In Seotember the Dublin’s festival season starts with lots of music, theatre, architecture, exhibitions and even fashion, so you will certainly find something you like.

Mountains to sea is the first one to open the season, it is a book festival that started the 1st and will last until the 11th september, with all kinds of Skulduggery with Derek Lanky, the very wonderful Cathy Cassidy, a Monster Family Book Quiz, and so much more. Then theDublin Contemporary will fill Dublin’s streets with contemporary art for 8 weeks until the 31st october, and you should grab the opportunity since the next one will be held on 2016. For those who are more the fashionista type you have the Dublin Fashion Festival with Catwalks, Make up classes, after the show discounts in fashion shops and even a fabulous Afternoon Tea at the Westbury Hotel.

The Fringe starts this saturday and until 25th september there will be music, comedy, dance and theatre events all over Dublin. On 23rd September just a day after Arthur’s Day™, takes place the Dublin Culture Night when you will have events and exhibitions in galleries, museums, parks and even churches or graveyards.

If you love theatre the Dublin Festival Theatre is the festival you don’t have to miss, from 25th september until 16th october. Music lovers will be able to enjoy a 100 of different irish bands during the Hard Working Class Heroes independent festival on the 6th, 7th and 8th october. And to end these series of festivals from the 7th to the 9th october there is the Open House Dublin, the biggest irish architecture festival where Dublin buildings of all types and periods will open up their doors, with special tours by hundreds of professionals and enthusiasts, completely for free!

Book now your hotel in Dublin with Hotelopia.

In february Venice is full of people dressed up for the carnival, in september the canals are full of vaporetos filled with directors and movie stars. Until the 10th of september it takes place the Mostra of Venice, one of the top film festivals. Every year in the Palazzo del Cinema, the jury gives the Golden Lion to the best movie, the Silver Lion to the best director and Copa Volpi to the best actor and actress.

Last year, the Golden Lion went to Somewhere directed by Sofia Coppola and the Silver Lion to Alex de la Iglesia as the director of A sad trumpet ballad.

This year among the 22 films in competition one of the most awaited films is The Ides of March directed by George Cloony based on the broadway play Farragut North written by Beau Willimon and loosely based on the 2004 Democratic primary campaign of Howard Dean. Another awaited film is Carnage directed by Roman Polanski based on the play written by Yasmina Reza.

Who will get the Golden Lion this year?

Book now your hotel in Venice at Hotelopia.

We are in September, the end of the summer is near and autumn will start in just a few days. What a better way to start autumn than raising one’s glass in a toast to Arthur Guiness? The 22nd september it is Arthur’s Day™ when irish honor the founder of the famous beer brand. In fact the celebrations start at 17h59 o’clock so as to remember that it was in 1759 when Guiness was founded. At that time there will be concerts in the most import ants cities of Ireland : Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Limerick with groups like Scissors Sisters will play.

More information about the Arthur’s Day™ aquí.

But Ireland has much more to offer than pubs and beers. Ireland has very impressive landscapes like the meadows who have more than 40 different green tones or the Giant’s Causeway, a moon like landscape with 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the legend tells that it is an irish giant who wanted to build his way to Scotland where another giant lived. Furthermore, among his 900 miles of coast you can discover very high cliffs and sand beaches and enjoy the local seafood and fish.

The irish culture has a lot of traditions with instruments like the bodhrán a drum that you play with your hand. In autumn you can also discover a very typical Halloween dish like colcannon which is a mix of cabbage and mashed potatoes.

So, there is a lot of Ireland to discover. Find the best hotel offers in Ireland at Hotelopia.

Paris and cake shops are synonymous. But going to a patisserie in Paris is more like going to a museum than a regular cake shop. There are very old ones that where founded a few centuries ago like the famous Ladurée which you can find at Champs Elysées or near the Saint Germain boulevard up to the newest creations of Christophe Michalak, we invite you to discover the greatest patisseries of Paris.

Among the classics of french pastry, you have the Macarons by Ladurée, they exist since 1862 and today they have shops in London, Milán, Tokyo or New York. It is a very delicate and sweet confectionery made mainly with egg whites, icing sugar and almond powder, they are usually filled with jam or buttercream between the two cookies. The most famous flavors are slated butter caramel, chocolate, strawberry, etc.

.
Another famous creation of Ladurée is the Saint Honoré Rose Framboise, named for the patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs. The base it is a a ring of pâte à choux glazed with sugar and rose flavor. On the base there are small cream puffs glazed too. The base is filled with crème chiboust with a touch of rose flavor and finished with whipped cream, raspberry are added on the top of the whipped cream. This desert appears un the Marie Antoinette film by Sofia Coppola.

.

Let’s go to another patisserie to meet one of the most famous creations of Pierre Hermé, the former pastry chef of Ladurée who has become that famous that he owns his own patisseries, 9 in Paris, 2 in London and 8 in Tokyo. Ispahan is most famous pastry made with two rose macaron cookies filled with a rose petals and litchi buttercream and raspberries on the edge. It has became a symbol for Pierre Hermé and now he has created ice creams, jam and even teas inspired on the Ispahan pastry.

