On the island of Crete – the largest of Greece’s islands – stands the Church of Livadia. It has quite the colorful interior, reflecting Crete’s distinctive culture from the rest of Greece.

The island has its own poetry form, Mantinades, along with music and indigenous dancing. The people of Crete also often wear traditional dress in everyday settings, including knee-high black riding boots and black shirts. Most of the population is Greek Orthodox, and religious holidays play an important role in gathering the people of Crete together.

Anesthesiologist Jason Burke has just introduced “Hangover Heaven” in Las Vegas: a bus service that tours the strip, giving vitamins, amino acids, and other medications to the morning-after distraught.

So how long does it take for these treatments to banish a hangover? Just 45 short minutes, claims Burke – at least for 90% of the people.

You don’t even have to go searching for the bus, or wait for it at a designated time. You simply call in advance to be picked up at a certain spot (or you can track where it is on their website).

Image: Hangover Heaven

The bus offers two comfy lounge areas and six bunk beds, but that’s where the party ends, at least if you are afraid of needles. Yep, the goods are administered via needles, which explains the quick recovery time.

Of course, the treatment’s going to cost you – this is Las Vegas, after all. The basic ‘Redemption’ package is $130, and includes only IV hydration. If you want to get rid of that nausea and inflammation, it’ll cost you $200 for the ‘Salvation’ treatment. Hopefully you won big on the tables the night before during your bender.

Really, it’s a fantastic business idea to place smack-dab in the middle of the city that needs it most. But we can’t help but wonder if it’ll drive binge drinking up even more, considering most people have to sit out at least the next day when dealing with a particularly horrible hangover. Now, they’ll be able to get those Bloody Mary’s in by noon after a morning treatment.

Particularly if you are heading up an advertising agency who is running a large campaign for a country. Unfortunately, an agency out of Britain called The Line Agency seemed to believe otherwise.

Atout France – France’s tourism board – hired the British ad agency to run their billboard and newspaper campaign to get Brits out of England and into France during the Olympics. The flashy photos capture beautiful coasts and beaches in France.

Except for the fact that the photos aren’t actually of France.

Photo: Daily Mail

At least three of the photos in the campaign are of beaches in other parts of the world, according to the Daily Mail. One photo is of Hawaiian waters with the coast of Corsica photo-shopped in, while another one of friends running on a supposed French beach is actually of Clearwater, FL. A third shot has a family joyfully skipping on a beach that is actually outside of Cape Town, South Africa.

Needless to say, the tourism board is not doing well after this bust, being forced to publicly apologize and undergo an investigation by the French photographers’ and journalists’ union PAJ. Atout says they may take action against the British ad firm.

Besides being extremely bold – and stupid – to steal pictures for a campaign of this magnitude, we’re not exactly sure why they did it. France has beautiful water and beaches, and the campaign cost £600,000. Just goes the show the public is smarter and better traveled than big companies think – shame on the agency for thinking people wouldn’t notice!

• “Travora Media Acquired Local Travel Planning Platform NileGuide,” TechCrunch, April 24, 2012
• “Acquisitions to change how travel customers, mobile shoppers embrace content,” BizReport.com, April 24, 2012
• “Ad network acquires NileGuide in content and media play,” Tnooz, April 24, 2012

NEW YORK – Travora Media, creating a next-generation media brand in travel with local, social and mobile content services, today announced the acquisition of The Nile Project, Inc.(Nile Media), a San Francisco-based company with a portfolio of three well-known websites: NileGuide, 10Best, and Localyte and mobile apps focused on providing local expertise to travelers. Terms of the acquisition were not released.

With a highly-educated and travel-savvy audience, the Nile Media sites specialize in producing content that travel information seekers need to plan their next trip, including top 10 must-see lists, fresh weekly articles from local writers around the world, answers to travel questions from more than 100,000 global community members and tour guides, suggested trip itineraries, and original travel reporting and image galleries showcasing unique themes or events. Nile Media adds over a million new travelers to the Travora Audience Platform of more than 26 million proven travel consumers.

“In a world of ad inventory commoditization and ‘manufactured context,’ Travora is moving in the opposite direction by delivering more authentic travel content experiences to our users and sponsors,” says Nan Forte, CEO of Travora Media. “With fresh content from across the globe from more than 100 local editors, Nile Media’s sites enable us to more rapidly build out our local, social and mobile portfolio of trusted travel information brands. This acquisition, the first in a series of initiatives focused on transforming the digital travel consumer experience, brings the company a complementary audience, set of resources and leadership team to our mission of bringing trust and joy to travel on all new levels.”

Josh Steinitz, CEO of Nile Media, who will become a principle member of the executive team at Travora Media, says, “We are excited to join Travora Media and deliver authentic travel content and original digital product offerings for travel-minded consumers along with innovative marketing solutions for advertisers. With the new resources Travora brings, we can accelerate offering consumers access to quality content across all platforms – enhanced by the most popular social and community conversations around travel – while delivering customized audiences and ad formats to meet the needs of today’s lifestyle marketers.”

With well over a million unique visitors each month, Nile Media (www.nileguide.com) is a unique collection of industry-leading travel sites (10Best.com, NileGuide.com and Localyte.com) that provide sophisticated, modern travelers with everything they need to plan their perfect trip. From exceptional articles and ‘must see’ lists written by local editors to a proprietary ‘ask a local’ Q & A platform, the Nile Media collection has everything travelers need to find great recommendations based on real local expertise. Founded in 2006, Nile Media received venture funding from investors including Draper Richards, KPG Ventures, Austin Ventures, and Tenaya Capital.

Travora Media Inc. (www.travoramedia.com) represents the next generation of travel media and information, with hundreds of travel style websites and mobile apps and 26 million qualified travelers under its umbrella. Travora offers exclusive publisher representation across all stages of the travel lifecycle to publishers including Not For Tourists, Wanderfly, HopStop, Vayama, Viator, Rough Guides, Rand McNally, and many more. This exclusivity brings turnkey revenue solutions for travel publishers, and total access to a 100% Travel Qualified audience across local, social and mobile platforms for brands.