Ten reasons to move to the Costa Brava – Travel
Ten reasons to move to the Costa Brava
Christopher Longmore
After France, Spain is Europes most popular holiday destination, and the apparent dominance of France is to a large extent due to visitors in transit elsewhere. In 1996 between 1.2 and 1.3 million European tourists visited Spain. It is therefore not surprising that many of them become interested in buying a home there. Spains property market generally has enjoyed strong growth, with the Costa Brava enjoying a particularly large rise in values. About 20% of foreign owners are more or less permanent residents of Spain, while the remaining 80% bought their property for either holidays or investment purposes.
The Costa Brava is particularly attractive because
Summer heat is less intense than further south,
Scenery is spectacular,
There are beautiful well-preserved mediaeval towns like Pals and Peratallada everywhere,
Catalonia is well run with good roads and railways
The A7 motorway is never more than a few minutes drive and connects to the French network
Barcelona is easily accessible
Golf courses are numerous and of the highest standard all year round
In winter, there is good skiing in the nearby Pyrenees
There are cheap flights to Girona/Costa Brave airport and to Barcelona and Perpignan.
Eating out is inexpensive and a real pleasure
The cost of living generally is reasonable.
That is an impressive catalogue of benefits. Add that attractive property is still fairly freely available and competitively priced and you will quickly understand the popularity of the region.
Many different nationalities settle here, but unlike further south they are all intermingled, with no "English" estates or "German" estates. The whole atmosphere is much more cosmopolitan. That does not suit everybody.
Before buying anything, do visit the area in and out of season. Resorts that are a buzz in summer often die completely in the winter. To most Catalonians, the Costa Brava is where they go for their summer holidays; they dont live there, and they dont even visit at week-ends out of season. If you are buying just for summer rentals and/or your own summer holidays, that does not matter, but if you are thinking of permanent residence, it is a critical factor. Never assume that you may be able to rent your property in winter. It is most unlikely.
If you are thinking of semi-permanent or even permanent residence, you may be concerned that you will find it hard to make friends here, and therefore be somewhat isolated. This is generally not so. Most residents are retired or semi-retired and it is fairly easy to meet new people, particularly of course if you play golf. Incomers tend to be of a similar age and background, even if from different countries. They too want to make new friends.
This may be an advantage or a disadvantage! You will also suddenly find that you have many friends in England wanting to visit you. Some of them may be friends that you thought of only as acquaintances. It can also be difficult for visitors to understand that you are not there just to entertain them, but have your own life to lead as well.
All in all though, the Costa Brava is a terrific place to holiday or live as long as you have thought through your purchase correctly. Our experience comes as part of the package, and our job is to make sure that you make the right decision for you. This is not the Costa del Sol either in terms of weather or life style, but it is culturally rich, welcoming, and offers a great life to those that respond to what it offers.
This article and more can be found at: Costa Brava Homes
About The Author
You can found the original article at http://www.costa-brava-homes.com/index/eng/life.html.
© Costa Brava Homes www.costa-brava-homes.com & Christopher B. Longmore 2004
Move Your Head – Recreation
Move Your Head
Paul Wilson
I still remember years ago when I first started to play golf, the tip you heard the most was "keep your head still". My father used to say it to me at least 50 times a round. He thought he was doing me a favor, when really, he should have been telling me to do the exact opposite. He should have been saying "move your head a little on the way back".
Why move your head as you take the club back You want to move your head because in order to swing in a circular motion you need an axis to swing around. An axis has a top and a bottom. When you set up to the golf ball, you have 1 top to an axis your head and 2 bottoms your legs and feet to an axis. This means that on the way back your head should be moving 3 - 5 inches to the right in order to create your first axis to swing around. Your head will stay there as you come down and fall even further back through impact. Then, after the ball has been hit, your head will move forward over top of the left leg to create a second axis. This second axis will allow you to complete the circular rotation in your golf swing allowing you to finish your swing. So what you have is a floating top to an axis. Your head floats back and forth to create 2 axis when you swing. This allows you to swing in a circular motion. Its not a perfect circle though. Its a slight oval. Because your swing is a slight oval, you will never hit the ball 100% perfect.
The only time you would keep your head still is if you had one leg. If you had one leg, you would have 1 top and 1 bottom to an axis. This means that if you moved your head you would destroy this axis. So maybe we should all be playing standing on one leg and keeping our head still Unfortunately, this will never work because you will not generate enough power and you will probably fall over. Most people have enough trouble keeping their balance with 2 legs never mind 1 so its best that you keep both legs on the ground and learn to move your head.
