You have just a few days left to organize a special holiday with your Valentine. Throughout Europe, many places will be helping the hopeful rev of the romance by offering special packages for the weekend of Feb. 14-15, 2009. If the best deals and packages are booked solid by the time you get around to formulating your plans, you could always push the festivities back by a day and make the romance happen from Sunday to Monday this year. After all, for many of us, President’s Day is a holiday.
Here are some Valentine’s Day ideas to get you started:
Get away -- Accor (Ibis, Mercure, Sofitel, Novotel) is only one of several hotel chains tempting you with romantic getaways; villages along the Rhine, Moselle or Danube make for quieter stops, and off-season rates may apply this time of year. Live it up for the night in a European castle -- the Web site Historic Hotels of Europe can get you started on your search. The budget-minded among us might wish to pack a “romance kit” to liven up less richly appointed surroundings. With artistic intervention and creativity, even a lowly one-star double room can become a wonderland -- after all, what’s important this eve is the company you keep.
Get silly -- Although Rosenmontag isn’t until Feb. 23 this year, a handful of German cities will be celebrating Fasching, Fasnet, carnevale or whatever their version of carnival events may be. Bremen holds its carnival Feb. 13-14, and its theme this year is “red” -- the perfect Valentine’s Day color, so dress accordingly. You may find other German cities gearing up for the several days ahead of Rosenmontag with children’s parades or carnival associations organizing smaller-scale events. If you’re in Italy, it will perhaps be even easier to find the carnival fun, as it typically stretches over not one but several weekends. Sicily’s Acireale will host parades and musical entertainment; Venice will be abuzz in celebration; and Putignano’s famous politically themed floats will be on the march on Feb. 15.
Get nostalgic -- Where did the two of you first get together? Why not rekindle the flame by revisiting the bar where you first shared drinks, or the site of your first kiss? If you met back in the States, how about returning to the place where you first set foot in Europe?
Get wet -- Visit one of Europe’s spas -- a Therme in Germany. Places that have been featured in Stripes’ articles in the past include Austria’s Bad Gastein, Belgium’s Spa, England’s Bath, Germany’s Bad Ems, Bad Homburg or Baden-Baden, France’s Vittel, or Italy’s Bad Moos or Montecatini. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to such facilities; for a more complete list, wiki “Thermalbad.” Worried about the etiquette? And yes, most are au naturel -- read more about the do’s and don’ts at the end of Stripes’ Bad Homburg article.
Get wintery – Hard-core fans of winter could sleep overnight in an igloo in Piancavallo, Italy, or atop Germany’s Zugspitze. Those brave of heart can go tobogganing -- Bavaria, Oberbayern in particular, seems to have many areas to give it a try; the Black Forest offers a few options too. Less adrenaline-filled wintery options could include wandering amid the ice sculptures of Italy’s San Candido or San Vigilio. If just an hour of cold is plenty for you, pop into an ice bar (reservations for most are recommended) -- there’s an Ice Kube bar in Paris, or Absolut Icebars in London or Copenhagen.
Get going -- Enable your beloved to reach his or her favorite destination by purchasing the gift of travel -- frequent travelers should appreciate a railway savings card, or a gift voucher for travel on a favorite airline. And who knows, your sweetheart might offer to take you along on the next trip.
What do you have planned?
