(JetAway Magazine, December 2010-January 2011)
Blackpool? In the winter? Don’t think of kiss-me-quick hats and threadbare sheets: the town has seen a renaissance and is now the perfect place for a romantic weekend away. Here are five things to do with your other half as the nights draw in at this seaside town.
Blackpool hotels aren’t run by little old ladies anymore. Number One South Beach (4 Harrowside West, 01253 343900) is the perfect bolthole for you and your other half to spend the evenings when it gets just a little too cold to walk the Golden Mile. Each of the 15 rooms has an enormous beds piled high with oodles of furs and luxurious sheets, dimmed lights and a whirlpool bath big enough for two. Breakfast is included, though it can be hard to tear yourself away from the comfy beds after a warm night in.
If your heart isn’t racing fast enough, head just five minutes walk up the seafront to Blackpool Pleasure Beach and ride the rollercoasters. Modern behemoths sit alongside more antiquated (and quaint) rides; if you’re looking for your pulse to race – and an excuse to squeeze your other half’s hand a little tighter – then try the Wild Mouse or the Pepsi Max Big One, with brilliant views of the waterfront from its summit. Also ride Valhalla, the water ride where you get so soaked you’ll have an excuse to head straight back to your hotel, have a hot bath and keep warm under the covers.
Any one of the three piers that jut out into the Irish Sea provides the right dose of old-school Blackpool kitsch that you need: try and hook a duck for your beau, then walk to the end of the pier (bracing the wind) and share some warm doughnuts. Surrounded by couples of all ages promenading hand-in-hand, you can’t help but feel close to your loved one.
Every man wants to think they’re Fred Astaire, and every woman Ginger Rogers. You can go some way towards living the dream at the world-famous ballroom under the stupendous Blackpool Tower near the North Pier – and if it’s raining outside afterwards you can recreate the famous sequence from Singin’ in the Rain!
All that exercise will make you a little hungry, and just a few minutes walk away from your hotel is one of the best Indian restaurants in Blackpool. Leeraj (23 Squires Gate Lane, 01253 406300) has delightful food and a voluptuous-looking interior – and those curry spices are sure to warm your heart.
Even if the wind is blowing you to and fro and the rain’s lashing through your clothes, you’ll have a delightful weekend away with your other half in the romantics’ Blackpool.
'The fifth, sixth, seventh, thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth arrondissements of Paris are perhaps the most fabled places in this most famous city. La Rive Gauche - The Left Bank - has been, for over a century, the artistic and cultural home of Paris; a place where painters, poets
and progressives meet up to expand their minds and meet up with like minded people.'
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