (Place Jemaa El Fna). This is a roof top restaurant with great views over the busy square, and would recommend outside for the atmosphere. This restaurant served the cheapest beer and wine we found and the staff were very pleasant. The food was good and we would recommend the lamb and prune tajine and the chicken pastilla. We had 2 main courses, 2 desserts and 4 bottles of beer for under 40 pound.

Tipping in restaurants is usually 10%.

Taxi's and transport

The best way to get around Marrakech is walking, although watch out for the scooters. We also caught a taxi a couple of times. The small taxi's are cheaper than the UK and you should not pay more than 40 Dirham to get across the city. Make sure they put the meter on when you get in. We negotiated a price before and when we arrived the driver tried to charge us an extra 10 Dirham.

General Advice

When in Marrakech go and visit the sights, they are cheap, we would recommend the Badi Palace and the Bahia Palace. Like most cities be careful around the streets, we did not have any problems and made sure our money was   well hidden and not easy to pick pocket.