Cissy's Blog

LAOS HIGHTLIGHTS: 16th - 24h November, 2023.

VIETNAM HIGHLIGHTS: 6th - 15th November, 2023.

Here is a little impression of a wonderful long weekend trip to London. It was Steffen’s first time and my fifth time in the capital city of England. Our legs were very sore every evening from all the walking but we enjoyed seeing a great mixture of the typical London sights and attractions that were on our bucket list. My personal highlights were strolling around Kesington Gardens, visiting the Shakespeare’s Globe and watching the musical The Phantom of the Opera in West End. 

A place that I did not enjoy at all was one of Crete’s most beautiful beaches, Elafonisi Beach. Elafonisi Beach is known for the little pieces of coral that are swept ashore and give the beach a slightly pink colour. I like going to the beach to go for a swim and to explore the area, but sunbathing is not my thing. Unfortunately, I didn’t come to the right place. When I arrived at Elafonisi Beach I could even see the beach since it was completely covered by sunbeds and tourists. You could only hire two sunbeds at once and since I was travelling alone, I found it a waste of money. I had to walk half an hour through the burning heat to find a spot where I could actually sit in the sand without having to hire sunbeds. Once I went into the water to cool off, I didn’t see any pink sand. Apparently, tourists have taken the pink sand back home as a souvenir with the result that there wasn’t much left anymore. It was very windy when I was there and lots of sand kept flying everywhere. I didn’t even end up taking pictures of Elafonisi Beach since it was so crowded and the only thing that I would be able to photograph were a crowds of (sun)bathing people. I do think Elafonisi Beach is a very beautiful beach, but not during peak season. As much as I loved my week in Crete, this experience made me decide not to go to Greece anymore during the summer holidays. The locals agree that Crete is much more pleasant when you come a bit earlier or later in the year when it is less crowded and the temperatures are more pleasant. Nonetheless I had a wonderful time in Crete. History, beautiful landscapes, good food, sunshine, blue waters and kind people. Crete has it all.  

One of the highlights in Chania is the beautiful sunset. I did a sunset boat tour which was beautiful, but I would also recommend walking up to the lighthouse just before the sun is setting and enjoy the beautiful view while the midday heat is cooling down. When it gets dark it is when Chania really comes alive. It is when the locals come out for food and drinks and the atmosphere is just great. What I loved about Crete was the food. The Greek cuisine in Greece is different than I know from back home and to be honest it is much better! I recommend seeking a place to eat outside the main streets and where there is no restaurant staff trying to talk you in. These were the tourist traps where you pay way too much for low quality food. If you take some time to seek out a good restaurant, I promise you won’t regret it. Chania is a beautiful little harbour city. It doesn’t matter if you stay here a day or a week like I do, it is a place to fall in love with.

After two day it was already time for us to go home. I was amazed by the beautiful landscapes, the atmosphere and the delicious wine that can be found only a short drive away from my hometown. It was the perfect place for a weekend with friends. Thank you Mosel, I will definitely come back! 

Here are the pictures of yesterday’s photoshoot. It is great to see the comparison with the photos of four months ago, this time with four lovely humans instead of three. Thanks so much for these two photoshoots!

20th March, 2022. A couple of months ago I had this wonderful photoshoot because these three were expecting a fourth family member. Today we did a second photoshoot, this time together with their baby boy! It has been a pleasure to capture both moments on camera and see how the family has grown.

Around two and a half years ago I did a pregnancy shoot with Sanne and Rory when they were expecting their daughter Yara. Meanwhile Yara has become a lovely little girl and the family is expecting a fourth family member. A good reason for another photoshoot with sunshine and many smiling faces.

It was a cold but still a wonderful pregnancy shooting with these two who were waiting for their little boy to arrive. Can’t wait to meet you soon!

Although we enjoyed Aarhus and Copenhagen Steffen and I actually fell in love with Skanderborg. Skanderborg gave us the holiday feeling that we were looking for. I do not have more pictures of Skanderborg than the two pictures in this post because I left my camera in our Airbnb when we were out. It is quite rare to find me without my camera while travelling but I just wanted to take in the area without needing to worry about finding the perfect composition. Skanderborg is situated right next to a big lake called Skanderborg Sø and we spent most of our time walking around this beautiful lake and appreciating the views. We enjoyed swimming in the lake, relaxing in the sun, exploring the town centre and eating some delicious food while dreaming what it would be like to live here. Skanderborg was the perfect place for us to have a step back and just enjoy being on holiday together. Although the global pandemic unexpectedly led us to Denmark, we loved staying in this beautiful and welcoming Scandinavian country and can’t wait to come back.

