I have received a lot of emails today from worried holidaymakers who are looking to cancel their holiday to Egypt due to the recent bombings. My advice from a non travel professional, is visit www.fco.gov.uk and find out the latest information available about the destination – this goes for any destination not just Egypt.

Contact your travel agent and find out what they advise you to do. I can’t comment on cancellation fees and cancellation conditions because it depends on the travel agent you booked the holiday though – and it wouldn’t be right me speculating as this could make things much worse.

Also call your travel insurance company to get more advice from them on how you go about getting compensation if the travel agency is not providing refunds – I am not sure of the actual legalities but another website is ABTA (Association of British Travel Agents) might prove fruitful.

Egypt Bombings: Telephone number for concerned relatives
A number has been set up for concerned relatives to call if they believe they have a loved one in the area: 020 7008 0000.

Please read the information on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office Travel advice

Believe me when I say never eat sausage and mash when your typing your blog – the mash always wins! Phew what a day today, and to end an eventful day I’d like to mention the travel blog of the day!

Have suitcase – will travel is the name of today’s travel blog. It features some very cool pictures of Colorado Springs – oh I wish I was sat in the sun under the blue sky! Anyway, this is a good blog written by an half Guatemalan, half Welsh woman who dislikes chocolate! It’s nicely designed so have a read it’s worth the visit!

Travel blog: Have Suitcase … will travel

This year marks the return of Royal Ascot to its Berkshire home following a £200 million redevelopment programme of the Grandstand and Ascot Racecourse track which has taken 18 months to complete, just in time to coincide with the Queens 80th Birthday celebrations. The Royal Meeting will run from Tuesday 20th to Saturday 24th June with Ladies Day on the 22nd June. The official opening will take place on the first day of the races.

With the welcome return to Ascot, the new state-of-the-art Grandstand, Racecourse Track and spectacular pageantry, over 300,000 visitors are expected to make the journey to Berkshire to be part of this internationally renowned sporting and social occasion.

LateRooms.com, the discount hotels specialist, has already seen an increase in demand for Ascot hotels and are strongly advising visitors to arrange their accommodation well in advance to avoid major disappointment.

LateRooms are recommending that the best hotel availabilities and discounts will be available in hotels situated further away from the race course. The LateRooms site provides detailed maps of Ascot and information such as the distances of hotels from the centre of Ascot.

‘An extensive selection of 60 hotels in Ascot including 4 and 5 star luxury hotels enables LateRooms to offer accommodation to suit most budgets, provided people book early’ said Head of Marketing Andrew Pumphrey.

Racegoers can enjoy a first class experience during Ascot with an overnight stay at the Stoke Place Hotel which has prices from £145 per double room including breakfast. The hotel is within easy reach of Ascot, only 10.7 miles away.

For those visitors wanting to be closer to all the action, the Grange Bracknell Hotel is only 5.8 miles away and has double rooms from £175 per room, per night.

Further Information.
LateRooms Website. LateRooms Hotels in Ascot

About LateRooms
LateRooms is the UK’s leading online accommodation site offering late availability deals in over 12,000 properties world-wide ranging from B&B’s to five star luxury hotels. LateRooms can offer customers a saving of up to 70% off the normal room rate for a variety of independent and branded hotels. Customer can book by phone or online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for accommodation needed three months in advance or up to the moment of their stay.

It’s that time of the day again readers! Firstly, I’d like to say hello to Michelle and Paul who left messages on my new introduce yourself page – please feel free to introduce yourself and tell me how you found travel rants. I’d love to find out about all the people who are reading my illiterate ramblings and rants!

Today’s travel blog of the day is written by Ben Casnocha and starts off discussing his plans for his gap year trip travelling around Europe. One of the reasons I liked this blog was the design – very attractive blog theme.

Good luck Ben and please keep us up to date with your travels as we’d like to know where you are heading to and your experiences in each destination.

Travel Blog: Ben’s Gap Year Travel adventures

I literally threw my suitcase on the bed, had a quick wash, and then put on my backpack, with map, guide to Prague and my reliable Sony Cybershot digital camera and off I set – the woman at the reception looked at me strange, because I’d literally been in my room for five minutes.

Off I went exploring this beautiful city – it was a little cloudy, and the remainder of the snow from the day before was still there. What hit me straight away was that in the UK to melt the snow we use grit, which is a mixture of sand and salt but here in Prague it was literally just sand and wasn’t a greal deal of use.

My first attraction was the beautiful Palacky Bridge over the river, which had at both ends, two large statues featuring an angel on each pole – I believe from speaking with the locals that these are here to protect the city – this area of the city was badly affected by the floods in 2002 so a lot of the statues were taken away to be restored.

I then headed down what the tourists called ‘Paris Street’ (correct pronunciation is Pařížská) and as you walked down this street you passed the Jewish community (look for Josefov on the map) which was the location for the awe inspiring old and new synagogue. If you walked down the street you could see the Jewish ceremony hall which was just a spectacular looking building, and what I found weird was that on what looked to be a normal street are these two magnificent buildings.

As you walked down “Paris Street” you could see the designer stores – certainly not the type of stores I would pay a visit to, but featured the likes of Sergio Tacchini, Benetton, Diesel, Hugo Boss and Louis Vuitton – I sat down for five minutes and you could see the rich men and women of Prague doing there shopping in these expensive designer shops.

At the top of “Paris Street” is the entrance into the magnificent Old Town Square, and I cannot describe how much I loved this part of Prague – as you walked into the entrance on the right hand side you were dwarfed by the stunning St. Nicolas Church, further to the right you could see the small market which gave away the smell of malted wine, candles and hot dogs – next to the market are two small stalls that sold food and hot malted wine, which was perfect if you needed to warm yourself up.

Most of the stalls in this small market area were aimed towards tourists, and what surprised me at first was that very little of the merchandise had price tickets on it – now I am sure that they was a reason for that, but you could ask the price, and barter with them if you felt confident enough.

Dating back to the late 12th century, the Old Town Square started it’s life as the central marketplace for Prague, and the most notable sights in Prague’s Old Town Square are the Church of Our Lady before Tyn, the Astronomical Clock & Old Town Hall Tower and as I mentioned St. Nicolas Church.

Before I came to Prague I did some research on the destination – one thing that I was warned about are the pocket picketers – don’t let this frighten you, but be very careful with your wallet and passport – if possible keep the passport in a safe in the hotel, whilst sat in the square I got talking to a Dutch couple who had a bad experience the day before, and had money, credit cards and passports stolen – this was whilst travelling on the metro.

Now the metro system is very reliable, and very very cheap – I didn’t travel on the metro for two reasons 1) I love to walk around a city and get to know the people and the place but 2) I didn’t like the look of some of the metro stations, and they looked very dark and dangerous places to be.

Another transport option is the reliable tram system (be careful crossing the road as the drivers aren’t quick to slow down!) then theres the local buses, train and if you wanted to travel in style then you had the opportunity of a tour around the city by horse and carriage or a 1950′s car – one thing for sure Prague is a very romantic city.