Jetsettersblog

InterContinental Hotels Group announced that a Crowne Plaza hotel will replace the Pan Pacific Bangkok, marking the entry of the brand to the capital of Thailand.

The rebranding will come into effect Jan. 1, 2011, making Crowne Plaza Bangkok Lumpini Park the fifth IHG property in Bangkok.

The 241-room property takes its new name from Lumpini Park, the city’s first public park.

The hotel is located in the heart of Bangkok, close to the Siam Paragon Mall and is a short distance from the Royal Bangkok Sports Club, the Chulalongkorn University as well as a variety of entertainment, dining and retail options in the Silom area.

The property offers panoramic city views from the 21st to 32nd floor, and is the hotel component of Ramaland, a mix-use development complex.

The recent 20-year anniversary of the reunification of Germany put the spotlight back on the formerly divided country and its capital, Berlin.

Located at the center of Eastern Germany, Berlin now boasts one of the world’s most impressive infrastructure projects, Berlin Brandenburg International airport.

The airport adds to the region’s portfolio as an international, high-tech business location, which is underscored by the presence of more investment projects in Eastern Germany from the U.S. than from any other country. Germany Trade & Invest will be presenting business opportunities in Eastern Germany to American companies at an event in Atlanta on Oct. 5, 2010.

Berlin Brandenburg International Airport, slated to open in July 2012, will serve the growing number of passengers to the region, with the ability to expand to serve 45 million travelers annually.

At the same time, the airport provides an international hub in the center of Eastern Germany, a region currently characterized by growth in a number of cutting-edge fields like renewable energies, auto manufacturing and semiconductors.

This project is expected to further attract businesses to the dynamic region.

For more information, visit www.gtai.com

Luxury shopping boulevard Koenigsallee in Düsseldorf has always been one of Europe’s main destinations for luxury shopping, but the city’s other two main shopping streets, Flingerstrasse and Schadowstrasse, have quickly risen to the top among German mainstream shopping areas, as well.

A current independent study of 48 shopping destination streets in Germany showed both streets emerging as among the top five in number of shoppers.

The study counted shoppers simultaneously in these streets, and Düsseldorf’s Flingerstrasse now ranks No. 5 (up from 27 in 2008) for a weekday, and Shadowstrasse No. 4 for weekend shopping traffic (up from 15 in 2008).

Both streets feature a mix of chain and department stores and smaller, independent stores for clothing, house wares and gifts, and food. For more information, visit www.visitduesseldorf.de

The Rocco Forte Collection’s Verdura Golf & Spa Resort, Sicily, has introduced new family-focused activities, including a new “Family Fun” package, adding to its family-oriented offerings already in place.

It was recently named the “Best Family Program” at the 2010 Virtuoso “Best of the Best” Hotel Awards.

Since the resort opened in 2009, it has curated programs for all age groups that make full use of the resort’s diverse facilities and give its younger guests the chance to be creative, energetic, and sociable. In designing the family programs, Verdura Golf & Spa Resort offers a selection of everything and anything “child-friendly,” including free sunscreen, smaller-sized robes, Kids’ and Teens’ Clubs decked out with the latest gadgets, and an experienced team of Verdura Golf & Spa Resort staff who work to ensure that the days and nights run smoothly.

Budding chefs visiting Verdura Golf & Spa Resort can create their own three-course dinner in the resort’s kitchens or learn the art of making pizza, while young adventurers can discover all the resort’s surroundings have to offer during treasure hunts or trips to nearby coves.

Tennis tournaments, golf lessons and football games are additionally available for those who prefer to be outdoors.

And, with an extensive mile-long beach, Verdura Golf & Spa Resort offers water sports, sailing, windsurfing and stand-up paddling.

Mothers and daughters are invited to indulge at the Verdura Golf & Spa Resort, offering treatments specifically designed for teens.

Additionally, a Verdura Golf & Spa Resort mixologist will be on-hand making mocktails for teens and ’tweens.

The resort’s Family Fun Package is available through March 31 and includes one spa treatment for mother and daughter or father and son, one family cooking class followed by lunch, and one mocktail-making class.

Prices start from $2,465 and include three-night accommodation in a deluxe room including buffet breakfast and daily three-course dinner for the whole family, with an adjacent or interconnecting room for children at half price.

For more information, visit

www.roccofortecollection.com

When the Iron Curtain lifted on the Velvet Revolution in 1989, one of Europe’s most beautiful cities found itself once again on the European stage. In Prague, the shops display marionettes as prominently as spring fashions and somehow that goes to the heart of what make this city tick.

In Czech culture and art, the elegant, the playful, the mundane and the macabre seem to take turns gazing from the windows just as the Apostles do on Prague’s celebrated Astronomical Clock. There’s a lot to see in this city, from the Charles Bridge to the Castle to the Mucha Museum and the Town Square. But any visit to Prague is incomplete without a visit to the Josefov, the Old Jewish Quarter.

