Tour Of Thrones! Fancy A Weekend Break In Westeros? You Can With A Game Of Thrones Themed Holiday

Hi, it’s me Skatronixxx! As boss of the site, I am on the mailing lists for quite a few PR firms in the country and although much of the content I receive gets me interested, none has piqued my interest more than the email that landed in my inbox yesterday.

Like the other 99.9999999999% of the country I am Game Of Thrones fans and have been since it started. Granted I haven’t read the books, although i would love too, running the site, working full time and being a dead to Skatronixxx Jr leaves little time for reading these days, but one day I will read all the books, I promise you my loyal visitors!

So what was the email and what does it have to do with Game Of Thrones? Well the email was simply titled ‘Tour Of Thrones‘.

The email goes to say that fans of the television series can visit every location from the latest series and still have change from £500. Sound good? Hell to the yeah!.

 With rumors of the latest series being delayed amid contract disputes, weather issues and more. Fans suffering withdrawal symptoms can visit iconic locations that have been used for places such Winterfell, Braavos and Mereen.

The team at Voucherbox.co.uk have researched the cost of taking the ‘Tour Of Thrones’ themed vacation this summer. The vacation would take you to countries such as Northern Ireland, Croatia and Spain.

In Croatia, you can visit the capital Dubrovnik’s Western Harbour  aka King’s Landing and Dalmatia that was used as the setting for Braavos. If you fancy going somewhere a little closer to home (UK readers) you can visit Northern Ireland and in particular the Moneyglass Estate and Magheramorne Quarry, both in County Antrim, and Crossgar in County Down, where the scenes for Winterfell were filmed.

Fancy visiting where the sadistic Ramsey Bolton met his fate? That was also filmed at the Moneyglass Estate. I know that’s one place on my checklist for sure! What about the Iron Islands home of unlucky loser Theon Greyjoy? You’ll need to check out Ballintoy, Ballycastle in Antrim.

 After going from Croatia to Northern Ireland, you’ll no doubt want to head back to sunnier climates and you can do that by going to sunny Spain in particular Faro De Mesa De Roldan in Almeria and Parque de la Artileria in Castellon,  otherwise known as the city of Mereen.

After leaving Meeren you can head to Castell de Santa Florentina that was used as the setting for Horn Hill, the family home of Samwell Tarly.

The PR team who emailed me then go on to say:

‘A spokesman for Voucherbox.co.uk who conducted the research, said: “With millions of dedicated fans Game of Thrones has given a huge boost to the tourism industry in Northern Ireland and across many other areas.

 “Our research shows it doesn’t have to cost as much as you might think to walk in the footsteps of Jon Snow, Arya Stark or Daenerys Targaryen.

“With many low price flights and other savings available on transport such as trains and buses by booking ahead online it’s little surprise that many fans are planning their very own Game of Thrones adventure.” ‘

Want to know more? Check out the link below. Will you be going on a Game Of Thrones themed holiday? I know I would if I could!

https://www.voucherbox.co.uk/press/2016/07/12/game-thrones-season-6-filming-locations-revealed/

Eurovision’s 2016 Grand Final

This years Eurovision theme is come together which couldn’t have been more appropriate this year with Australia being allowed to gate crash along with America and for the first time Eurovision was broadcast to China. The first Eurovision in 1956 was to unify a continent with music which was torn by war and with whats been happening around the world of late this years Eurovision theme Come Together could be more important. But for me this year seemed to be lacking of all the things that used to make Eurovision great and cringe worthy at the same time, it’s used to be like a crash that you couldn’t look away from but this year seemed to be very main stream and coolishly hip.

So there a few stand outs including Belgium’s Laura Tesoro who kicked off Eurovision 2016 with a very catchy number ‘What’s The Pressure’ with an extremely contagious beat. Also The Netherlands were a stand out with ‘Slow Down’ sung by Douwe Bob he had a great voice and their sound was like a fusion of folk meets country the only thing I didn’t get was the 10 seconds of Silence near the end. The other stand out was Russia with ‘You Are The Only One’ performed by Sergey Lazarev, the stage graphics he had were amazing the song was great, definitely see why he was the favorite to win he nailed. The other two stand outs for me were Australia’s Dami Im performing ‘The Sound Of Silence’ she did an amazing job, he voice was on point along with that dress, she nailed it and has done Australia proud, and UK’s Joe and Jake who performed ‘You’re Not Alone’ and I thought they did a great job and I would definitely buy that song.

