Wanderlust and Memories

My Easter weekend trip to #Leuven Belgium :) #travelblogger

The Easter long weekend is over and we’re back to reality. Can’t tell you how much I needed this 4 day weekend. I normally like to stay close to home on weekends, maybe go out for brunch with a friend, go to the market, read, and relax at home. However, when a 4 day weekend came along I didn’t want to let it pass by. I felt like I had to take a 4-day trip somewhere just so I don’t “waste” it.…

Why I disappeared for over a year... #blogging #writting #mentalhealth #burnout

Hi there… For the past weeks/months, I’ve been thinking about blogging again. This past weekend I made the first step: I decided to take a look at my blog ideas that I haven’t seen in ages. Looking at what I had planned, I saw this blog post name “Why I stayed offline for the last 6 months). That blog post idea was born about a year ago. So needless to say, I had to rethink the name. I even took…

Top 10 things to see in Zakynthos

Finally got my long-awaited (dare I say deserved?) vacation/trip! Up until a week before departure we didn’t know if the trip would be possible, if we would be able to leave the country, enter the destination country or even feel safe to go. Finally we made it to Greece! The trip was divided in 2 parts (maybe 2.5 – I’ll explain): Zakynthos + Parga (+1 day in Sofia, Bulgaria). I’ve been thinking…

I’m haven’t felt inspired to write a blog post for a long time. For many different reasons. I’ve been staring at a blank page for over a year now. I never really posted on a regular anyway, but with covid bringing travelling to a halt… I still have so many things I could write about, so many trips, but staying inside for over a year sucked all the inspiration out of me. As I type this, I’m…

Travelling in the times of COVID-19

It’s been over a week and I just started feeling normal again. I think I might have finally caught up on sleep. Don’t worry, I didn’t travel for fun like some people, I had to travel for essential reasons and I couldn’t put it off. Believe me, I would prefer to just stay home and not expose myself to all sorts of risks at this time. That being said let me tell you about my experience.…

I miss travelling... a rant. #covid19 #travelblog

I miss travelling… most of us probably do. I was just looking at my Instagram and saw someone asking in a comment what time of the year the picture was taken. It was summer. And then my mind wandered and… We’re coming up to the time of year when I usually went on long trips. Looking at the photo I went back to that very day. It was a summer day in Iceland, but if you’ve ever been you know it’s…

So many people claim they’re bored in these times. I wish I was. I’m still very busy with university work, but I decided to take some time to write and edit pictures, so I can keep my sanity. Since most of us are unable (or shouldn’t) travel, I thought I’d take you on a little virtual tour.

About a month ago, I was on a train back from a day trip, when I got an alert saying the Netherlands diagnosed its first patient with COVID19 – in the city I live in no less. That was my last trip out of town. That day I finally made it to Rotterdam (choice made by my Instagram followers – thank you very much). It is a very modern and industrial city so not a lot of old architecture, which is why the city got architects to design unusual buildings to make the city more attractive to tourists. There’s one architectural masterpiece that I was particularly impressed by – the Cube Houses. Yes, they are inhabitable – you’d be surprised how you can optimise a living space like that. You’d have to be very creative and flexible – it’s not for everyone (like families with children, in my opinion).

That being said, let me take you on a tour inside one of these.

The stairs are quite narrow, so you have to wait for people to come down in order to go up. So to go inside you have to go up the stairs. And from there, guess what! – Another flight of stairs. You end up in the living room (also where you buy your ticket*).

You turn the corner and you find the kitchen/dining room. It’s quite small, but I’d say it’s very optimal as well.

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When you go to the next floor, you end up in somewhat of a hallway. There’s a shower right there and 2 other rooms:

The bedroom

And the office.

There’s also a passageway between the bedroom and the office.

When you get to the next floor, you find one more room. It’s in the upper corner of the cube. It’s like a panoramic room, you could say. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

That’s it for the tour. It’s a pretty small space as you can imagine, but it’s an unusual way of living. Wouldn’t mind staying in an AirBnB like that.

*Entrance: 3 EUR

So what do you think? Would you live in an apartment like that?

