Cheap Holidays 2018 - Book Before Christmas to Save

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When it comes to early holiday bookings for summer 2018, most people does it in January but there are huge advantages if you spare some Christmas shopping money for your next holiday. Early booking discounts are much better before new year.

Here are some ideas for your inspiration from earlier posts:

VISITING INDIA 

 More than two-thirds o f Indian people live in the thousands of villages dotted all over India. Most people work on the land. They do not own large farms; many own or rent small pieces of land. Here they grow food for their families, with perhaps a bit extra to sell at market. It is a hard life. People live in simple houses, sometimes built around open-air courtyards. Each village also has a well and a temple or mosque.

Some people leave their villages and travel to the big cities in search of work. Some get jobs as household servants, hotel workers or rickshaw drivers. But many return em ptyhanded. Indian cities are very overcrowded. Many people live in slum s on the outskirts of the city. Some cannot even afford to do this. They sleep on the pavement. There are also gangs of beggars, trying to scrape together enough money' to live on. Wealthy people usually live in large blocks of flats. They have servants to cook, clean and keep house for them .

If you lived in India, you'd probably have not only your parents, but your grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins living with you. When an Indian girl gets married, she leaves her family and goes to live with her husband's family. Indian weddings are very grand affairs, lasting for several days. The bride wears a special, embroidered sari with beautiful jewellery and elaborate make-up.

WHAT ABOUT BENIDORM IN 2018?

Benidrom is famous with its night life, festivals and beautiful weather all year around. Join the followers of The Benidorm Travel Guide on Facebook and visit the blog for festival dates in 2018

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MADERIA

Many stories have been told about the discovery and colonization of Madeira, and many myths persist to this day. One is that Madeira is the last vestige of the drowned continent of Atlantis; another is that the lost treasure of the notorious pirate Captain Kidd is buried on one of the llhas Selvagens. The truth is more prosaic. It is known for a fact that the Madeiran islands were familiar to navigators long before Porto Santo and Madeira were officially 'discovered' by Joao Gongalves Zarco in 1418 and 1420. Pliny, the 1 st-century ad Roman writer, called them the 'Purple Islands' because of the distinctive colour of Madeira's volcanic rocks and soil. The Medici map of 1351, drawn by Genoese cartographers, was the first to depict Madeira and give it a name I Isola delle Lolegname (Island of Wood). The same name - llha da Madeira in Portuguese i was used by Zarco when he landed in 1420, laying daim to the island on behalf of Portugal.

The story of Robert Machin Facts, though, are rarely as romantic as the tales embroidered by sailors with time on their hands as they sailed the Atlantic carrying cargoes of Madeiran sugar, grain and wine. About 100 years after Zarco's discovery, chronicler Valentine Fernandes published a different account, which he no doubt heard in some harbourside bar. This concerns a Bristol merchant, Robert Machin, who was blown out into the Atlantic by a storm while sailing to Portugal. Ending up within sight of Madeira, Machin went ashore to investigate.

 His mutinous crew decided to abandon Machin, but they got caught up in another storm which drove them on to the Moroccan coast where they were taken prisoner, destined to serve as galley slaves. Determined to return to civilisation, Machin built himself a raft. He, too, fell prey to Moroccan pirates and ended up in the same prison as his former crew. 

Machin then furiously attacked one of his fellow sailors, meaning to kill him in revenge. Astonished by the ferocity of the fight, Machin's gaolers forced him to explain his actions and it was not long before the whole story of the mysterious island at the edge of the known world began to circulate. It was only a matter of time before Henry the Navigator heard the story and sent Zarco out to investigate. Even more romantic versions of Machin's story circulated in the 17th century in which he is portrayed as an English aristocrat eloping with his sweetheart, Anna d'Arfet (or Anne of Hertford). Shipwrecked on Madeira, she dies of exposure and he of a broken heart. Zarco is said to have found their graves when he stepped ashore in 1420, inspiring him to name the spot Machico. Another Madeiran legend has it that Zarco set fire to Madeira - this being the fastest way to clear the island's dense woodland - and that the forests blazed for seven years. In fact, clearance was probably much more selective: the island's timber was a valuable resource, used for building houses, ships and the crates to hold sugar and other crops.