Luxor4u

Have finally sat and watched this film in it's entirety.
What a splendid "feelgood"film!
Based in Greece(somewhere)I think!
Beautiful scenery,fresh air,fun and sunshine!
Have said that I'm visiting Zante in October.Wonder if I'll bump into a Greek Adonis.a "Tom Conti"type!
Knowing my luck..I'll be more inclined to meet the "Bernard Hill"type(Joe) "Where's me tea?"
Feel a "hedonistic"period coming upon me!Greek nymphette,dancing on the sands!Must be an age thing,how will they compare to the "Luxor Lotharios?"
Time will tell...but I'm looking forward to visiting pastures new.

I thought Mama Mia was cute. I loved Abba's songs and have always like Meryl Streep.

I'm not an Abba fan but watched almost all of the Mama Mia film.
I enjoyed the storyline and the scenery but the singing drove me to distraction and when the copy DVD we had gave out before any wedding took place, I never bothered to watch the remainder of the film afterwards...
The movie was filmed on Skopelos.

The Shirley Valentine film I loved and have watched many times over the years. The character played by Tom Conti was brilliant as was Pauline Collins in her role. It was very cleverly done with "Shirley" holding conversations with "wall" and "rock" depending on where she was in the world.
Funnily enough, my car broke down many years ago back in UK and I had to call the AA Rescue out. A guy turned up on a motorbike and he was the spit of "Costas" (Tom Conti) at the time.
The movie was filmed on Mykonos - an island we've never visited but it's on the cards for the future.

'Thank You for the Music' - possibly one of my Desert Island Discs
(when I'm invited ....)

There is a feel good factor to this film, And I do Like ABBA quite a lot, although hardly listen to them these days.

Still not as good feel good factor as "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" though... But Feel good non the less.

I suspect its more a girle thing, but I dont mind connecting with my feminine side...

I did not like the movie at all! I watched it on a plane and thought that it deserved another chance on a larger screen, but sitting under the stars in very good company with a stella did not help. It is not a film for me, but then I never liked ABBA.



I do however love Greece and I have been there many times including two beautiful weeks on Zakynthos, (sorry, I realise that it is Zante in English, but I keep forgetting) with my then teenage son. Until that year there had only been charter flights from very few countries and the local people were only used to tourists from Norway and England and individual travellers who had discovered this Ionian gem. We used to go to Greece every summer and that year my son and I had studied all the travel catalogues without even talking about it, and both come up with the very same hotel right on the beach on Zakynthos of all places. We were not disappointed.



I know the feeling of planning a trip somewhere and warming up with music, movies and food from that culture in anticipation of what is going to happen there. It is part of the holiday and I am sure that you will enjoy it until October, Scottishtourist, and that good memories will take over.

:dc:

There were some bitter expats there who had regrets but were not ready to return to England and Ireland. They told me stories of tourists with the MDID syndrome. It seemed that all the men were named "Dennis" after the local saint Dionysious. A local man asked me if I was English, and I said "No, Danish" "Yes", he said "are you English?" "NO, Danish." "Yeees, are you English?" The tenth time, I said:"DAAAANIISH!" and he said:"Yes, me DENNIS, where are you from?"



When I came to Egypt and saw the gigolos, I recognised the habits of the Greek kamakis. They seemed to follow the same script, but the kamakis were mainly looking for sex, though I have seen some cases of women who were cunned in Greece, and that was just as ugly as any story I have heard in Luxor. It has been some years and things may have changed, but gender roles in the nineties were not that different on the Greek islands that I have visited than today in neighboring Egypt. I once spend some winter months on an island that I thought I knew well, and suddenly all the young men from the beaches and bars had young local wives who had hardly left the house during tourist season



I only met prosperous and romantic men and lonely expats on Zakynthos and if I had not been lucky to have my son with me, it would probably have prepared me even more for what was awaiting in Luxor years later. Of course we meet people when we travel, but I have never traveled anywhere expecting or in order to meet others. In Luxor I met myself.

@ Cyprus100 - Greece is definitely in the cards for me and I'm tentatively considering going there late 2014 or possibly early 2015. Don't have a specific date but Mykonos is definitely on my list and soon to be ticked off as done

Cyprus was also in the running for my October break.
Was bit more expensive though..so I chose the Zante "package."
Yes..I'm gonna be "package"tourist,going with Thomas Cook,flying from Glasgow.Half an hours drive from my home to airport.
Don't have to think about being "independant",no itinerary to decide.It will all be done for me and I'm at liberty to choose whether or not I want to go on their excursions.
That'll be nice.
Hope I can call on you Cyprus100 to give me advice when I decide to visit Cyprus.Cos..I think the day will come,and would value your opinions,recommendations,and advice on the island.

Scottishtourist wrote:Cyprus was also in the running for my October break.
Was bit more expensive though..so I chose the Zante "package."
Yes..I'm gonna be "package"tourist,going with Thomas Cook,flying from Glasgow.Half an hours drive from my home to airport.
Don't have to think about being "independant",no itinerary to decide.It will all be done for me and I'm at liberty to choose whether or not I want to go on their excursions.
That'll be nice.
Hope I can call on you Cyprus100 to give me advice when I decide to visit Cyprus.Cos..I think the day will come,and would value your opinions,recommendations,and advice on the island.

I have no problems in passing on my knowledge of almost 10 years of being an expat in Cyprus to anyone who asks, scottishtourist and have already done so.
But seriously after your comments in the locked post about my ability to see things without my tinted glasses, you are asking for my assistance? viewtopic.php?f=8&t=32914

Cyprus is always expensive in October if flying from UK as it's the one place in the east Med that is still guaranteed decent enough sunshine and is warmer than the other islands plus, it's school half term holidays. Cyprus has never been a cheap destination except on very last minute deals or after the first Gulf crisis when UK tour ops pulled out for the remainder of the season.

Ask by all means scottishtourist, I shall see what I can do...
But please, don't ask me for the best places to stay in Paphos! It's not my favourite part of the island. I can help with the location, but that's about it.
In fact we've stayed there only 3 times (for a total of 5 nights) since we arrived here in March 2004. There are too many retired UK expats living there and we tend to refer to it as "the ghetto". It lost any feel of Cyprus long ago.
Someone recently joined one of the forums I belong to has been asking for views on where to live and that was one of the questions raised by another member "do you want to live in real Cyprus or "little Britain" along with a load of other expats?"

We did take holidays there a number of times before we came to live in Cyprus and it was initially going to be our choice of residence but we changed tack in the last 2 years of our planning and chose Limassol instead. I'm glad we did as we both feel that for sure if we had gone to Paphos, we wouldn't be here today...

We were back there in April for 1 night (courtesy of my employer who gave all 100 staff a free overnight stay in what's classed as a 5* hotel) and it was great to get out and see some of the changes. We loved travelling about and taking in old and new scenery but tourism there has been hit badly and Bar Street is all but closed down. In previous years' it's been buzzing with action. Now it just looks scruffy and is an eyesore.
A very different perspective when we compared it to our stay for 2 nights in Ayia Napa in July this year. That always had a bad reputation but - the streets were clean, no building work, all the shops were open, all the roads finished and smooth with actual footpaths and no cars parked on the pavements.