Cheltenham: Where regency meets racing

Cheltenham Races
Even if you’re not majorly into horse racing or betting, it’s a really fun excursion for a one-off. The atmosphere at the race course is electric and this spills over into the town itself. As the Gold Cup tends to happen around St Patrick’s Day, there is a real Irish vibe about the place. Guinness tents provide extra drinking space in the pubs and many of them take euros while the races are on to take advantage of all the paddy spending power. Most visitors arrive on the train and pub crawl their way to the race course, but there are plenty of buses for those who’d rather get there in some sort of functioning order. There are lots of good hotels and B&Bs to suit any budget but they fill up fast. Many of the Cheltenham residents actually let out their own rooms to accommodate the influx of visitors.

The Cotswolds
Away from the horses, Cheltenham has plenty to offer. The regency town houses, old Pump Rooms and promenade squares and terraces are reminiscent of fellow spa town, Bath. Speaking of which, Cheltenham provides a great base for exploring the surrounding Cotswold area including Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon and surrounding quaint Cotswold villages. A trip to Sudeley Castle in Winchcombe or to the beautiful Westonbirt Arboretum near Tetbury, makes for a nice day out if you get the weather.

Cheltenham Festivals
While the Gold Cup is a major attraction for Cheltenham, the races go on periodically throughout the year and the New Year’s Day races are great for helping you forget your hangover. But there’s more going on than just horse racing. Cheltenham holds many festivals including an Arts Festival that attracts internationally acclaimed artists, a Jazz Festival, the Cricket Festival which is the oldest cricket festival in the country, and the National Hunt Festival to name but a few. In the summer there is often live music or craft fares in the beer gardens that can be found in the Montpellier area of the town beside the luxury Queen’s Hotel. Being a regular Britain in Bloom winner, Cheltenham’s gardens provide a colourful and scented setting for relaxing outdoors. By night, there are a number of theatres to choose from, the largest being The Everyman Theatre in the town centre, where you’ll find a range of productions sporting some famous faces.

Designed For Leisure
Whatever it is that brings you to Cheltenham, you’ll be visiting a town that was designed purely for leisure and pleasure, a notion that it replicates today. Cheltenham originally became a spa town in 1716 when the first medicinal waters were discovered. King George III visited in 1788 to drink the waters which sparked a trend amongst the elite. At that point, Cheltenham’s transformation into a fashionable leisure resort began. King George III envisaged the first ‘English Garden City’ which became characterised by the regency period architecture that you can find there today. While perhaps not the destination of nobility that it once was, Cheltenham still caters to its original purpose, so a visit to this little spa town is sure to be a pleasure.

Michelangelos life ended 4 years after finishing The last judgement in the Sistine Chapel a mission given to hime by the pope Paulus III.

Image from Romresa.

The Swedes are a more or less frozen people that stay inside most of the year and that is probably the reason for the effects of spring. Once the sun starts warming up the streets, the bars and the water in Stockholm the city explodes with happy people. Like bears they have been waiting all winter and all of a sudden they all show up on the same day in May.

Stockholms many parks fill with people laughing, heating up the grills and enjoying the first sunny days of the year. Usually this is a bit earlier than May but it stays this way well in to June so if you want to be on the safe side May is the perfect month for a trip to Stockholm.

To get the best exposure to the festivities, it is recommended that you visit Denver in the United States. Denver hosts the largest celebration for Cinco de Mayo, drawing crowds of nearly half a million people.

Lavish parades and entertainment, music, dancing, crafts and food fairs all combine to make a fantastic fiesta. And of course, no one forgets the piñata!

Drool over multi-million dollar yachts, rub shoulders with the rich and famous in countless top class restaurants and luxury hotels and party all night in VIP bars. OK, so you’ll need a fair bit of cash to do it like the celebs but it is worth visiting Cannes when the film festival is on if only to soak up the exclusive atmosphere and say you’ve been. There are plenty of ways to do Cannes on a three-figure budget and the whole area is really pretty even without all the fuss.

Cannes film festival usually takes place around the third week of May.

While Holi Day is celebrated all over India, it is perhaps most enthusiastically celebrated in the capital. As Delhi is a melting pot of different Indian cultures, you are likely to see all aspects and nuances of the Holi festival in the main city. Based in the heart of India, Delhi is a great place to explore in its own right as well as serving as a perfect base from which to discover a little more of India.

One of the best cities to visit at this time is Dublin. Already known for being a party capital, Dublin erupts on St Patrick’s Day. The streets will be lined with thousands of revellers all accessorised in leprechaun green and Guinness hats, watching marching bands, dancing, live music and flamboyant parades.

And the Irish hospitality really out-does itself at this time. Dublin on St Patrick’s Day has to be the friendliest place in the world. Characteristic pubs brim with hoards of Irish and warmly welcomed tourists, all whetting their whistles for a night of shamrocks and shenanigans.

Usually held in mid-end Feb, the carnival takes place the weekend before lent; traditionally where it earned its name, ‘carne vale’ means ‘without meat’. Less about giving things up, the carnival is now more about indulging in life. You’ll find yourself amid four days of 24/7 partying, dancing, drinking, costumes and samba, and an absolutely electric atmosphere.

In 2010, the carnival is planned to take place from the 13th to the 17th of February.

The festival welcomes in the Thai New Year and is hugely popular with travellers the world over. The festival kicks off with a ritual cleaning of houses by the locals. This is a spring clean for the year ahead and is followed up by the preparing of the feast for the days to come. The most renowned feature, and reason for tourist interest, however, is the huge water fight that takes place on the last day. Following a morning of religious ceremonies, Chiang-Mai erupts into bedlam and water is hurled, shot, sprayed and dumped on locals and tourists alike for the rest of the day.

This festival has a brilliant party atmosphere with feasts, parades and beauty pageants galore. Just don’t stand under any balconies for too long and keep your wits about you to avoid constant soakings!

Originally started to celebrate the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage, Oktoberfest was, as its name suggests, celebrated in October. Since then, the festival has been extended and moved forward into September to take advantage of the better weather conditions. The festival now takes place between September 19 and October 4 and has increased in size phenomenally.

Following the opening ceremonies on the first day which includes the official opening of the first keg of beer by the Lord Mayor, the binging begins. Hundreds of thousands of people turn up to indulge in traditional German produce, down vast Steiners of beer served by amazingly strong fraulines and generally enjoy a shamelessly hedonistic time of laughter, music and partying.

If you love a beer, this is definitely the place to be. Be warned though, you will need a week off to recover afterwards!