“The Bed and Breakfast Experience” describes the differences offered by bed and breakfasts compared to hotels. Essentially you enjoy the amenities of a hotel with added personal touches. Someone once described a bed and breakfast as the next best thing to staying with friends. You are even greeted by name! There are no “cookie-cutter” aspects to a stay in a bed and breakfast – each home is as individual as its owners.
There’s somewhere for everyone to stay: you can choose from a downtown heritage home, waterfront guest house, country manor house, elegant inn, country cottage, contemporary home, farm or a woodland retreat.
It can be a daunting task to find reliably good quality accommodation when browsing through websites. Look for professional-looking sites: these reflect the qualities of the B&B. They should offer a website availability calendar with easy online reservations as well as a toll-free telephone service. Further, reputable bed and breakfasts often subscribe to organisations with inspection and approval standards. If you book with a bed and breakfast which meets these requirements you should be assured that you will not be disappointed. For example, in Canada the national ratings system, Canada Select, assesses amenities and quality of décor. 4, 4.5 or 5 Stars indicate the best quality.
Business travellers have traditionally sought their accommodation in hotels catering to their requirements. But things are changing with many bed and breakfasts now offering all their business needs free of charge: high-speed wireless internet, desks, telephone, computer and printer. The provision of free local telephone calls, free parking, free movies, free newspaper and free beverages make for savings – and that is not to mention an inclusive memorable breakfast. Themed unique furnishings and comfortable décor help to make the stay pleasingly memorable. There is, or should be, no sense of trespassing in someone’s home; privacy is paramount. The days are long gone when staying at a bed and breakfast entailed sleeping in someone’s spare room with basic amenities (possibly including a tired shag carpet) and a shared bathroom “down the hall”!
The B&B is typically a private residence whose owners choose to have this business lifestyle because they enjoy meeting people. A high level of service with an attention to detailed is almost guaranteed; after all, their livelihood depends on it. Some welcome families, others pets, whilst others are adult oriented. Your hosts gladly provide insights into the areas tourist attractions and activities, restaurant recommendations as well as tips and local secrets. The inclusive breakfast has local produce, fresh jams, delicious baked goods and mouth-watering specialties.
Many bed and breakfasts are in attractive older homes oozing charm furnished by antiques, while others offer modern crisp elegance and contemporary art. Luxuriate in fine linens on a comfortable bed, soak in a two-person bubbling whirlpool bathtub and snuggle up in armchairs to enjoy the ambience of a fireplace – just the place for a romantic or quiet break. Beautiful gardens are often a feature too for quiet relaxation. Smaller boutique hotels are now incorporating some of the successful qualities of bed and breakfasts into their renovations.
If this is to be your first bed and breakfast experience it very likely will not be your last.
Posts Tagged ‘Breakfast’
The Bed And Breakfast Experience
Category Food And Beverage
Healthy Breakfast – The Most Important Meal of the Day
Category Food And Beverage
Almost everyone treats breakfast as the least important meal of the day. It never gets the attention it deserves. Dinner, on the other hand, is the kind of meal that should always be light and healthy, but we end up overeating at the dinner table (great way to gain weight since the body does not burn the calories readily, after all, you will be going to bed soon). Furthermore, we wake up the next morning ‘not feeling hungry’ for breakfast. This is the single biggest mistake for anyone trying to lose weight. A meal that is grossly underrated, breakfast ‘breaks your overnight fast’ and is therefore the most important meal for the day. It allows you to begin the day with energy and vitality.
Isn’t it an irony that a timely and nutritious breakfast is a rarity for most of us? You may be a busy corporate executive or a top-level athlete, the importance of breakfast remains the same for everyone. Let us analyze the role that breakfast plays in our life.
Here are the basic truths about that first meal of the day:
Skipping breakfast won’t make you thinner.
Skipping this meal will usually cause you to eat more for lunch and / or dinner. If you start the day without a meal don’t be surprised if you feel tired, lethargic and easily fatigued later in the day. It’s almost like driving to work with no gas. The best strategy for keeping your weight in check and your energy level high is to fuel yourself evenly throughout the day. Eat a good breakfast, moderate lunch, and light dinner, (as well as small snacks in between, if you feel hungry). In particular, if you are about to have a hectic day, it becomes even more important to eat a good breakfast. If you starve your body by avoiding breakfast, it will begin to lose muscle (something you do not want) and retaining fat. The interesting thing is that muscle weighs more than fat, which means that dieting (skipping breakfast) may show up as weight loss on the scale. However, most dieters can become weaker although they may become smaller if they rely on dieting exclusively as a means to lose weight.
