Our affiliate tv stations are listed. Biz tv dot com. Let's take off traveling together when it's five. Pm eastern time on sundays. Got your bags packed yet. Here's travel with stephanie. Abrams and her traveling companion. David is be cure sal. The island offers vacationers fifty five different cultures wrapped in history and charming traditional european architecture. Like those you'd find in the netherlands but dressed in southern caribbean sherbert. Colors curios capital city. Will m stead is a unesco world heritage city waiting for you to explore its many attractions. And when you've whipped up an appetite and thirst after sightseeing visiting your choice of over sixty dive and snorkelling sites complete with intimate coves beaches. You'll find a wide variety of sidewalk. Cafes gourmet restaurants local eateries and markets to satisfy every palate slide into curious house live and let live way of life cure. Sow feel it for yourself. Visit curious sow dot com or call toll. Free eight hundred three to eight. Seventy two twenty two. That's eight hundred three to eight. Seventy two twenty two. The magic is happening at yankee. Candle village in south deerfield mask one of new england's most popular attractions the villages a unique entertaining world of fantasy food and fragrance for the whole family. It's also the world's largest candle shop where kids and grown-ups can make their own candles. The village is home to the enchanting black forest where it snows year route santa's workshop where he welcomes visitors every day of the year and the bavarian christmas village filled with sparkling holiday ornaments in addition to over four hundred thousand candles. You'll find toys gifts and more from great names. Like pandora and vera. Bradley him with tasty treats from yankee. Gandhi fresh fudge and popcorn. Hopless every day is a holiday or sit down with the family for a wonderful meal at the award. Winning chandler's restaurant. Yankee candle village in south deerfield mass where families come for the candles and stay for the fun. Take the mass pike. The i knew anyone exit. Twenty four rumors stephanie. Abrams novel of secrets lies and conspiracies. That ensnare the lives of ordinary people in tightening web it all starts with rumors available at amazon dot com in print and kindle formats and barnes and noble dot com rumours by stephanie abrams. The perfect leisure-time companion coast to coast with the most travel professionals and the best business and leisure travel information. Travel with stephanie abrams. An on air traveling companion. Each travel with stephanie. Abrams on the line with me. Is paul. durin live from the island of jersey in the channel islands. Just off the coast of france and owner of balik castle in balance county mayo ireland and high. All you folks listening in berkshire county on In pittsfield in particular who are members of the pittsfield massachusetts bala. Knock county mayo sister city committee. I know some of the folks a one in particular actually to Fran curly past president of the pittsfield sister city committee in pittsfield massachusetts and pat gormley past president of that. Same group On one at least one or more of their many trips to balance have come by to have a meal or snack. drink a something and visit at castle and frankly it was because Pat gormley kept saying to me the next time you go to county mayo. You have to connect up with the folks at Bully castle and it was his encouragement. That you know. Put you on my radar because you know with with the many trips and my husband has driven over seventy thousand miles on the island that is ireland from our two to four trips a year to ireland for the last decades. There's still things. I've never seen when people tell me have gone to ireland for a week. You know. so they've been there. It's like you think you've been there so you know it's like you think you gave yourself a haircut kitchen scissors you think goes are you know it's now So i was so glad for you. Know he wouldn't leave me alone every time we were going. You say you're going to mayo get over balik and i got you on. You know the radio by telephone got to know you so that when we finally came over we weren't at square one getting to know one another what what's the state of events as it relates to castle now and now if you're listening to this podcast who knows when now is february. Two thousand twenty one ireland is in. Its third major lockdown. That's set to stay in place for a while How is that affecting castle and its visitors or potential visitors. Well stephanie as you can imagine being in the hospitality. Industry is a complete disaster. A way shaw doors like overnight on the sixteenth of march. We will have a wedding on the fourteenth full with sunday lunches on the fifteenth. Our chefs came to me and said there's a nasty virus out there. We don who was going to happen. Got kids got parents are. I'm will come to work tomorrow So we shot the tree overnight and spent four months Always my toddler. Maya in the castle. Just the two of us and that was that was quite an interesting experience from a fully-fledged running hotel to being stuck there on your own. It was quite nice. The experience In the kitchen. I can coke and so on but not cooked in in the commercial kitchen for a decade. So i'm finding the patent mill finding a saucepan all quite an interesting first week and chefs had had pulled goods away and wrapped everything up and put stuff in the deep freeze. Well actually went to get dinner. That first night on monday night there was nothing. I could financing and resources ourselves thousand. We opened up the prince business again in a heads up in june that. We're going to be open on the third of july We had no bookings whatsoever and we thought. Well we'll we kind of get up to do The coach out since you've been there We've opened up and you call yard cafe inside the medieval courtyard which is named after my father's original jackson. Correct on that on the third of we've changed it from a cafe to a restaurant and opened up until ten o'clock tonight. The first nights was a monday night. we had to clients the second night. We had six clients. I'm by the weekend we will and absolutely was rocking for abou- Till about the middle of august. I'm very busy. And then it came into the end of august and september and eventually of course. We're back into a second lockdown and the place was closed out thankfully we have done little blast of of income there in the middle And a half to say to you the government direst gunman with very very quick to leap in and support the population. And i think i'm too that we've survived difficult times. I'm in jersey at the moment. I've been here since october. One of my school friends who's just retired from Distributing to the e u From the eu to turkey and other non-european countries He's actually babysitting the castle for me. william louis thank him. He's really been a godsend and he's a professional person. And and absolutely looking after my best interest and my best interests are the best interests of the castle castle where safe and sound. There are moving forward hoping to open up again. probably In april well you know my experience kind of parallels yours because we were notified. The night of march fifteenth that Our flight on march eighteenth has cancelled the last flight out from Dublin to the us With air lingus were going out on march sixteenth and We I connected with a very good friend. I don't know if you know..