Hot Air Balloons

‘Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars/ Let me see what life is like on Jupiter and Mars…’

Whilst a hot air balloon ride might not take you into the stratosphere and beyond, it will have you feeling like you are soaring with the planets. If you are hard up for gift ideas or don’t know what to do with the kids this half term, why not let your imagination run wild and find some adventure in the skies?

With an online gift voucher or donation from Asda gifts, you could give the treat of hot air aviation to your closest friends or relatives. With balloon baskets carrying an average of 6 to 8 people, and usually operating over some of the UK’s most beautiful and verdant landscapes, combine great company with great views and head up, up and away.

The hot air balloon has long been famous for its association with adventurers and explorers, from Richard Branson’s self-publicising trans-Atlantic exploits to the pipe-smoking Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne’s classic novel Around the World in Eighty Days. It marries a sense of wild exploration with an old-school English kind of charm which the motor car and aeroplane have striven to eradicate.

With its wicker basket, colourful silken balloon, and the hot rushes of flame which spurt the whole contraption into action, the hot air balloon recalls a world still new to the Industrial Revolution of the 1850s, where gentlemen (like Mr Fogg) still wear three-piece suits and doff their caps to ladies, carrying top hat and cane.

Its vintage appeal does not make hot air balloon rides obsolete, however. Not only are they a charming alternative gift, they also allow you to see your home town, or discover a new region, from a completely novel perspective. Areas such as Bath, Bristol and the surrounding fields and pastures of the county of Somerset are particularly popular for hot air balloon rides. The gorgeous sandstone stately homes and terraces of Bath suddenly appear like elaborate dolls houses staring at each other across two hills once you are up in the air; the forests and orchards further away from the city limits of Bristol look like a picturebook. So why not make your next gift one to remember, and let its recipients get carried away – quite literally…

Thomas Kerrin is author of article written on Hot Air Balloon Rides & Hot Air Balloon Rides. For more information, please visit :www.asda-gifts.co.uk/Category/Id/1869/Name/Hot_air_ballooning

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 10:36 pm and is filed under Arts & Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.