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

Travel Adventures- Rome, Italy

Rome is a city that is pretty close to my heart, and one that I'd not only been to before, but know kind of well because I lived in the central city for a week whilst on exchange, and also visited about 3 other times on that same trip. But there is always so much to see, and it never gets old or uninteresting, so I was excited to go again. A really lovely thing to do whilst in Rome is catch one of the Hop On Hop Off buses because there's a lot to see, but it is all quite far apart and not everything is within walking distance from each other, so that's a nice easy way to see it all. Otherwise, the metro is pretty easy to understand and use, and the main attractions are indicated at the various stops where you need to get off, so that works as well (just watch and hold onto your bags). 

One of my favourite attractions in Rome is the Trevi Fountain. It was absolutely packed due to the usual summer tourists, but the sculpture work itself and beautiful blue water is really so pretty, and worth seeing. A lot of lovely shops and restaurants are located quite close to the fountain, especially in the back alleys/roads in and around that area. Also, a close-by 15 minute walk away is the Pantheon, which is a huge building with a large round hole in the centre of it's roof. I'm afraid I don't know too much about its' history, but it's pretty cool to go and see. Also, in one of the roads up from the Pantheon is a very well known ice-cream shop with some of the best gelato I've ever had and over 100 flavours!! 

Another lovely attraction to go and see is the Spanish Steps. The walk up is a little tiring but completely worth it to see the lovely view of the roof tops and skyline of Rome. In the main road across from the steps is the main road for all things expensive and high-fashion shopping with Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Givenchy and the works- great for window shopping, not so much for the budget! 

The Roman Forum and Colosseum are also a must-see if it's your first time in Rome. From my experience, the queues to get into the Colosseum are nightmarish, so go at a more quiet time, or early morning, but it's definitely worth a peek inside, and the history of the building is absolutely fascinating. The Roman Forum is a big region outside the Colosseum with ruins from ancient Rome, it is not ideal for a hot day as it is a lot of walking and standing around, but if you're a history-lover, it's definitely for you. 

Another must-see in Rome is The Vatican. Specifically St. Peter's Basilica, which is free to the public and is honestly one of the most overwhelming and stunning buildings I have ever been into. Make sure to wear clothing that covers your shoulders, midriff and knees though. The basilica is huge and has the most stunning sculptures, mosaics and embellishments I've ever seen. It is also completely stunning to walk up the 1000s of steps to the top of the basilica's dome to see the completely-worth-it view over the whole city of Rome. Also in The Vatican is the Sistine chapel, which is also absolutely stunning- the painting on the roof is completely awesome and definitely something worth seeing despite the hours of queues. In this area, there are also a lot of touristy shops if you need to do some gift shopping and some lovely restaurants with delicious authentic Italian pizza, pasta and bruschetta, just to name a few (oh my goodness, I love Italian food). 

Rome is quite overwhelming in it's size and expanse, and also how much history it has and the loads of tourist attractions there are to see, but they definitely are all worth it. Everytime I have been there it has been absolutely sweltering, as that's what you get when you combine European summer with a huge city, so be prepared for a lot of walking and sweating, and also an absolutely wonderful city with loads to do and see. 

Pics of the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain: 

Pics of The Vatican 

St. Peter's Basillica

View from the top of the dome of St. Peter's

Pics of the Colosseum and Roman Forum

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! 

Travel Adventures: Dubrovnik, Croatia

Okay, so in the last travel post, I left off with Korcula and Mljet.

So next was Dubrovnik, which is one of the main and most well-known cities along the Dalmation coast of Croatia. We were staying two nights here, opposed to one night as with the others, and so got to know the city a little better. 

Dubrovnik is absolutely stunning! The main touristy sort of area is the Old Town, which just has so much history to it and is all build in stunning white marble. The Old Town is walled off (which was a defence mechanism in the olden days), and so you can climb onto the walls and walk around the whole perimeter about 50 meters up and get a pretty cool view of the surroundings and surrounding sea. The old city has a long main road with lots of touristy little shops on it and some amazing places to get Gelato (which we ate far too much of)! If you walk down to the end of this street (but because it's walled off, it's all just people, like no cars or anything), there is a really beautiful cathedral and lots of museums and places worth checking out if you're into the history of the city. I went on a guided tour of the Old Town, which was so so interesting, and really cool to do, because you get to learn so much about the history. The Old Town has stunning architecture, a mixture of Baroque and Renaissance, and lots of swallows dipping down between all the buildings and narrow alleys. Croatia is a predominantly Catholic country, and so there are also lots of churches and a monkery in the Old Town. Dubrovnik also has a really stunning port on the other side of Old Town, which is worth going to see. We found some really cool places to swim just outside of Old Town (close to the entrance) and there were even a few little like caves/blue grottos, which is super cool! So yeah, Dubrovnik is amazing, there's so much to do, I feel like I could have stayed there for another week at least, but yeah, the nightlife is lots of fun too, and it's just a lovely city with a lot of heart.