Most people I teach try to move their head back when I tell them to but they have a hard time actually doing it because it feels so uncomfortable for them to move their head. To get the proper feeling, you must feel like your head is moving about 1 foot to the right. If you feel like your head is moving 1 foot to the right on the way back, it will actually only move a few inches. Try swinging regularly towards a mirror. As you watch yourself swing, you can clearly see if your head is moving back 3-5 inches. As your head moves back, feel how your weight loads into the right leg. This is the tell tale sign that you have created your first axis in the backswing. If you dont have a loaded, powerful feeling in your right leg, you will have to move your head a little more as you go back. If you are wearing a hat when you play golf just take your backswing and look to see if the brim of the hat is level to the ground not tilted to the left. If the brim of the hat is level to the ground at the top of your backswing your head will have moved the proper amount. As a final check just ask a friend to watch your head to see if it moves back a few inches or use a video camera to see for yourself. If your head is too still then constantly remind yourself to move it back or have someone constantly remind you to "move your head".
As you move your head back, beware that it may cause you to hit behind the ball a little. This is a good sign at first. Its telling you that you are moving your head back but you have too much weight on your right foot at impact. To remedy hitting behind the ball fat shots, all you have to do is feel a little more weight shift off of your right foot through impact. If you do, you will hit the ball perfectly and with much more power than you are used to.
Paul Wilson
Director of Instruction
Nicklaus Golf Club at LionsGate
http://www.paulwilsongolf.com
About The Author
Paul Wilson is a nationally recognized golf instructor with numerous appearances on the Golf Channel and in major golf publications. He is the creator of "Swing Machine Golf" which teaches people the 3 elements of the Iron Byron Swing Machine. Please visit http://www.swingmachinegolf.com to find out more about his teaching method.
Googles Next Big Move – Site
Googles Next Big Move
David Leonhardt
November 2003 might go down in history as the month that Google shook a lot of smug webmasters and search engine optimization SEO specialists from the apple tree. But more than likely, it was just a precursor of the BIG shakeup to come.
Google touts highly its secret PageRank algorithm. Although PageRank is just one factor in choosing what sites appear on a specific search, it is the main way that Google determines the "importance" of a website.
In recent months, SEO specialists have become expert at manipulating PageRank, particularly through link exchanges.
There is nothing wrong with links. They make the Web a web rather than a series of isolated islands. However, PageRank relies on the naturally "democratic" nature of the web, whereby webmasters link to sites they feel are important for their visitors. Google rightly sees link exchanges designed to boost PageRank as stuffing the ballot box.
I was not surprised to see Google try to counter all the SEO efforts. In fact, I have been arguing the case with many non-believing SEO specialists over the past couple months. But I was surprised to see the clumsy way in which Google chose to do it.
Google targeted specific search terms, including many of the most competitive and commercial terms. Many websites lost top positions in five or six terms, but maintain their positions in several others. This had never happened before. Give credit to Barry Lloyd of www.SearchEngineGuide.com for cleverly uncovering the process.
For Google, this shakeup is just a temporary fix. It will have to make much bigger changes if it is serious about harnessing the "democratic" nature of the Web and neutralizing the artificial results of so many link exchanges.
Here are a few techniques Google might use remember to think like a search engine:
Google might start valuing inbound links within paragraphs much higher than links that stand on their own. For all we know, Google is already doing this. Such links are much less likely to be the product of a link exchange, and therefore more likely to be genuine "democratic" votes.
Google might look at the concentration of inbound links across a website. If most inbound links point to the home page, that is another possible indicator of a link exchange, or at least that the sites content is not important enough to draw inbound links and it is content that Google wants to deliver to its searchers.
Google might take a sample of inbound links to a domain, and check to see how many are reciprocated back to the linking domains. If a high percentage are reciprocated, Google might reduce the sites PageRank accordingly. Or it might set a cut-point, dropping from its index any website with too many of its inbound links reciprocated.
Google might start valuing outbound links more highly. Two pages with 100 inbound links are, in theory, valued equally, even if one has 20 outbound links and the other has none. But why should Google send its searchers down a dead-end street, when the information highway is paved just as smoothly on a major thoroughfare
Google might weigh a websites outbound link concentration. A website with most outbound links concentrated on just a few pages is more likely to be a "link-exchanger" than a site with links spread out across its pages.
Google might use a combination of these techniques and ones not mentioned here. We cannot predict the exact algorithm, nor can we assume that it will remain constant. What we can do is to prepare our websites to look and act like a website would on a "democratic" Web as Google would see it.
For Google to hold its own against upstart search engines, it must deliver on its PageRank promise. Its results reflect the "democratic" nature of the Web. Its algorithm must prod webmasters to give links on their own merit. That wont be easy or even completely possible. And people will always find ways to turn Googles algorithm to their advantage. But the techniques above can send the Internet a long way back to where Google promises it will be.
The time is now to start preparing your website for the changes to come.
About The Author
David Leonhardt is an online and offline publicity specialist who believes in getting in front of the ball, rather than chasing it downhill. To get your website optimized, email him at info@thehappyguy.com. For a copy of Don