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Get Your Harry Potter Fix for Halloween at These Hotels

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: Cong, Co Mayo, Ireland
October 7, 2009 at 1:00 PM | by juliab | 0 Comments

While dressing up in costume and checking into the Hilton San Francisco might win you a free hotel stay, it doesn't include treasure hunts, Harry Potter screenings and an afternoon of witchcraft. Nope, for that you will have to head to the rather luscious-looking Ashford Castle in County Mayo, Ireland.

The castle is having a Harry Potter-inspired Halloween. This might surprise you, given that the place has nothing to do with Harry Potter whatsoever – in fact, the tenuous link they make is that the castle was built in 1228: “a time when magic in Europe was the norm.” Hmm.

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Has Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons Gone Down the WAG Route?

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: Church Road, Great Milton, Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, OX44 7PD
April 2, 2009 at 4:02 PM | by juliab | 0 Comments

We were a little perturbed this weekend when we opened up the usually excellent Mail on Sunday travel section and found this review of Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons. Not only is Le Manoir meant to be one of England’s top country hotels and gastro retreats (as well it should, given that its cheapest room costs Ł430, or $632), but when we paid a visit last year, we were pretty enchanted.

For a start, it’s 15 minutes away from Oxford, one of the best towns within an hour’s distance to escape the madness that is London, given that the whole place and half its inhabitants look like they stepped off a film set. But yet, it’s total country manor – 15th-century manor to be precise, with the perfectly manicured grounds to match. And the rooms that we saw and stayed in were lovely and rustically simple, unlike the over-the-top frills that you get in lots of other country hotels.

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