United Kingdom’s Joe & Jake

Ok so there were a few not so stands outs for me and please remember theses are my opinions, so we got so see a little bit of the eighties hair with Hovi Star who preformed ‘Made Of Stars’ it was a little lacklustre, also Sweden’s own Frans for me was very lacking in every way it was as if he was doing his first open mic night, I actually had expected a lot more from Sweden and was very disappointed. Georgia’s Nika Kocharov and Young Georgian Lolitaz preformed ‘Midnight Gold’ the song itself was ok but the lighting and stage graphics made me motion sick and it was just too much overkill on the lighting, and last but not lest Croatia entry Nina Kraljić who preformed ‘Lighthouse’ her costume was elaborate and full of bling but for me her vocals were lacking.

For me the highlight was Justin Timberlake performing his new song ‘Can’t Stop This Feeling’ which is for the up coming Trolls movie, he absolutely killed it and it was the first time he has preformed live in two years, if that song didn’t get you out of your chair or at lest you’re toes tapping then there is something very wrong! JT nailed it and the crowd loved it. Also a special mention to the hosts Måns Zelmerlöw and Petra Mede who were awesome, congratulations to Ukraine although I thought Russia was the best overall but they made it to top three with Australia second so congratulations on the gallant effort. Eurovision 2017 will be held in Ukraine with the Semi-final 1 to be on the 16th May 2017, Semi-final 2 held on the 18th May 2017 and Grand Final to be held on the 20th May 2017. I am looking forward to covering Eurovision 2017 and lets hope there is more of the cringe worthiness we have come to know and love.

*Disclaimer*

These are my opinions and my opinions alone

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Eurovision 2016 Semi-Final Results

Yes it’s that time of the year when big hair, bad make up and tacky dance moves are celebrated, Eurovision 2016 is upon us once again and for those of you not familiar with this Wonderland that is Eurovision then you have been missing out! What is Eurovision you ask? Well it is a song contest that is held every year primarily among the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

Each participating country submits an original song to be preformed on live television and radio, then casts votes for the other countries’ songs to determine the most popular song in the competition. In 2015 an exception was made when Australia was allowed to compete as a guest entrant as part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the event, our own Guy Sebastian was picked to represent Australia and in November 2015 the EBU announced that Australia would return to Eurovision in 2016 and this year Dami Im will representing Australia. This year’s Eurovision will take place in the Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden.

With the first and second semi-finals done lets take a look at the results and see who is through to the this years grand final. So 18 countries took part in the first Semi-final in order to qualify for the 10 places available in Saturday’s final. Below are the 10 qualifying counties

First Semi-final

• Azerbaijan
• Russia
• The Netherlands
• Hungry
• Croatia
• Austria
• Armenia
• Czech Republic
• Cyprus
• Malta

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Below are the other 10 qualifying countries from the second Semi-final. 

Second Semi-final

• Latvia
• Georgia
• Bulgaria
• Australia
• Ukraine
• Serbia
• Poland
• Israel
• Lithuania
• Belgium

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The semi-finalist now join the 16 countries that had already reached the Grand Final, either by automatic qualification or from qualifying from the first Semi-final, 26 countries will now compete in Europe & now Australia’s Favorite Tv show on Saturday.

Here are your Eurovision 2016 Finalists

• Armenia
• Australia
• Austria
• Azerbaijan
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• France
• Georgia
• Germany
• Hungry
• Israel
• Italy
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Malta
• Poland
• Russia
• Serbia
• Spain
• Sweden
• The Netherlands
• Ukraine
• United Kingdom

The running order for Eurovision 2016 Grand Final had just been released and goes as follows:

1. Belgium   2. Czech Republic  3. The Netherlands   4. Azerbaijan

5. Hungary    6. Italy    7. Israel    8. Bulgaria    9. Sweden

10.Germany   11. France   12. Poland    13. Australia

14. Cyprus   15. Serbia   16. Lithuania   17. Croatia   18. Russia

19. Spain   20. Latvia   21. Ukraine   22. Malta   23. Georgia

24. Austria   25. United Kingdom   26. Armenia
Dont forget to tune in on Saturday 14th May at 21:00 (for my fellow Aussies you can catch it at the very early time of 5am 15th May on SBS) I’ll have all the good and not so good bits of Eurovision 2016 Grand Final for you Monday.