  PS: If you see anything on my Insta that you’d like to hear about, let me know. I’d be happy to oblige next time I can take a break from assignments/studying. 😉

A couple of weeks ago that was my situation so the closest ski resort that still had snow was Bukovel, in Ukraine. By close I mean I didn’t have to take a plane there, just drive for 10 hours. If you ever plan on skiing your way through Europe, this is one of the most popular spots in Eastern Europe.

Slopes

Most people I know who are good skiers recommend this resort, at least for people in this part of the world. At first I wasn’t very pleased with how the snow was evened out, it was really hard to ski, especially on the first day and I was frustrated. However that must’ve been because of the weather. It was spring and there has already been a warm period so the snow was all over the place (ice-y, watery, soft, hard…).

There are a lot of slopes spread out over a couple of mountains, which is amazing. You don’t get bored when you ski from one mountain to another. There are a lot of options for beginners as well. They don’t really have green slopes but some of their blue ones are pretty “green”. There are 16 lifts at this moment. They also have a ski school.

Ski Pass

There are 16 lifts at this moment. Prices for the lifts vary a lot. Just because they have a lot of different ticket options. They have day passes, evening passes, night passes, half a day, etc. If you buy 2 days or more at once, that includes day and evening, so from 8:30am to 7:30pm. If you only buy one day it’s from 8:30am to 4:30pm.

I think it’s a shame though that the pass is active from the moment you buy it so you cannot buy the night before because you’ll waste one day. For prices click here.

Ski Rentals

There are a few options here. I’ve noticed that most places have different prices depending on how new you want them to be. The newest ones are more expensive than the older ones. I went with option B, the middle one. They only rent full sets, with helmet and all, no glasses though. Some hotels have their own rental place which can be pretty nice, and at our hotel you could rent glasses for extra. Renting is available at the base of the mountain and prices are the same at any renting place there. Hotels may have cheaper options, like our hotel. However the quality was worse so you have to decide for yourself. If your hotel is not on the slopes it doesn’t really matter where you rent because you have to pay if you want to leave your equipment near the slopes over night anyway. More about that here.

Food

There was a restaurant in the “centre” of the resort, next to 3 or 4 lifts which is a great spot. The food is always ready, it’s a push-the-tray kind of place, where you pay per 100g no matter what food. I should say that I ate there twice and I had a very bad stomach ache for 2 days straight, on the second day I thought I wouldn’t be able to ski at all. I can’t be entirely sure that this food was the reason but I didn’t want to risk it again. After one day of not eating there it stopped. It is called Vulyk and it’s near lift 7. We also ate at our hotel one evening which was really really good. The food was well prepared and it wasn’t too expensive. That meal was one of the best we’ve had there. We ate up on the mountain once at a place called Filvarok and the food was incredible as well. We ate at a pizza place called Aston one evening, which was pretty good too. We had cream soups that were really yummy and it was great after a full day of skiing. And they had pizza and other main courses that looked absolutely amazing. The mains are freshly cooked for sure, but it’s worth the wait.

Accommodation

There are a few hotels on the slopes, like Radisson, of course those are quite expensive. We staid at Zaporizʹka Sich which is supposed to be at 400m from the slopes which is probably a little exaggerated. On Booking.com it is in the “ski-to-door” category, which is really misleading. There’s no way to ski to the door, NO WAY! I mean, you have to go down some stairs and then walk down to the road and then cross the road and walk again to the nearest slope. If you are a skier you know it’s really difficult to walk in ski boots. It’s a 15 minute walk at least. I was really disappointed.

The view from our room though was pretty darn great. The hotel was very clean. It’s quite big but it doesn’t feel like it,it’s cosy. Breakfast is pretty good, and it changes every day, which I really like and it means the food is fresh (I hope).

Infrastructure

The problem here is that there are a lot of constructions going on which makes everything a little messy. My main complaint is that there aren’t side-walks everywhere. None at all from our hotel to the slopes. Hopefully they will change that soon, although the roads are quite narrow so I don’t know if they have enough space. Fingers crossed though.

Other activities

Winter activities: zip lining, bike zip, sledding (they even have slopes for slays only), skating, snowmobile tours, spa centres etc.

Summer activities: biking, hiking, zip-lining, water sports on the lake and many more.

For more info on activities, restaurants, hotels, etc., visit the official website for Bukovel: https://bukovel.com/en/

I hope this helps, if you plan on going there. I’m always happy to answer questions. If you’ve ever been there and have more tips comment bellow!