The website of the Literary Traveler (www.literarytraveler.com), a specialist in travel based on great writing, cites Kafka’s attachment to the Old Jewish Quarter. “In us all it still lives — the dark corners, the secret alleys, the shuttered windows, the squalid courtyards, the rowdy pubs, the sinister inns,” wrote Kafka.

The earliest evidence of Jews in Prague dates back to the 9th century. Originally, Jews in Prague settled just outside the Castle, but in the 13th century the Josefov emerged on the right bank of the Vltava River as the Jewish quarter. A city within a city, it had its own town hall and surrounding walls.

That community began gathering around the Old New Synagogue, the oldest surviving European synagogue, when it opened in 1270. From its beginnings, the synagogue cast a legendary aura over the ghetto. Local legend held that angels had brought stones from Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem to buttress its foundation.

Of course, the most famous legend surrounding the Old New Synagogue involves its most famous rabbi, Judah Ben Bezarel, also known as Rabbi Loew. Loew is the man who made the Golem from Vltova River mud. The Golem was a terrifying monster, the story goes, that was created by Loew in the 16th century to defend the Prague Ghetto from the anti-Semitism of the Hapsburgs. The Golem did terrify the persecutors, but then he went on to terrify the Jewish community as well, and the good rabbi ended up having to destroy his Golem. The legend persists: some say remains of the monster still lie somewhere in the synagogue.

A very different kind of monster terrorized the Jewish Quarter during the Nazi era. Inside the Pynkas Synagogue, the second oldest in Prague, the names of the 80,000 Jewish victims of the Nazi regime in the Czech regions of Bohemia and Moravia are inscribed on the walls. Those names, in combination with the grave stones of the Old Jewish Cemetery, reveal both the fragility of the community and its power to endure.

The Old Jewish Cemetery feels something like an inner city Stonehenge with some 12,000 stones tilting jaggedly this way and that over the remains of more than 100,000 people in an area about the size of a football field. Interred between 1439 and 1787, the multitude in the graveyard had to be packed in with each plot reaching down vertically through as many as 12 separate graves. The caretakers of the cemetery claim that the Star of David was first used as a symbol of Judaism on a grave in this cemetery. No monument in any city that I know of so powerfully connects European modernity to its medieval roots.

You access the cemetery and other Jewish Quarter attractions with the purchase of a ticket to the Jewish Museum. The museum’s collection of Jewish art and artifacts includes a fascinating cycle of 18th century paintings of the Burial Society, which offer an absorbing glimpse into Jewish funereal rites. The museum ticket allows access to the Old Jewish Cemetery, Ceremonial Hall, Old-New Synagogue, Meisel Synagogue, Pinkas Synagogue, Spanish Synagogue and the Klausen Synagogue.

Though pogroms and persecutions against the ghetto were regular occurrences, as well as fires and diseases, Prague’s Jewish community is trying to revive itself after years of Nazi and Communist persecution. Prague’s Museum of Communism (www.muzeumkomunismu.cz ) tells the story of life under that regime from 1948 to 1989, with exhibits that show propaganda, artifacts and an interrogation room.

Encourage your culturally-inclined clients to set aside a day to explore the Josefov. Recommend a break at the Café Franz Kafka, which sits next door to the Franz Kafka Book Store. I’ve never had strudel anywhere that compares to the strudel in the Café Franz Kafka. Next to the bookstore are the headquarters of the Franz Kafka Society (www.franzkafka-soc.cz ), which can arrange a 90-minute “In the Footsteps of Franz Kafka” walking tour through the writer’s old haunts.

Of course, the Josefov is just one narrow slice of this fascinating city. Because the city was never leveled by World War II bombers, you can still find an unbroken line of period architecture, including some 2,000 Gothic, Neoclassical, Rococo, Romanesque and Art Nouveau structures still standing in their virgin glory. The Charles Bridge, Prague Castle, the Town Square and more make Prague a great place to visit.

For more information on tourism in the Czech Republic, visit www.czechtourism.com

Hapag-Lloyd’s Europa has a new onboard restaurant by Dieter Mueller, a Michelin-starred German chef.

The new restaurant is located in space formerly occupied by a Euro-Asian restaurant. Mueller will work alongside Europa’s head chef, Stefan Wilke, who will continue to run the other three restaurants onboard.

Mueller will be onboard 70 days a year.

There is no surcharge for dining in the 26-seat Restaurant Dieter Mueller, which will serve dinner daily. The contemporary menu features a combination of French, Asian and Mediterranean influences.

For more information, visit www.hl-cruises.com

Ski Club Freshtracks has increased its programme of ski holidays for solo travellers by 40%.

It says last winter over 70% of its holidays were booked by individual travellers

Solo ski holidays give everyone their own room at no additional supplement.

Single girls can book on the ‘Jungfrau Girls’ weekend to Grindelwald, March 10-14 for ski, spa and relaxation, women only.

Staying at the four-star Hotel Sunstar, the price is £695 including single room accommodation, scheduled flights and transfers.

