From fabulous ski parties to colorful carnivals and cultural events steeped in tradition, here are 20 of the best winter festivals in Europe.
THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2. It goes without saying that the main thing an F1 fan looks forward to each year is the return of, well, F1. But every season is different .
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Here are five things that we're excited about. Ch- ch- changes..? The only thing people talked more about in 2. Mercs was the topic of 2.
Tyres, tyres and more tyres. Anyway, in a nutshell, the changes to the car will provide more downforce and more grip, which from the outside means fatter cars and bigger tyres. Yep, big old biceps and massive boots, aka more muscle on track. There are others (see our feature about regulation changes here), such as fussing about with the rear diffuser, but overall it's all about increasing the speed. It gets our vote anyway, because we've got podiums to collect like Pok. The end of the season is usually when a team recruits for crew, what with people hopping off to new horizons and so on, but it's not often you're in need of a new driver at short notice, especially after they've just won the world title. From a fan perspective, Nico Rosberg's retirement was certainly unexpected but once the shock had worn off, the situation gave rise to a new light in the 2.
He'll be missed of course, but putting Valtteri Bottas into one of the most sought after seats in F1 will certainly have an impact and might just shake things up a bit. Popcorn, anyone? 3) Baby you can drive my car. One of our favourite things about a new season is the unveiling of our brand new challenger. It makes the Team a bit sweaty and anxious (after all, it's a funny old thing, letting your brand new baby out into the world for the first time), but the nerves soon calm down after a glass of the fizzy stuff and a few team hugs. Last year we had a great time with our friends at Puma in London, where some cool dancers showed off the new kit and we showed off the RB1.
We can't wait to show you the RB1. It takes two.. Ah, Daniel and Max.
What a ride they gave us in 2. The impressive overtakes, the hard- earned podiums and the gripping on- track battles, both with each other and the rest of the pack.. Then there were the off- track demands of the job: the relentless interviews, the videos cooked up by our marketing monkeys, the determination to pop more balloons in 1. They've got a brand new car and brand new rules to play with in 2. They're already hard at it behind the scenes and you can expect to see them hunting down the title like a pair of hungry sharks with a whiff of blood ahead.
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- See Cunard's exciting range of Christmas Cruises. A Cunard Christmas exudes style and sophistication. So, Christmas Eve could be toasted with a perfectly chilled.
- Sunny skies are in Thursday's forecast, says the National Weather Service. Highs should reach 45 degrees, and wind will blow 11 to 14 mph, sometimes picking up speed.
Our tours are physically active! It's an essential part of the Rick Steves tour experience. On our Best of Sicily (Off-Season) in 11 Days tour Winter may be unpleasant to experience physically . These images were all taken.
We can't wait. 5) He comes from a land down under.. Kicking things off in Melbourne is always fun, not least because it's a welcome ray of sunshine after the chilly MK winter but returning with Daniel's third place trophy and the Team's second place silverware under our belts is a great way to arrive at our Aussie home from home. There are few welcomes warmer than in Melbourne and it's usually one big F1 party to start the new season in style. With new wheels to ride and an unpredictable season ahead, we fully expect the Honey Badger to go into the weekend with all guns blazing to deliver a feisty drive for his home crowd.
E- cards and Animated Greeting Cards by Jacquie Lawson. Barnardo's – December 2. We've dedicated our second major release of 2.
Christmas Lights – to the well- known children's charity Barnardo's. Nineteenth- century London was a city with many problems. The industrial revolution caused a dramatic increase in population, and into this cauldron of bad housing, unemployment, poverty and disease there arrived in 1.
Irishman, Thomas Barnardo, intending to train as a doctor with a view to becoming a medical missionary in China. A few months after his arrival an outbreak of cholera swept through the East End with catastrophic effects on poor families, and Barnardo decided to give up his dream of going to China and to devote himself instead to helping destitute children. In 1. 87. 0, still only 2. Barnardo opened his first home in East London, where boys were trained in carpentry, metal work and shoemaking to enable them to secure apprenticeships and work. By the time he died 3.
Since then the focus of the charity has of course changed dramatically to meet the needs of today's young people, and their services include counselling for children who have been abused, fostering and adoption services, vocational training and disability inclusion groups. You can read much more about their wonderful work on their website. Please send Christmas Lights to your friends and family this Christmas; and maybe you and your recipients might consider making a small seasonal donation to help Barnardo's with their valuable work. Maggie's Centres – December 2. Our first Christmas card of 2. White Christmas, is dedicated to the remarkable charity Maggie's Centres.
In May 1. 99. 3, Maggie Keswick Jencks was told that her breast cancer had returned and was given months to live. In the time left to her, she and her husband Charles Jencks worked with her medical team to develop a new approach to cancer care. In order to live more positively with cancer, Maggie and Charles believed you needed information that would allow you to be an informed participant in your medical treatment, stress- reducing strategies, psychological support and the opportunity to meet other people in similar circumstances in a relaxed domestic atmosphere. Maggie's Centres are built in the grounds of NHS cancer hospitals, and they provide free practical, emotional and social support to people with cancer and their family and friends. They're places to find practical advice about benefits and eating well; places where qualified experts provide emotional support; places to meet other people; places where you can simply sit quietly with a cup of tea. The first Maggie's Centre opened in Edinburgh in 1. Maggie's has continued to grow, with 1.
Centres at major NHS cancer hospitals in the UK, online and abroad. Please take the trouble to find out more about this remarkable charity, and consider making a seasonal donation. Return to Top. Two Cats – October 2. Many of you will recognise Rossini's Duet for Two Cats as the basis of the music in our latest Halloween card – without the singing cats, but spooked up instead with a touch of orchestral colour and some great sound effects (see below).