See ya & Happy April!

  Instagram: @wanderlustnmemories Twitter: @wanderlustmemos Facebook: Wanderlust and Memories

5 #Greece photos that will awaken your #wanderlust

Greece is a pretty amazing country, that’s for sure. This is why I thought I’d share with you some of my favourite pictures that I took during my visits there.

1. Mykonos

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This is mostly a photos post. I’m going to try to show you everything there is to see there, because it’s more than just windmills. They have animals, wooden shoes, souvenirs, vintage houses, grass, a lake, a little river, a cheese factory/shop. I was too busy tasting cheese to take any good pictures of that last one.

From the distance

Individual windmills 

Some of them allow you to climb up to see them from even more up-close.

Old timey houses

These are either small museums, or souvenir shops, or just decorative for the tourists.

Wooden Shoes museum/shop

This one was pretty fantastic. They have all these kinds of wooden shoes, they have souvenirs in shape of wooden shoes and they have displays of them and instruments and all kinds of stuff related to these shoes and other Dutch fashion choices.

Animals 

Animals

I love animals so this was an even bigger plus for me. There were lots of goats and swans. Some of them couldn’t care less about the people around them. The swan however wanted to protect her children so she looked around and if you got too close she tried to bit you.

  Coming here from Amsterdam was like arriving in a whole new world. I recommend visiting, for sure!

15 Travel Quotes That Will Awaken Your Wanderlust

There are quite a few travel quotes that inspire me to travel more and to explore more. This Travel Tuesday I thought I’d share some of my favourite quotes with you combined with my pictures for some extra inspiration. I hope these will awaken your wanderlust and I hope it makes for a lighthearted enjoyable reed. (more…)

Airport – City Center

First of all, you should know airlines offer flights to 2 airports in the vicinity of Brussels, so pay attention to that when you buy your ticket. From the airport it’s very easy to get to the city. The train station is basically in the airport. You can buy your tickets at right there. There’s a train that goes straight to the central station, you don’t need to change trains. Depending on where you’re staying you might need to take the metro from the city center which is not that hard either. When you arrive you’ll probably exit through the back. But when you go to the airport you’ll have to enter through the front. It looks like this:

City Sightseeing Bus

I think that hop on hop off buses are a great way to get around and see a lot of things in little time. However there are some cities where that’s not necessary. I’m on the fence about the one in Brussels. The thing is, the audio guide is not that rich in stories, it’s usually packed in other cities. It is a good way to get to the Atomium however, so that’s a big plus. Since this was my second time I could’ve skipped it to be honest. So I wouldn’t say it’s the most important thing, but it does give you a good overall look of the city and some info that you maybe wouldn’t otherwise look up for yourself. So it depends on what you like. For us, it wasn’t a bad choice anyway, because it was February and it was raining quite a lot so walking around all day would’ve been even harder with that weather. You can buy tickets online, here.

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Atomium

The Atomium might be a little disappointing to people who have big expectations (like a couple of my friends :D). I definitely think it’s a symbol of Brussels and it’s worth seeing it from outside at least, but it’s not necessarily that impressive inside. When I was little and we went inside I loved it a lot. I though it was amazing. And looking outside through the windows was pretty cool. So maybe the age is somewhat of a factor. The second time around I was 22 so I wasn’t that impressed, although I’m always very open to anything related to traveling so I still enjoyed it and appreciated the trip. But I’m also trying to be as objective as possible so I’m telling you – not everyone is impressed and there’s not that much to see on the inside and it’s not that pretty for pictures either. You decide. I’ll show you some pics.

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Mini-Europe

From the Atomium you can see mini Europe. I was there only during my first trip. There’s probably no point in visiting a second time. It is closed during the winter though so it wasn’t really an option either. I do recommend going if you like mini cities like I do. I remember it being very pretty and so fun to walk around and see the miniature Eiffel Tower and the Coliseum and all the important landmarks. I’ve been to a couple of these kind of places and I’ve always enjoyed them. Unfortunately I only have pictures from above so you can see the location. You can find more detailed pictures here. There’s an aqua park too, so you can combine the two during the summer.