One of my favourite things to do was actually outside of Copenhagen. From Copenhagen you can take a direct train to Helsingør, or Elsinore in English. Helsingør is a lovely little seaside town where Kronborg is situated. Kronborg is a Renaissance castle and has been of major importance in the past. Inside the castle you can learn all about the history, the art and the people that have lived in the castle. Also worth visiting are the casemates underneath the castle that contain a statue of Denmark’s legendary knight Holger Danske (Ogier the Dane). There is another reason why I loved visiting this castle in particular. Kronborg Castle has been the inspiration for Shakespeare to write one of his most famous plays The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Shakespeare was fascinated by this castle and the feasts that were celebrated here and eventually that is how ‘Hamlet’ was born. All around the castle actors perform scenes from the play and certainly the “To be, or not to be? That is the question” scene wasn’t left out. The live performances made visiting this castle very special and brang Shakespeare’s tragedy alive. All I can say is that no matter if you prefer arts, history or rather spooky dungeons, Kronborg is worth the short train ride from Copenhagen. We loved it.

After 10 days of travelling our family road trip through Iceland came to an end. Iceland is becoming more and more popular and I can see why. Iceland has the most incredible landscapes and nature phenomena. A lot of these are very unique to Iceland and withing 10 days we tried to see some of them. I loved visiting Iceland and I would recommend it for everyone who wants to fall in love with the beauty of nature.

I will start this blog post with a short apology. I wanted to write these last two Iceland blog posts months ago but I never got around to do it. I still want to share the wonderful photos and experiences from our Iceland trip last summer with you so better late than never. After having explored the Golden Circle, the South and the East coast my family and I continued our road trip up North. We stayed in a lovely AirBnB in Akureyri and from here we took several day trips to see all the highlights of the North. Akureyri is the largest town in the North of Iceland but you can easily see most of it by having a little stroll around town. There is the harbour and the main streets with souvenir shops, lovely cafés and restaurants. We ate at the Indian Curry House and the food was amazing! Check it out if you crave some good Indian food while being in Iceland. One of the day trips we did was to Ásbyrgi Canyon. There are several hiking trails around the Ásbyrgi Canyon starting from 30-minute-walks to walks that take seven hours. The routes vary in difficulty so there is a suiting trail for everyone. Ásbyrgi Canyon has been formed thousands of years ago by glaciers. We hiked on the edge of the Canyon while enjoying the green view over the canyon. My whole family enjoyed this little hiking trip. It felt good to get away from the tourist crowds and walk around the unusual, quiet and beautiful nature of Iceland. A thing that has been on the bucket list of my family and I has been whale watching. Húsavík is seen as the European capital for whale watching so we couldn’t miss the opportunity. We decided to book our whale watching tour with Gentle Giants. There are many different tour companies to choose from if you decide to go whale watching. It depends on your budget, the kind of boat and the amount of people that you prefer to do the tour with. On our tour we first made a stop at the puffin island. On this island thousands of puffins nest. They were just about to fly out at this time of the year but luckily, we still managed to see many puffins swimming and flying all around us. I found puffins wonderful creatures to observe. Afterwards the whale spotting began. Our tour guide told us all about the whales that can be seen in the area and their way of living. They communicate with other boats in case a whale is spotted so we could head out and see the whales for ourselves. You need a lot of patience and a strong stomach for whale watching. All people on our boat kept staring into the open sea to hopefully get a glimpse of a little fountain or fin sticking out of the water. And we were lucky! We got to see a humpback whale a couple of times. One time it got very close to the boat and startled us all. We didn’t get to see the whales like in all the perfect advertisement pictures and there is even a chance that you won’t get to see a whale at all if you go whale watching. But it still is a wonderful experience and it made me appreciate the sea life and the importance of respect for nature. The day last trip we made up North was to Mývatn. Mývatn is a lake and the area is known for the volcanic activity. One of these sights where you can admire this is the Námaskarð geothermal area in Hverir. This place looks like from a different planet. The ground has an orange colour and there are geothermal hotsprings of all kinds. It is a very fascinating place and while it feels like walking on mars the smell of sufur is quickly forgotten. Mývatn is surrounded by several volcanos. One of them is the Hverfjall crater which you can climb up. You can walk all around the crater which has a diameter of one km. It was extremely windy when we walked up the volcano, but it still felt incredible to be able to see a volcano like this.

Iceland is known as the country of fire and ice. Fire due to the volcanic activity on this island. That Iceland also is the country of ice became clear when we drove from South to the East. Here you can find the well-known glacier Jökulsárlón. This glacier is a popular spot on the ring road. Not without reason because Jökulsárlón is beautiful and very unique. Jökulsárlónis well-known for the glacier lagoon. It is a lagoon with big pieces of ice. Pieces of the ice can be found on the beach leading to the ocean. This beach is also called diamond beach because the ice makes it look like there are big diamonds lying around. This glacier is definitely a must-stop when doing a tour around Iceland. Even though it was summer it felt like we were on the North pole. You can also take a boat tour through the lagoon and when you look closely you might see a seal swimming through the lagoon. We actually saw one but it was not close enough to get a good picture. We spent quite some time at Jökulsárlón before heading to our next Airbnb in Höfn. In the afternoon we went to see one of my favourite spots in Iceland and that is Stokksnes. Stokksnes was a short drive from Höfn and is situated a little bit off the Ring Road. It was worth the effort because there we hardly any tourists. For a small fee you can visit this place along the southeastern coast. It is a great place to go for a walk. There is a wonderful black beach and a rough coastline. From pretty much everywhere you can see the beautiful mountain that is shown in the picture. Instagram photographers have discovered this spot and it feels like it is impossible to take a bad picture of it. A very photogenic mountain! Not to miss is the Viking village on foot of the mountain. As part of a movie set, they made a replica of an actual Viking village. The movie never got released but the village is still there to visit. You are allowed to walk everywhere, and the village looks incredible! Everything is made with a lot of detail. We were the only visitors there. It was so much fun to discover the village and to imagine that Vikings have lived like this a thousand years ago.

