Love from London: Luxury camping at British music festivals

by Iva Skoch on

Last year, some of Britain’s best music festivals got flooded (read: people – tents – muddy mess). This year, the UK is ready to cater to a traveler’s every need, even the ones that require 300-thread cotton sheets in their “tents.”

The Times offers a few tips, from luxury tepees with furniture and furs to carpeted cabins, via your own 10-man tour bus complete with booze rider. Read more here.

Here is the festival timeline for this summer:

  • Donington Park, Leicestershire, June 13-15

  • GLASTONBURY, Worthy Farm, Somerset, June 27-29

  • WAKESTOCK, Blenheim Palace, Oxford, June 27-29

  • CAMP BESTIVAL, Lulworth Castle, Dorset, July 18-20

  • THE SECRET GARDEN PARTY, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, July 24-27

  • CROISSANT NEUF, Usk, Monmouthshire, August 15-17

  • ELECTRIC PICNIC, Stradbally Estate, Co Laois, Ireland, August 29-31

GADLING TAKE 5: Week of 2-29-2008

by Catherine Bodry on

Happy Leap Year Day! I’m certainly grateful for the extra 24 hours in my schedule.

We’ve had a fun-filled week at Gadling, filled with the amazing, the astounding, and the downright odd:

Happy weekend, and enjoy your extra day!

Love from London: The biggest tourist traps

by Iva Skoch on

I have been to London so many times, I don’t usually do the touristy thing any more. Sometimes, however, it is fun to visit the beaten path places just for the sheer humor involved.

With that premise, I attended a tour of Kensington Palace yesterday. My review? Save the £12 ($24) or spend it on beer instead. Yes, even warm beer. The tour must be one of the worst ways to spend your money, aside from–perhaps–investing in the Canadian dollar right about now. (This is, of course, coming from someone who chose journalism as a career, so clearly, my financial advice is to be taken with a grain of salt.)

I am here to report is that the Kensington palace consists largely of Princess Di stuff. And not even good stuff. Princess Di pictures, Princess Di wedding video, a few of her dresses and…that’s about it. A few of the preserved state rooms are worth seeing but overall this is a big disappointment. I don’t mean this to be disrespectful to the late princess, but I find it appalling that her personal tragedy has turned into such a great source of income for people.

Which brings me to my next point. I hear that nothing beats the London Dungeon tour in the biggest tourist trap ranking. Then again, tonight I am supposed to join the Jack the Ripper tour and I could easily see that one winning this competition. Stay tuned!

Love from London: The most expensive streets in England & Wales

by Iva Skoch on

The advantage of being in London is that you stop thinking about New York as an expensive city. If you are considering relocating here, you might need to know a little bit about the London “unreal estate.”

The other day, I was reading in The Times about The 20 Most Expensive Street in England and Wales. To give you a taste of the pricing in London, here is the Top 10:

  1. Courtenay Avenue, N6: average property value – £6,803,900 (to get the figures in $, just double it)
  2. Chelsea Square, SW3: average property value – £6,440,600
  3. Manresa Road, SW3: average property value – £6,193,300
  4. Ilchester Place, W14: average property value – £5,840,200
  5. Gilston Road, SW10: average property value – £5,584,100
  6. Carlyle Square, SW3 : average property value – £5,581,300
  7. Eldon Road, W8: average property value – £5,512,000
  8. The Vale, SW3: average property value – £5,439,400
  9. Carlton Gardens SW1Y: average property value – £5,285,300
  10. Albert Place W8: average property value – £5,255,500

London and the South East account for the majority of streets with the highest property values across England and Wales; top prices in these two regions are more than double the value of the most expensive streets in some other regions. Wales has the region’s lowest average prices; with the top street reaching £897,400, it is the only region whose top street does not break the million pound mark.

If you don’t have $20M to throw around, don’t worry. You won’t be excluded from the pricing madness here. Even hostels are expensive in London.

Fake Ferraris for sale in Italy

by Catherine Bodry on

Fake Guccis, faux Rolexes — these are items you see for sale on Italian streets everywhere. But fake Ferraris?

Reuters reports that Italian police broke up a ring “selling fake Ferrari cars for a fraction of the real price,” or as little as 20,000 euros. The police also suggest that those buying the cars knew they were buying fakes.

So how did the salesmen pull it off? How do you actually build a fake Ferrari? Police say that the car body workers were “very able,” and cobbled together “mostly fake parts and a few original components.” They then modified the body parts to resemble Ferrari classics, such as one (the 328 Gtb) that went out of production in 1980.

Do you think you could tell a real Ferrari from a fake? Better yet, would you buy a fake one?