The Duet for Two Cats has an interesting history, not least because it isn't by Rossini! It was the little- known Danish composer Christoph Weyse (below left) who in 1. Katte- Kavatine (or Cat Song) with miaows for lyrics. The unknown compiler of the Duet for Two Cats took Weyse's song, changed it from 3/4 to 4/4 time, and then tacked on a couple of tunes from Rossini's opera Otello, with the original lyrics replaced by more miaows, to form the piece we know today.
No- one knows for sure who was responsible for putting it all together, but for some reason Rossini (below right) usually gets the credit. And yet it's the sinuous felinity of Weyse's melody, and the crazy humour of his original idea, which give the piece its real charm. The Duet is usually sung by two sopranos, and accompanied ad libitum by feline frolics which make it well worth hunting down a good recording.
One of my favourite performances is that by the divine Dr. Evadne Hinge and Dame Hilda Bracket (available on You.
Tube). And if you haven't heard of Hinge and Bracket .. After a few moments pondering this thought, we decided our correspondent was quite right, and why hadn't we thought of that? As it turned out, the e- mail was from John ! Here's a link to his IMDb page. So it took about five minutes for us to say .
Prepare to be truly spooked! Return to Top. A Cut Above the Rest – June 2.
The musical accompaniment for our new Father's Day card was a forgone conclusion: it had to be a barbershop quartet. Thanks to a recommendation from my friend Pippa, we got in touch with Tagline Quartet, winners of the British Association of Barbershop Singers national contest in 2. And after a few hours one Sunday morning in a tiny London studio, we had a fabulous recording in the can. The music is an arrangement of . Words that rhyme with ! But I also had to mug up on the somewhat esoteric technicalities of barbershop style: I hope I gave them enough of those ringing sevenths. Return to Top. Corona Games – May 2.
I well remember as a teenager buying my first (and only) typewriter. It was an Olivetti, and this wonderful machine liberated me from my dreadful handwriting, allowing me to type newsletters for school societies, programmes for school concerts, and even the odd letter to friends and family. Just sitting in front of it made me feel like a famous novelist or daring war correspondent. It became part of me, an extension of my body, like my piano or my motorbike, until computers came along and changed the world.
A few years ago, a nostalgic whim took me to the pages of e. Bay where I purchased an even more ancient typewriter than my Olivetti – a Corona, dating from the 1. When the package arrived I opened it in front of my young daughter, who was fascinated. Has it got any games? But equally, we pride ourselves on choosing and arranging music which fits each card perfectly in mood, tempo and overall duration, so we have little choice. When we went to Salisbury Cathedral last week to record Mozart's beautiful little motet Ave Verum Corpus, we decided to try something new. We had already worked out a reasonably musical way of cutting the Mozart to 7.
But while we were there, why not also record the entire piece, and provide it as an MP3 download to accompany the card? That way, senders and recipients of the card could listen to Mozart's music as Mozart intended – or as he might have intended, if they'd had i. Pods in 1. 79. 1! On a PC or Mac, you can download the MP3 file directly from the e- card or by right- clicking the image below and taking . Once you've downloaded it you can import it into i. Tunes or transfer it to your phone or tablet. If you only have an i.
Pad or i. Phone then you can still click the image below to play the music. Return to Top. National Autistic Society – December 2. You may have noticed that one of our recent Christmas cards was dedicated to the National Autistic Society, a charity which provides a huge range of support, information and services for those affected by autism. Here in the UK alone, around 7. USA there are over 3.
Our card can do very little by itself: but if you send it to your friends and family this Christmas, we hope that they'll click the logo at the end, and read about the marvellous work which the NAS undertake, and maybe even head over to their website to make a small donation. The great thing about e- cards is that unlike paper cards, people won't think you're a bit odd if you send more than one! So please, help promote awareness of autism and the NAS by sending Sleigh Ride to everyone you know. Return to Top. Traditional Toys – November 2. For the Victorians, the family was the foundation- stone of society, and our artist Tom Evans has enjoyed creating some delightful scenes of Victorian family life for our Advent Calendar. His own family have been his inspiration, and while much has changed since those times, some of their toys are as familiar to children today as they were to their Victorian predecessors: jigsaw puzzles, dolls' houses, tea- sets and alphabet bricks. If you study your Advent Calendar carefully (as we're sure you do) you may spot a little girl learning to read, just like Tom's own daughter Polly, who is now of the age where she brings a book back from school every evening.
But when her reading's done, Polly can do something which no Victorian child could dream of – she can play with the Advent Calendar on her Dad's i. Pad! Return to Top. Frozen Mutton – September 2. One of the joys of working for jacquielawson. Our forthcoming Advent Calendar will include a virtual art gallery (a bit like the one you may remember from our London Advent Calendar a few years ago), so we needed to research paintings of Christmassy or wintry scenes by Victorian artists. The task fell to me – or more accurately, to my wife, who coincidentally is studying for her MA in History of Art!
To achieve the greatest possible realism, Farquharson painted from a specially constructed mobile hut, complete with a big glass window and a stove to keep him warm. This technique certainly seems to have done the trick. Maybe for our next Christmas card we should try sending a JL artist out into the snow in a hut on wheels!
Winter, 1. 90. 1, Joseph Farquharson (1. Photo . If you opened your Advent Calendar on 4th December you'll have enjoyed watching Ted's fantastical ride. And earlier today, on a beautiful sunny morning here in the glorious Georgian city of Bath, I snapped the above shot of our own magnificent example. The Bath carousel dates from Victorian times and as you can see, it's a wonderfully elaborate extravaganza of colour and light.