For those who prefer chocolate we can give you two famous pastries from Dalloyau, one of the Paris oldest, founded in 1682. The Religieuse de rêve and the Opéra are two of the french pastry classics that has build Dalloyau reputation over the past decades. The Religieuse is made of pate a choux glazed with chocolate and filled with chocolate buttercream. The opera is a more crunchy with a combination of delicate almond biscuit or joconde, chocolate ganache, coffee buttercream, and chocolate glaze.

A few years ago, very chic villages started to appear in the surroundings of the europeans greatest cities. In fact, they are malls, but they are very different from the classic ones, because you will only find luxury brands such as Aquascutum, Burberry or Dior and some other more “affordable” brands like Tommy Hilfiguer, Dockers or Levi’s. But these are outlet stores where you will only find the past collections with an up to 60% discount all the year. It’s more or less like if they were in sale all the time but having also further discounts on sale-time so you get discounts on the discounted price, making luxury affordable!

The only con of these villages is that they are not exactly very near from the city centers. In London the village is called Bicester Village and as it is of course near Bicester at 65 miles from the heart of London.

In Paris it is called “La Vallée Village” and it is in Marne-la-Vallée just by Disneyland at 23 miles from Paris and it is the same for the other villages through Europe (Milan, Madrid, Barcelona etc.). So if you want to profit discounted prices in your favorite luxury brands you should prepare your shopping trip to the village, most of them have buses than can drive you from the city center to the doors of the village.

You will find the list and all the details of Outlet Villages here.

Even though summer holidays are almost over, it is still time to enjoy one of the best beaches of the world. Condé Nast Traveller magazine has selected for us the 10 most stylish seaside destinations in the world. We can of course find the famous Bora Bora beach in Tahiti or the exotic Kho Kood beach in Thailand, but if you don’t want to travel that far from Europe, you have two possibilities in Spain and one in Croatia.

Do you prefer partying or surfing? If you choose to move your booty, then your destination is without any doubt Ibiza, where you will be able to enjoy the nightlife in the most famous clubs of the world. And during the day you can have a rest in one of the outstanding beaches of the island.

If you are more of the sporty kind you can take some wind-surfing or kite-surfing lessons in Tarifa (near Gibraltar), there some beaches are only for surfers and it is prohibited to swim so as everyone is safe and can enjoy the beach.

You will find the top 10 beaches in the world by Condé Nast Traveller here.

What do you say? Ibiza or Tarifa? Book our hotel at Hotelopia.

After the San Sebastian’s great week is time for Bilbao’s, it started on sunday the 20th and it will end on the 28th. The Aste Nagusia of Bilbao, its name in Basque, is managed in a very peculiar way. It is not up to the Bilbao’s city mayor to organize the fiesta in its own as it happens in most of the cities and villages of Spain. It is uo to the Comparsas to organize the Bilbao’s Great Week, of course with the collaboration of the city council. The 29 Comparsas of Bilbao are groups of people that cheer up the fiesta with their Txosnas (sort of food and beverage stands), music and very different activities.

Since 2009, the Bilbao’s Great Week just entered the very restrained group of the 10 Intangible Cultural Heritage of Spain after being the most voted one. It is worth it, even if it is only to see Marijaia, a peculiar character that represents a chubby woman with her arms up in the air as she were dancing all the time who has became the symbol of the Bilbao’s Great Week.

But you can of course enjoy the traditional corridas, the fireworks, concerts and lots of difference activities.

Hurry up and book your hotel at Hotelopia, the fiesta ends on Sunday!

Most of us go on holidays on July or August, forced by school holidays or because their company closes during these months.

But going on holidays during the high season has its cons, beaches are full, plane tickets are more expensive and some hotels are completely booked. That’s why those who can choose, they decide to go on holidays on June or September. But if we had no obligations, would we take our holidays on this dates? We are making a survey on our Facebook Page. Answer it and give us your opinions.

What a better way to celebrate summer nights?
Whether you are on holidays abroad or working at the office you will be able to find an outdoor cinema near from you. Most of them are placed in parks and gardens, some even in beaches or castles it is a good way to see the classic movies you never had time to watch. Of course it is not exactly the same than going to a movie theater (the quality of the sound and image are not the same) but it is a cheaper way to keep yourself occupied in the lazy summer nights.

In London you can go to the Rooftop Cinema at Queen of Hoxton, from Tuesday to Sunday until the 1st September, doors open at 8pm.
Find all the details here.

For those who are abroad, you can also profit from open air cinema in Paris, where you can enjoy classic movies such as West Side Story or Manhattan by Woody Allen. Until the 21st August, find all the details here.

In Madrid, you also have the possibility to enjoy a movie in open air near the Plaza de España in a park until the 3rd September (find all the details here) or in the terrace of the Casa Encendida (find all the details here).

Did you visited London or Paris more than once? Do you already know Oxford Street, The British Museum, Harrods and The Big Ben and you do not know what else you can discover? Jonglez Guides have edited a very peculiar guides that help you discover the more undreamed of places in town but not less interesting. Thanks to this guides you can avoid the touristic routes, particularly crowded now in august, and you can discover some very curious spots, restaurants or meetings that are hidden all over this big cities. Discover the statue of rocker granny in Madrid, take a tour in a bâteau mouche throughout the more unknown channels of Paris or go to the Holy Trinity Church in East London to a clowns Service. This are some of the possibilities you can find in this guides.

You can buy this guides at your Book Shop or online at Amazon.co.uk : http://www.amazon.co.uk/

Enjoy re-discovering the city.