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Museum of Cocoa and Chocolate

AKA Choco-Story. There’s not much to see inside, it’s quite small. You can see pictures and read about the history of it all, see chocolate busts or tea cups, etc.. However, what makes this place special is the “master-class”. They have a little kitchen where there’s a man who shows you how to make chocolate and gives you tips, like the temperature for every type of chocolate, how to mix different types of chocolate. How you get dark chocolate, white or whatever. That’s really informative and fun. They have them in French and English. While you wait to get in you can taste little chocolates with different percentage of cocoa in them and they tell you the proportions of milk and sugar in them. And there’s also a chocolate fountain, if you will, so you can have a biscuit and dip it in chocolate. My mouth is watering just typing this. I mean Belgium chocolate is pretty good, right?

Choco-Story master-class

Master-class

Waffles!!!

I don’t know if you’re into that kind of thing, but I AM!! Not that you asked. If you don’t know what Belgian Waffles are, you should try them. If you do, you should just eat some more. Right? They have so many varieties for any taste. They have them sweet as deserts or not so sweet for breakfast or snack or whatever. They have them with all kinds of toppings and fillings: ice-cream, chocolate sauce, strawberries, all kinds of meat and veggies etc. Don’t hesitate to try them. I think pretty much all of their cafes have them.

Tours from Brussels

If you get tired of Brussels or you just want to visit other cities nearby. You can take the train whenever to go wherever. The train station is easily reached from the city center. You can reach it by walking or you can take the metro. The central station is located well near the Cathedral of Sr. Michael and St. Gudule. You can go to Antwerp, to Ghent, to Bruges, etc. If you want you can take a tour from a tourism agency. We decided to do that. They offered an option to visit both Ghent and Bruges in one day. I’m going to write a little post about that soon so be sure to stay tuned. For now I’m just going to say we were happy with our decision. 😉

This is going to be a short post with a few suggestions of what to see if you’re ever in the Düsseldorf/Cologne area. I recommend however visiting in late spring or in the summer, because in January it was quite humid and the cold was really unpleasant. It wasn’t extremely cold but it’s not the best time for walks.

Airport

First of all you might want to check plane tickets for both Koln and Düsseldorf so you can find the one that makes more sense for you. It’s not that hard to get from one city to another. We flew to Koln because it was the cheapest for us and our friends said they could pick us up there anytime so – success! It’s about 30 minutes away by car. It’s possible to get to and from the airport with public transportation too, of course, but I can’t tell you how exactly since we didn’t get a chance to do that ourselves.

Take off

Landing in Cologne

Düsseldorf

For the wedding party photoshoot we went to Media Harbour in Dusseldorf. It’s basically a part of the modern city. There are some very interesting buildings and sculptures that are really nice to look at and take pictures of. It’s a nice place to visit for sure. Another thing you should do is go to the old town. We didn’t have time to go this time but I’ve already been a couple of years ago. It’s really pretty and it represents the old architecture of the city. As I mentioned you may enjoy walking around the city when it’s warmer outside. + you can indulge in a beer and some traditional food on the side of the river, believe me, you want to. *wink wink*

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Zons

Oh.. this was my favourite town we visited during our time there. It is halfway between Dusseldorf and Koln. We went with the wedding party as well, before the reception. We didn’t see all of it but we did see how charming it is. Really wish I could stop at one of their coffee shops for a while. Every building was pretty in it’s own way. It felt like going back in time, if you ignore the modern day cars. Every door was different, they had flowers and cute little signs next to the doors. There was a very nice store that I absolutely loved (see picture below). There’s a little castle, and small river. It’s pretty amazing. I recommend visiting it for sure.

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Neuss

Neuss is a little city next to Dusseldorf where we stayed for the weekend. At first I thought it’s just a small suburb but it actually had a life of it’s own and a city in it’s own right. There’s great architecture, it’s full of history. We were lucky enough to have a friend who knew a lot about it (the groom). I’m not gonna try to tell you everything I learned though. There are quite a few places where you can read a little something about the history of the building/monument/canal etc. It’s a very peaceful town to walk around even at night. One thing I’ve noticed, at 7-8 at night there’s absolutely no one out on the streets. Even the bars and restaurants that are open are completely empty (except McDonald’s lol).

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Köln/Cologne

Unfortunately, because there was a wedding going on and we were there for some before/after stuff we didn’t get a chance to visit Koln but if you get a chance you should. I was really looking forward to it and I’m sure I’ll see it next time. So I will write a post about it when I do.