ICELAND DAY 3 SOUTH ICELAND: 3rd August, 2019. After visiting the Golden Circle we continued the Ring Road along the south coast. It doesn’t matter if you take the Ring Road this way or up north first but we decided that this worked best for us. Driving in Iceland during the summer was not difficult. We mainly followed Route 1 which is clearly laid out and in a good condition. The only thing you need to watch out for are the sheep that might cross the road. In one day we drove to Höfn with plenty of stops on the way. The first two stops were the waterfalls Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss. Seljalandsfoss was my favourite waterfall of all the waterfalls we have seen. It is definitely worth making a stop here. You can walk behind the waterfall which was a lot of fun (and wet!). It had something magical. Skógafoss is a gorgeous wide waterfall and the perfect background for some waterfall photos if you can manage to photograph it without people on it. I have to admit that I needed to use photoshop to edit the people out. Not far from Skógafoss is the DC-3 Plane Wreck. In 1973 this plane needed to do an emergency landing. Luckily all the passengers survived. The plane has never been removed and it is impressive to see what is left of it. Getting to the DC-3 Plane Wreck is not easy. There is a parking spot near the road from which you have to walk 3.5 km to get there. Around the walking route there is nothing to see so I would recommend doing this sight only if you have enough time and are eager to see it. Further south near the village Vík is Reynisfjara Beach. This a beautiful black sand beach with outstanding rock formations and caves. Again, I was amazed by nature’s beauty. A must-stop as well when going south. I was looking up the basalt column walls which looked right out of Game of Thrones when I saw puffins nesting on the top. It made it even better. When visiting Reynisfjara keep in mind that it is one of Iceland’s most dangerous beaches due to the sudden big waves and a strong current that will drag you into the sea. I was photographing the rocks when a big wave took me by surprise. Luckily, I saw it just on time but it is good to keep safety in mind. From Vík we drove to Höfn. We passed a couple of sights that we went to visit the next day and that I will talk about in the next post. Driving in Iceland never gets boring. Behind every corner there is something interesting to see and the landscapes show so much variety. You can drive through mountains and a moment later you are surrounded in the lava field covered in moss and after that you look over rough cliffs into the sea. Welcome to Iceland!

ICELAND DAY 1 & 2 GOLDEN CIRCLE: 1st – 2nd August, 2019. When thinking of Iceland a paradise for travel photography comes to my mind. For this reason, I was very excited when I heard that we were doing a family trip through this beautiful country. Together with my dad, my brother and my sister we went to do a road trip of about eleven days. We decided we wanted to follow Route 1, also known as the Ring Road, with a couple of detours on the way. We hired a car, booked Airbnb’s in advance and off we went. We started our Iceland adventure with the Golden Circle. The Golden Circle is an one day round trip and it is popular by many tourists who are staying in Reykjavik for a short amount of time. We were staying in Eyrarbakki and from there we visited the highlights like the Kerið volcano crater, Skálholt, Gullfoss, Geysir and Þingvellir National Park. All of these places were unique and interesting to see. Still I couldn’t help thinking that these tourist attractions weren’t that special compared to the rest that I will be seeing in Iceland. It made me excited what else Iceland would have to offer. We had some time left in the evening and the owner of our Airbnb recommended us going to Reykjadalur Hot Spring Thermal River. Unlike all the Golden Circle attractions it was quite the walk to get there, but it was so worth it. We walked up beautiful mountains and just when I was thinking the hot spring river is a myth it appeared in front of us. Like the name suggests Reykjadalur is a natural hot spring river. Wooden paths have been put alongside the river to make it easier to access. This has been one of the highlights of the whole trip for me. The water was very hot, so you get the ultimate spa feeling when bathing. It was a crazy feeling to relax in the hot water in the middle of nature. Visiting Reykjadalur is free and I recommend taking a cold beer which makes the experience even better. Definitely don’t miss out on this hidden gem. On our last day we took the day to see the capital Reykjavik but to be honest half a day would have been enough as well. I didn’t find Reykjavik very special. It is worth visiting the Hallgrímskirkja and have something to eat in the many great restaurants and cafés that can be found around town. But other than that, I think it is better to leave Reykjavik behind and see more of Iceland’s inland if you have the chance.