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Hotel in Athens not really a 5 star, but it was fine. Dreams - too many young kids and not much for teenagers
DialAFlight is fine but BA is not….expensive and has almost sunk to the level of Ryanair. BA needs to up its game and reduce its prices. It is not what it was
British Airways getting worse by the minute but this is not your fault!
Dominic and team were excellent, as always
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Flight home affected by the IT glitch last Friday - not your fault.
Really grateful for all the prompt assistance when needed - thank you Charlie and team!
Brilliant flights, hotel and transfer. Great. All smooth!
You did well but the airline didn't!
Munich airport a nightmare - not enough staff at immigration, fortunately had hand luggage. Terminal Two was torn up and had to go back to One for immigration and security. Very little air conditioning on one of the hottest weekends of the year. Just chaos. This for your info. Otherwise a great trip.
Some muddles but we have both learned from them.
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DialAFlight agents are the best, Larry Anglin in particular in finding the best deal and options. On this occasion there was global disruption to flights and DialAFlight made sure I was informed of the situation by calling and sending an email. One can rely on DialAFlight for an excellent service.
Great trip, as usual
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The Dubrovnik plan by Christian was excellent and the hotel selected was outstanding. There is the hotel and residence. We were in residence 8 and we would recommend that it is essential to have a sea view as the courtyards are rather unkept. Once again your planning and assistance was superb.
Thank you to Edward Scudder for all his help and advice. We had a great trip.
All good. 5 stars
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As usual first class service from Matthew.
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The road to Kitulgala winds from the Indian Ocean, past buffalo standing in paddy fields, to the Sinharaja rainforest where parakeets chatter at monkeys swinging through jungle palms.
It's a road I have wanted to travel all my life. It's in Kitulgala where the jade green Kelani River cascades over granite boulders on its journey from the Highlands of Sri Lanka to the ocean. And it's where one of the most memorable landscapes in film history was shot.
The Bridge On The River Kwai is the World War II Oscar-winner about an Army colonel, played by Alec Guinness, obsessed with proving British superiority over his Japanese captors by showing that his engineers could build a better bridge than theirs.
I was still in short trousers when I first saw the film in a suburban cinema. It held me spellbound - not the story but the voluptuous backdrop.
The jungle of wild palm, banana and bamboo, flecked with bougainvillaea - where crested serpent eagles swoop on fish in the river - has more than a supporting role in the drama.
Today, TV travel programmes have made the most remote landscapes accessible, but in those days only the cinema could conjure up such sights.
Although the 1957 film was set on the Death Railway of Burma, where British PoWs built a real bridge over the real River Kwai in Thailand, it was actually filmed in Sri Lanka (still called Ceylon when the movie, directed by David Lean, was shot).
Many decades later, I discovered The Bridge On The River Kwai was shot in Kitulgala, a village with a very remote setting but in fact not far from the capital Columbo.
My aim was to reach the sandbank in the river where the spectacular climax to the picture unfolds. I wanted to stand on the spot where Guinness's character, Colonel Nicholson, dizzy at discovering the bridge is wired with dynamite and filled with remorse, falls on top of the detonator blowing it up, sending a train of Japanese soldiers into the riverbed below.
The jungle has reclaimed the rainforest where Columbia Pictures spent millions to build and destroy the bridge. Today this location is once again ruled by leopards.
The villagers still celebrate their place in film history, welcoming British visitors. A hand-painted sign saying Bridge Road Of Kwai River directs them to the home of Chandralatha Jayawardena, a child actor in the film, who acts as a guide recounting entertaining stories about the production.
At the colonial-style Kitulgala Rest House, informal photos of the stars, Jack Hawkins and William Holden, in swimming trunks, plaster the walls.
Friendly villagers invited me into their homes to admire debris from the bridge, relics displayed like works of art.
Despite heavy logging in other parts of Sri Lanka, Kitulgala has been saved from development and is now protected.
An excellent base for exploring Sri Lanka are the luxury Anantara hotels in the south at Tangalle and Kalutara, both within a comfortable drive of Kitulgala.
Peace Haven Tangalle is set in a former coconut plantation which opens onto a glorious beach, an hour’s drive from the film location, passing tea plantations and temples on the way. There are two swimming pools, and enough wildlife to delight David Attenborough.
The week I arrived guests shepherded 140 baby hawksbill turtles to the sea.
Later I took the road north to Anantara Kalutara passing Galle where Portuguese invaders built a sea fort in 1588.
Anantara Kalutara is designed in the breezy modern style, open sided, allowing a fusion of indoors and outdoors. It sits on a narrow peninsula jutting into the ocean on one side, a lagoon on the other.
It may seem late to capitalise on The Bridge On The River Kwai but the government has a plan to attract major studios to shoot new films against the country’s extravagant beauty. That really would put Sri Lanka back in the picture.
First published in the Daily Mail - February 2019
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