Travel Adventures- Cinque Terre, Italy

Next stop on the cruise was at Livorno port nearby Florence, Italy. Myself and a couple of my family members had already been to Florence, and so we decided to rather drive up to Cinque Terre, which is only about an hour's drive to the closest port. This was one of the places I was most looking forward to because Cinque Terre has recently become very popular among travellers of all kinds, and I knew a few people who had been and raved about it! It's basically in northern Italy along the west coast, and consists of 5 headlands/capes of rocky land jutting out into the ocean, with these really sweet, pretty little 5 towns located between them. The only way (as far as I could gather) to get between them is by train (through the mountain) or ferry, we opted for both. So we drove up to Porto Venere, which is a cute little city right at the bottom of the cape (and not actually part of Cinque Terre), where we wondered around for a bit. It has a lovely promenade and right at the end there is a church called St. Peter's, which is really beautiful and has the most stunning views out on the water and up in the direction of the Cinque Terre. You can also walk back through the little town from the church and see the cute little authentic shops and colourful buildings forming narrow alleyways. 

From Porto Venere, we caught a ferry up to the top little village of Monterosso. The whole trip was about an hour and really very pretty. Monterosso's beach front is lined with beach chairs and umbrellas all along the cobbled beaches, and was absolutely packed. We could barely find a spot on the beach to put down our stuff, but the swim in the sea was definitely worth it! This region is also meant to be known for their pesto, so we then set out on a mission to find some pesto pasta for lunch. We succeeded, and I can undoubtedly say this was the best pesto I've ever had, yuuum! We wondered along the main beachfront street for a while, looking in at some of the clothes shops, etc. and then headed up to the train station to catch a short train to Riomaggiore. RIomaggiore is so stunning, its right all the way up the steep mountain side and is filled with loads of buildings of all different colours, and steep streets. We wondered up (the walk is a bit of a trek, but definitely manageable and worth it) to get a good look at the view right from the top, which was actually just beyond beautiful! 

We obviously only had a day here, and so could only manage to see two of the 5 "terres", but I've heard that they are all really lovely, and if you stay here for a while, you can also hike between them, which is apparently very cool. So yeah, there' quite bit to do and a ton of beautiful things to see here. Not to mention that Pisa is also pretty close by (maybe like a 45 minute drive or so) as is Florence. 

We all really loved Cinque Terre, it is extremely pretty and had a lot of charm. I will say in mid-summer it was quite touristy and was pretty packed,d but that didn't take away from the experience. 

Portovenere

Monterosso

Riomaggiore

Looking down on Riomaggiore

Travel Adventures: Cassis, France

Hey guys :) 
I really am sorry for the lack of posting on here, I don't have any specific excuse other than that time is just flying by and life has been quite hectic. But I wanted to continue with my travel posts from Europe this summer, if for nothing else than having something to come and look back on every now and then. 

So the second place our cruise stopped was Toulon in the South of France, although we actually didn't spend much time there, as we caught a train to the near-by little beach-side town of Cassis. The town is quaint, pretty and very cute. We wondered around the streets and in and out of the various little shops, picking up some delicious French bread and ice-cream for lunch. The town basically sits on the sea, and so we spent some time on the beach, soaking up the sun and having a dip in the sea, which was actually rather cold considering it's the Med. I really liked that Cassis was much less touristy than some of the bigger cities in Europe in mid-summer, and it never felt too crowded or commercialised. The beach front is packed with beautifully different coloured tall houses all along the shore, and a pretty promenade dotted with lots of shops and restaurants, it felt very authentically French. 

We spent most of our day on a boat, going out to see the calanques, which are narrow, deep-walled inlets of water that have developed in the rock along the coast, and they are filled with calm, crystal clear water and some lovely beaches. We did a boat tour of the various calanques, which was a lot of fun because the water was quite rough and wavy, and so we were bouncing about on the boat, and then when we went into the calanques, which were surrounded by calm, turquoise waters and beach-goers all along the shores. The whole landscape of this rocky coast is absolutely beautiful and really quite awesome- the rocks are huge and tower over you, beautifully dotted with vegetation and cool changes in the rock from a history of water erosion and the works. I would highly recommend you go on one of these tours if you're ever in Cassis or the south of France, we literally just walked up to the port ticket office and asked for the soonest tour leaving, cause I think they are popular and happen quite frequently. 

I had never been to France before, and whilst this was just a little snippet of the culture, I really enjoyed my time in Cassis, and was really taken by this sweet little town. It was quite quiet felt like a lovely place to relax and enjoy the stunning views, delicious food, and authentically french culture this lovely region has to offer. 

Arriving at Toulon...

Calanques

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!