Breakfast enables you to function better.
Recent research results showed that children who skip breakfast are less able to concentrate in studies and in play. Their ability to perform complex tasks is impaired. The effects were similar in adults. As an experiment, change (improve) your breakfast habits for 2 days. You will then understand the impact that breakfast has on your day.
Cereals and fruits are still the best.
According to the National Cancer Institute of America, “diets high in fibre and low in fat, with plenty of fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain breads and cereals with low fat cheese or butter may reduce the risk of cancer.” Daily fibre intake should be 20 to 30 grams. Insoluble fibre, the kind found in whole wheat bread and wheat-based bran cereals, helps lower the risk of colon cancer and speeds up digestion. Soluble fibre, found in oat bran and fruit, helps lower blood cholesterol, and may reduce the risk of coronary ailments.
Start your day with a piece of fruit, a glass of milk / coffee and some high fiber bread. You can enjoy your breakfast while driving!
So try these simple suggestions and kickstart your day with a healthy breakfast!
Why you Should be Eating your Breakfast
Category Food And Beverage
What do you do on your typical morning? If you’re like many Americans you probably grab a quick shower, get ready in a hurry, and fly out the door in an attempt to be at work on time. If this is you, what is your morning routine missing? Breakfast. Not eating in the morning may seem trivial, but breakfast has long been regarded as one of, if not the, most important meal. Modern research done on the health benefits of eating breakfast is standing behind this, and after you’ve taken a look at what a good breakfast has to offer, you just may find yourself slowing your mornings down.
While most people avoid breakfast because they don’t feel like they have time, the next greatest cause is concern over weight loss. Many people feel that eating a healthy breakfast will simply fill them with more calories that they don’t need and that skipping breakfast will cause them to lose weight. This actually couldn’t be further from the truth. Studies are widely crediting breakfast with powerful weight loss benefits, and science backs them up. It’s actually quite simple – when you don’t eat in the morning, your metabolic rate slows tremendously because your body has no source of fuel to burn for the day. This causes your blood sugar to consequently drop. Your body, of course, wants to correct for all of this, and to do so it is going to cause excess hunger to provide itself with fuel. It’s also going to crave sugary, fattening foods to help even out blood sugar levels. As a result it will be almost impossible to resist snacking on unhealthy foods throughout the day, and you’re going to eat much more than you need to at meals. Simply by eating breakfast you will speed up your metabolic rate, and according to concisive studies, people who eat a regular meal in the morning weigh an average of eight pounds less.
Other than weight loss, what else can breakfast do for you? Breakfast offers you the best chance of the day to get a good helping of whole grains with the right breakfast cereal. Getting a serving of whole grains every day can do many wonderful things for your body, but most importantly it will improve your cardiovascular health. Cardiovascular disease is dangerous and on the rise, and the only way to prevent it is to head it off early. Studies have shown that eating a breakfast based on whole grains and oats every morning can reduce your chance of dying of heart disease by as much as 20%. When looking for cereals, choose those with whole grains first in the ingredients list. While energy bars are popular and may seem like a good idea to save time, most of them really need to be avoided. Few actually contain significant amounts of fiber, and are loaded with calories. Breakfast will also energize you for the day. With a fuel source to burn and increased metabolic rate, your energy levels will be higher and more stable and you’ll feel much better.
There is truly no good excuse for missing breakfast. Ultimately, the benefits that can be gained by simply eating something healthy for you each morning simply override any excuses about time or weight loss. Breakfast can drastically improve your health, help you feel much better throughout your day, help to shed a few pounds, and help fight off a disease or two. There is no other way to get these kinds of results so easily, and breakfast can do even more for you by incorporating other healthy foods such as fruits into your morning. Breakfast gives you a chance to get daily servings of the foods you know you should be getting, so slow down a little bit and enjoy a little meal to get yourself ready to tackle your day.