Travel Adventures- Amalfi Coast, Italy

As usual, sorry I haven't posted much recently! I want to try and finish off these travel posts from my summer holiday so that I can more onto other content, and especially some more Christmassy bits and pieces. 

So our next stop on the cruise was Napels, and we decided to rather drive all along down the Amalfi coast, which was absolutely stunning and one of my favourite places on this trip! Driving along the coast through narrow windy roads that are super high-up on the mountains, just a barrier away from the deep cliff down to the sea is just so beautiful and picturesque. The sea was so beautifully blue and endless, and you can see for miles ahead all the upcoming little fishing villages and towns. If you're looking for stunning views, this is definitely the place to be. 

The first place we stopped at was this really sweet little Italian town called Positano. The whole town is situated on a steep mountain side (as most of the towns in this area are), and so to get down to the beach, you walk down the one main road that winds and weaves its way all the way down to the pebbled beach. The bottom half of this road is mainly for pedestrians only, so you park right up near the top and walk down. All along the sides of the road there are cute little shops, restaurants and gelato stops and other touristy places. It was so lovely to just take our time walking down and explore some of these places. The region is also known for their lemons, so make sure to try so delicious lemon granita or limoncello! As for the beach itself, the shore is made of black pebbles, which despite being super pretty, isn't ideal in terms of comfort, and does get really hot on a hot day, but the water was absolutely beautiful! Its so cool to swim in the sea right there and look up the mountainside that this whole town is built on, looming above you. We didn't have too long in Positano, but I absolutey loved it, and it seemed like a really relaxing place to spend a while, and there looked like there were some lovely places to stay. 

We continued to drive further along the coast to our next stop, Sorento. Sorento is actually quite different from Positano but the coast is equally as wonderful! I really enjoyed wandering through the town here, and we also had some of the most delicious pizza, as only Italy can do! There is also one really long street (I seem to have forgotten the name of it) that is known to be packed with loads of shops and retail stores, some touristy, some a bit more authentic. The road is colourful and loud and really lovely to have a wander down. It's packed with shops of all types- clothing, leather, touristy trinkets, lemon products of all kinds and lots more, so thats also a lovely thing to do while there. 

Another thing that's quite cool to do if you're anywhere near Napels of the Amalfi Coast is to visit Pompeii, as it isn't too far away and is just so interesting. Pompeii's ancient ruins of a city that once was, is just so fascinating and really not like anything I'd experienced before. I think the best way to see and understand the place and its history is actually to get a tour guide or pamphlet of sorts, as without it we were a bit lost as to what to do first, and what meant what, but despite this, it was really so fascinating and a cool, interesting thing to do. 

The Amalfi coast just had this wonderful charm to it and really captured my heart. Italy is filled with vibrance and vitality, and I just really loved experiencing this part of it and these sweet little towns. 

Pompeii

NCL Mediterranean Cruise- Travel Adventures

Hi Everyone,

So this June/July I went on a cruise with NCL along the Mediterranean with my family, and it was honestly the most wonderful and relaxing 2 weeks, which I really wanted to share with any of you fellow travel lovers out there, or anyone wanting to know what the cruise experience was like. I think I'll do what I did on this blog last time I travelled, which was to do a post per country- I try to make the posts a bit of a mixture of a journal type thing for me that I can read back on one day, but also not make it too personal, and give any people travelling there soon some tips of cool things we did or tried. 

Okay so let me start talking about the cruise itself first. We did it with Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) and were on a boat called Norwegian Spirit, and I absolutely loved every second of it! I must be honest, I had never had any aspiration to do a cruise before and it wasn't something I'd thought about, but it is such a cool and fun way to see a ton of places in a pretty short period of time. As you literally just have a day at each city, it kind of just gives you a little snapshot of what the place is like, and gave me an idea of which places I'd love to one day return to one day. I will say that the actual travelling (especially with 6 of us in my family) was quite hectic and activity-packed, and so there was nothing nicer than boarding the ship in the evening and having a swim or dip in the jacuzzi and then sitting on the deck with a drink in hand looking out at the endless sea before having a delicious dinner. There was also stacks to do on the boat- from shows, magicians, the casino and arcade, organised quizzes and gameshows, big boat parties, tons of bars and pubs, etc., you get the picture. Every night they lay out an itinerary of all the things happening on the boat the next day, and there is definitely something for everyone. I cannot even start to explain how much I loved the actual cruise aspect of this trip! Because it's like a once-off payment type thing, there's no fussing about payment once you've boarded, which of course means endless delicious food, snacks, drinks and activities. The main deck has a big pool and lots of jacuzzis with deck chairs everywhere in sight to soak up the European summer sun. There are a lot of lovely places with great views dotted all over the ship ideal for a good drink at sunset and up to 10 different restaurants and cafes to pick from to dine at. The food was pretty excellent and the staff were all so friendly and helpful! My family took full advantage of all the organised games and shows happening, and the various plays and musicals in the theatre were also really cool. 

So our cruise was a 12 day one, which was for me, the perfect amount of time. We also had 2 "sea days" of travelling where we didn't stop off anywhere, which I actually loved as well because it gave you a day to relax a bit and to take full advantage of all the fun things there are to do on the ship. We started in Barcelona and from there went to Toulon, Florence, Rome and Naples. We then had a sea day before heading down to Greece, where we visited Mykonos and Athens. We then went up the Adriatic side of the sea and stopped off at Kotor, Montenegro and Dubrovnik before ending off the cruise in Venice. It was really a wonderful experience and I would highly recommend it to anyone umming and ahh-ing about doing a cruise!