Guess what? There are more fires in California today. Ugh, just when we were getting over the devastating Big Sur Fire, another one has flared up.
If you're headed to Yosemite National Park shortly, you may want to rethink your trip. Or at least bring along a smoke mask. SF Chronicle reports that the Telegraph Fire has already destroyed 26,000 acres in rugged canyons 12 miles west of Yosemite, along with 12 homes and is set to get worse as the dry weather continues this week.
Monica Guy, our own younger, blonder, more attractive but still curmudgeonly version of Andy Rooney has returned to us once more. After finding hotel satisfaction in Lisbon, she's moved onto a new type of hotel, a floating one. Once again, her bolded words are left in for Rooney-esque emphasis. Enjoy.
Here's a novelty extra - what do you think of a hotel deal that includes all transport?
Not transport from the airport. Not even transport to the city centre or for day trips. I mean your whole hotel room's transported. You wake up every morning at a new destination, without even realising you've gone anywhere, or having to waste time and effort getting there yourself.
Bargain, no? Especially when the room rate is as low as 10 euros a night. Cheaper than living at home.
Last year we mentioned the Hotel Thule in Namibia, which became famous as the place thieving former Comverse executive Jacob Alexander was tracked down while running from the law.
Apparently Amirandes in Greece, on the island of Crete, is the place to stay when you're a fugitive Greek who has run a Ponzi scheme hedge fund into the ground. That's according to this New York Post article, which says this find may not have a happy ending. Greece won't extradite a naturalized citizen unless he's guilty of something like murder, not just stealing $80 million from defrauded investors.
Angelo Haligiannis is certainly having a grand time with the stolen money:
About a month after he cut off his ankle bracelet and vanished on Jan. 10, 2006 - he was to be sentenced the next day to 15 years in jail - Haligiannis was living it up, gambling at the Club Hotel Casino Loutraki, a swanky retreat and spa on a gorgeous beach near Athens, sources said.
And the party carried on until last Monday, when he and Liz, comfortably settled in a $2,500-a-night suite at another posh hotel, the Amirandes resort, sipped champagne on the beach while their daughter frolicked in the sand.
The really ironic thing about this story is that Interpol and federal marshals searched for two years but hadn't had any luck tracking him down. Haligiannis finally got caught when a family member of a fraud victim spotted him at the hotel, snapped a photo, and called the cops.
[Ed. Note: Hotel Maven MontrealCanajan alerted us to a place to avoid in Santorini. As always, this is just one person's experience.]
We stayed at several hotels on Santorini and nearby Paros Island, and have nice things to say about all of them except this one: Volcano Villas - Don't stay there.
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by juliana
[Ed. Note: Hotel Maven 