My 2017 in photos. #travelbloggers #travelblog #wanderlust

Hello everybody and welcome back to my blog. I hope the New Year is treating you well so far and I wish you lots of adventures in 2018. Don’t wait for anything to just happen, keep on working and create your own opportunities. In this first post of 2018 I’m reminiscing about the good times I had in 2017 – about the new places I visited and the good memories I gathered. I hope you find this post…

New blog post! All about Nafplio, Greece! I hope you like it and find it helpful. #TravelBlog

I’m back with a new post! As you can see, I’m having a hard time sticking to a schedule. Hopefully that will change soon. I hope you’re ready for a new story about yet another city in Greece. This was our forth stop on our cruise over the summer – Nafplio. This city is considered one of the most beautiful in Greece. I’d say that’s arguable, I’ve seen lots of other cities that I found even more…

The third stop on our trip - Katakolon, Greece. (and Olympia). #TravelTuesday #TravelBlog

Welcome back! It’s been a while, I know, sorry about that. I thought I wouldn’t have that much to say this time but it looks like I can ramble on quite a bit and hopefully it will be useful for some of you. So our third stop was Katakolon (also known as Katakolo) – a small town in Greece. Our ship in Katakolon. The port Katakolon’s port is apparently a popular stop for cruise ships. It’s the…

Kefalonia is a small island and you can’t go wrong in your choice of island when it comes to Greece. Oh man! I haven’t seen all the Greek islands but I plan to (someday). Our ship brought us to Argostoli, a town in Kefalonia. The view was amazing from the port by the way.

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Here’s a little bit about my experience and some info that might be helpful:

City Tour

There’s not much to see in this city but our main goal was to find a beach.:D However before we did that we decided to find a tour of the city anyway so we can see what makes it special. There were quite a few excursions to other places on the island but we decided not to risk missing our ship so we stayed close. We started walking in one direction (left, in case you were wondering, which you definitely weren’t) and as we walked people handed us flyers for all their excursions and we finally got to a little train tour around town. Isn’t that fun?? They’re usually fun… We loved what we saw, we took some pictures, the ride was bumpy but who cares 😀 I guess that comes with the territory when you take an old little train to get around. You couldn’t get off whenever you wanted, you had to stay on board until the end. I have one complaint though: the guide talked about the island but we couldn’t hear a thing. The mic connection + the wind when moving = not perfect for the sound system. We could only hear bits and pieces whenever we would stop for a minute. But it wasn’t very expensive: 5 euro/adult and 3.5 euro/kid. Check out some pictures here:

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The Beach

There’s no beach close to the port, unfortunately. Although, some people didn’t shy away and they took a dip right there. Who needs a beach, right? Haha… We weren’t that courageous this time. I mean we wanted to lay on a beach and relax. We asked around and we found out where the nearest good beach was and we ended up going there. We took a taxi. It’s a 15 minute drive so it’s not that far. It costs 10 euro in one direction. There were 4 of us so it was worth the money, no doubt. When you get off you can’t see the beach right away, you have to go through a forest-like portion and then go down the hill a bit to get to it. It sounds like a lot but it’s really 2 minutes. The beach however… it’s gorgeous! The water is perfect: bright blue, crystal clear. The sand is clean and “shiny” and also hot hot hot!!! 😀 So wear shoes (that helps a little)! I’m not kidding!! Sorry… I keep thinking of that heat! My feet were already hurt from the previous beach in Albania (read about it here), so the burning sand didn’t help much.

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Wifi

No, I’m not addicted but I think that’s important to state if you’re ever on a cruise and your only chance to check your email is when you’re on land. The wifi at the beach (a beach bar) was awful. I mean, I guess it could be good but there were so many people there, it barely worked. On our way back to the ship the taxi took us to their central square. That’s where we found a few restaurants with wifi and a public wifi, too. It was much better than the one at the beach. The only problem is that there was no bench to seat on in the shadows, but that forced us to limit our time on the internet which is not bad at all. I just needed it to update my instagram, tbh. *wink wink*

In conclusion, from what I saw in Argostoli, it may not be my first choice for a week-long trip but it’s great for a short trip. It’s a nice stop for a cruise, for sure. So thanks Holland America Line.