Valentine - part Two

The Most Expensive Valentine's Gift

Cue Knipschildt's decadent La Madeline au Truffle. The last word in gourmet chocolate, each sumptuous creation contains a tantalising black Périgord truffle surrounded by rich ganache and premium Valrhona cocoa. And at an astounding £160 a pop, you'll really want to savour every single bite.

Each Golden Phoenix cupcake costs a stomach-churning £645. The star of the menu at the chichi Bloomsbury's Cupcakes store in Dubai, it's made from premium Porcelana cocoa, flavoured with the finest Ugandan vanilla. And best of all, this tempting treat is decorated with 23 carats of edible gold leaf.

Rothschild's Slipper Orchid. Extremely rare, it can only grows in a small section of Malaysia's Kinabalu National Park, and each stem is worth up to a jaw-dropping £3,160.

This extra-lavish creation is exquisitely scented and encircled by a handmade, diamond-bow necklace boasting 38 brilliant diamonds. The air freshener of choice for the private-jet set, it's fittingly dubbed the Ultimate Luxury Candle, and comes in a swish satin-wrapped box. It price is £4,100.

The limited edition 1 Million 18 Carats fragrance by Paco Rabanne encased in a gold bottle with a diamond crown, and beautifully presented in a stunning Noé Duchaufour-Lawrence case, you'll have to part with £36,000 to bag a bottle of this ridiculously luxurious men's scent.

This blingtastic bear from the Gucci of soft-toy brands, Steiff, would make anyone go weak at the knees, especially once they've spotted the sky-high price tag. Created for the German company's 125th anniversary in 2005, its fur is made from genuine gold thread, and its eyes are studded with precious jewels. It's  £43,000. And that's if you can find one. Only 125 were ever made.

A double nebuchadnezzar of Armand de Brignac Midas if they're really out to impress. The ginormous gold-plated bottle contains 30 litres of vintage champers and weighs a hefty seven stone. And unsurprisingly, it doesn't come cheap. Last year, a city trader blew £125,000 on a bottle at Liverpool's swanky PlayGround club.

Only a handful of Imperial Majesty bottles were created for men and women as part of a very limited edition, so you have to pay $215,000 for one bottle. Each bottle is handmade with Bacarrat crystal and is diamond encrusted. At this point, you probably wouldn't be surprised to know Clive Christian was given the "world's most expensive perfume" title from the "Guinness Book of World Records."

Victoria's Secret Fantasy Bra has been valued at a cool £1.6 million. As showcased by Angel Alessandra Ambrosio, the 2013 creation is encrusted with 5,200 precious gemstones and set in 18 carat gold

Patek Philippe World Time Complicated Watch  able to tell the current time in any major world city. This complicated watch features a cloisonne enamel dial, an 18-karat yellow gold case, a sapphire crystal back and is water resistant to 30 meters. At only $215,595, it is well worth not having to learn time zones. 

Called the 201-carat Chopard, whoever owns this watch won't want people thinking she owns it for something as pedestrian as telling time. But in case someone does trouble her for the hour, three heart-shaped diamonds -- about 38 carats -- mechanically move away from the center and surround the watch face. There are another 260 pear-shaped diamonds, and in total the watch boasts 201 carats. The price is estimated at $25 million

So, what is your gift for your special one?

Don't forget that whatever the price, the most important thing is you love him/her with all your heart..

Happy Valentine 2013..

From:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-world-s-most-expensive-valentine-s-day.html

http://style.uk.msn.com/valentines-day/top-10-outrageously-expensive-valentines-gifts

Valentine - part One

History

One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured. According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first "valentine" greeting himself after he fell in love with a young girl--possibly his jailor's daughter--who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter signed "From your Valentine," an expression that is still in use today.

While some believe that Valentine's Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine's death or burial--which probably occurred around A.D. 270--others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine's feast day in the middle of February in an effort to "Christianize" the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.

To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat's hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city's bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.

Lupercalia survived the initial rise of Christianity and but was outlawed—as it was deemed “un-Christian”--at the end of the 5th century, when Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine's Day. It was not until much later, however, that the day became definitively associated with love. During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds' mating season, which added to the idea that the middle of Valentine's Day should be a day for romance.

Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written Valentine's didn't begin to appear until after 1400. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England.) Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.

From:

http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine's_Day