Other new adventure holidays for single skiers include weeks in Val d’Isere, La Plagne, Grindelwald, Davos, Laax and Bad Hofgastein.

There can be fewer more spectacular and rugged parts of the UK than the County Antrim coast, the north east corner of Ireland and home to the famous Giant’s Causeway, known as the 8th wonder of the wonder and only a 40 minute drive from Ballygally.

There is no better way to explore it than with the wind in your hair and the top down on a beautiful classic car.

Let Hastings Hotels fulfil this dream with their new 3-day Classic Coast tour which includes beautiful accommodation in heritage hotels, hire of a chauffeur driven gorgeous car.

Prices start from £360 per person.

Hastings Hotels’ Classic Coast Tour includes:

One night at The Culloden Estate and Spa, originally built as an official palace for the Bishops of Down, which is just five miles outside Belfast with lovely views over Belfast Lough.

Bottle of Champagne on arrival at The Culloden.

A fabulous three course dinner at The Culloden’s Mitre restaurant, one of Northern Ireland’s finest restaurants.

4 – 5 hours chauffeur driven Classic Car Tour of the coast. Choose from a Classics Mustang, General Lee, Beetle Convertible, New York Taxi or Beetle Limo.

One indulgent picnic hamper brimming with traditional Irish goodies such as local handmade cheeses, Irish smoked salmon, soda bread, locally made patés and potted Irish prawns.

One night at Ballygally Castle which dates back to 1625 and is ideally located for exploring the Co. Antrim coast.

Full Irish Breakfast at both the Culloden and Ballygally.

Traditional afternoon tea at Ballygally.

Tour of Bushmills Distillery, this distillery is over 400 years old and the oldest working whiskey distillery in the world.

A three course dinner at Ballygally using locally sourced seasonal ingredients.

From Belfast, the Antrim Coast Road is a spectacular drive winding its way through wild and rugged, undulating coastal scenery. Cited by many as among the world’s best drives, along with Australia’s Great Ocean Road and Route 66 in the States, the Antrim Coast Road hugs the north east coast of Ireland taking in some of the area’s most striking tourist attractions.

Ballygally Castle is just 26 miles north of Belfast, close to Larne, and faces the soft, sandy beaches of Ballygally Bay.

Full of character and charm, this lovely hotel makes an ideal base from which to explore the Co. Antrim coast.

Many of the area’s best loved sights are just an easy drive away – although you may wish to take the long route in your lovely classic car!

No visit to Northern Ireland is complete without exploring the fabulous Giant’s Causeway, a World Heritage Site and the 4th greatest natural wonder in the UK. Another must-see is Bushmills, the oldest whiskey distillery in the world, founded in 1608.

Watch whiskey being made and enjoy a wee taster too. With some beautiful beaches close at hand, there is a choice of enjoying the delights of the White Rocks, or the sandy strands at Portrush and Portstewart.

Additional attractions all within easy reach of Ballygally include; Carrickfergus Castle, a Norman castle on the shore of Belfast Lough, which remains one of the best preserved medieval structures in the whole of Ireland; the world-renowned Glens of Antrim and Carnfunnock Country Park which offer superb walks and lovely views; and Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge which will get the heart racing as you walk across a wobbly bridge suspended high over the bubbling water below to a rocky outcrop.

For further information and reservations please visit www.hastingshotels.com  or call 028 9047 1066.

The Napili Kai Beach Resort on Maui is offering the Na Hoku (“under the stars”) Dinner for two, featuring four courses in a private setting on an oceanfront bluff.

The dinner begins at sunset with champagne, followed by a selection of appetizers, salads, entrees and desserts, along with wine pairings. The dinner is priced at $225 per person, including a personal server, tax and gratuity. The Na Hoku Dinner is available to resort guests and non-resort guests and can be expanded to include up to 12 people.

Only one Na Hoku Dinner takes place each evening, and reservations are based on availability.

To make a reservation, call Verna Biga at 808-669-9559 or email vernab@napilikai.com

For general hotel information, call 800-367-5030 or visit www.napilikai.com

Hurtigruten is launching the 1893 Ambassador customer loyalty program to reward repeating guests with discounts and recognition benefits. Named after the year of the company’s original founding by Capt. Richard With, the program gives members 10 percent off their next Norwegian Coastal Voyage; 5 percent off a future Explorer Voyage to Greenland, Antarctica or Spitsbergen or spring cruises in Europe; and/or a 5 percent discount on select excursions booked onboard during a Norwegian voyage.

Additional benefits include a bridge visit on the Norwegian Coastal Voyage, a fruit basket in cabin, a three-day bicycle rental, a quarterly member newsletter with background stories and tips, and a member card.

Guests who have already cruised can join by calling 877-301-3059 or visiting www.hurtigruten.us/1893.

New travelers can join the program while onboard or after returning home.

The discount rewards can also be combined with early-booking fares and other select discount programs. Membership in the program is free and its included discounts are for the cruise component only.

For more information, call 800-323-7436

or visit www.hurtigruten.us