Wednesday 27 July 2011

I've been pickpocketed

After visiting notorious pick pocket places such as Bangkok, Phuket, kuala lumpur, hong kong, Paris, Rome, Barcelona and have always been in possession of my belongings, it's finally happened.... I've been Pickpocketed!
Madrid... Should have known I couldn't get through 4 stops in the country that is rated the 5th most likely be robbed in the world!

During what would have been a 15 minute (at the most) time span my wallet was taken. The their took my favorite little purse (Anna Sui, not real but I still loved it) along with it they now have 3 bank cards, my drivers license and 60 euro.. Plus some extra things.. A subway club card if u want to know and some other rubbish.
I spent the afternoon of which we had planned to relax before our pub crawl tonight calling mastercard and visa to cancel my cards, and several hours at the police station making a statement! I hope the theif is happy with themselves!!

So it has totally ruined my day and I'm not happy Madrid! Fingers crossed no money was taken in the time before I was able to cancel the cards.

Top travel tip... Keep your bags very very close to you, in front if possible... Those damn pickpocketers are good!

Monday 25 July 2011

Hola from valencia

Hola!

So I'm a few days late and I'm not actually in Valencia anymore but that's ok.

So we arrived to Valencia mid afternoon, everything was closed for siesta and we made our way in the hot hot weather to our hostel. After a brief look around and a quick lunch our first impression of Valencia wasn't a great one. I'd booked us 4 nights here and we thought it was possibly going to be 2 nights too many! After researching on the net for what seemed like hours and we had no better option that wouldn't cost us a ton of euro we decided on making the most of being in the town and staying the full 4 nights. I'm happy to say that first impressions can sometimes be wrong and Valencia proved me very wrong indeed!

My top tip if I give any is definitely do the free walking tour, I say free but there is a level of expectation that you tip the guide at the end, which is fair enough! Our guide was Duncan, a Scotsman who had come to Valencia as a history buff and ran walking tours, tapas tours and pub crawls. He was full of knowledge and for the next 2 hours we walked our way around most of the old town area. It really is a cool little city with so much history!

After filling our brains with Valencian History for 2 hours we followed Duncan on to the tapas tour. It wasn't the best tapas but we got some free sangria(mmmmmmm so good!) and met some amazing people! It's funny how you can pretty much go anywhere in the world and you will always see some Aussies!! It was the best day and we carried on with the drinking of sangria well after the tour ended with our new friends!

Our next day we met up with 2 of the guys we had met on the tapas tour. We aimed to see more of the old town area. Our first stop was into the town hall which was an impressive building in itself but the reason so many people go to look at it is for the amazing timber ceiling that has been carved. The ceiling is from another building which was there. The whole building had been wooden and it had burnt down. Somehow they managed to salvage the ceiling of this burning building and now resides in the town hall.
Our second stop was to the cathedral El Micalet which was built in the 1200's. It's really an amazing cathedral made up of many different chapels paying tribute to different saints and eras. The most important part of this church is it is said to hold the holy grail. Now I'm a little skeptical on this but they apparently have the most convincing and logical reasons for said holy grail to be in their possession. I thought it would be a little bit more extravagant but there it was. A tiny gold cup behind some glass!

After our history stops we decided to hire bikes and we rode through the park.. Cool story about this park actually.. It was once a river but then once the river overflowed and flooded the whole of Valencia. They then decided to reroute the river and it was turned into a park. So now there are thousands of meters of walking tracks, bike lanes and grass that snake itself around the city. So after riding right down to the port area we headed to the aquarium. It's the biggest in Europe and worth checking out. It was pretty cool.
It was extremely hot by this point and so we headed off to the beach and relaxed for the afternoon. It was great!

Our last day in Valencia was probably a bit of a waste. Mitch was hungover so he slept most of the day while I took myself off to central market, a market full of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and cheeses. I loved just walking up and down last the stalls peering at what they all had. The rest of the day I relaxed too.

So after a deceiving start we had a great time in valencia. It was definitely worth staying there for!

Thursday 21 July 2011

Hola from Barcelona

Hola!

After spending a day in London washing, buying some new books and repacking, mitch and I headed to Barcelona. I didnt have many expectations of bar elona due to most people saying 'meh it's ok there', 'oh you just need two days there' so the expectations plummeted and I didn't hold much hope for the city.
We arrived late afternoon on Saturday, it was so hot which was a stark contrast the weather we had just left in London. After finding our hotel we headed out for our first real look at the city. We stayed just off las ramblas, the centre of Barcelona that holds the epitome of what the city is all about. The tree lined street is crammed with hundreds of tourists, souvenier shops and Spanish gypsys. At night the street lights glow, artists come out sharing their talent and many a street performers impress us all in hopes of making a few euros for the night. It's a great street to people watch and generally bask inthe ambiance that is Barcelona.

Our first full day we headed off to do a bike tour of the city. Most definitely worth every cent of the 18 euros we paid for it. Our guide was an Aussie called Mitch and we were lucky
enough to be the only 2 clients of that time of the day so the bike tour was personal and so much fun. We biked around 15km of the city to see everything barcelona has the offer including the most famous building sagrada familia, the surrealistic church which the famous architect gaudi started building in 1882 and is still an incomplete masterpiece!

Gaudi's work features prominently around Barcelona and his works are some of the strangest I have ever seen. It was known that he was constantly tripping on some sort of acid and so his work of art shall we call them are strange and do not ever feature a right angle! It's pretty cool to see such surrealism art in a city that prides itself on it's amazing architecture!

The highlight of Barcelona for me was the magic fountain! Our second last night we headed off to montjuic (hill of the Jews) to see the amazing light show in which the fountain moves in time to music. We were there fr the Disney melody which I felt was quite appropriate since I had not long been to Disneyland. It was pretty cool to watch this show and finished off an awesome day!

Our last day in the Spanish city was spent walking around guelle park, a 15 hectare park featuring more of gaudi's work, and an afternoon at the beach!
So after much hesitation to visit spain's second largest city I had the best time and would definitely recommend anyone to go there!

Next stop velencia!

Wednesday 13 July 2011

Why I like Blogging

So it took me a while to finally start a blog. It had always been in the back of my mind to do something like this for a long time. I only wish I had of started this travel blog from when I first left Australia to document everything I had done.

I love blogging about what I do, because it reminds me of how much of an awesome time Im having, how I am so lucky to be having these amazing adventures, its also a great way to tell everyone about what I have been doing instead of sending separate emails all the time saying the same thing over and over.

The thing I love most however is seeing the stats of what posts are being looked at and where these people are from. In the past week I have had people from India, Germany, Canada, USA and beyond looking at my blog. I find it crazy these people find me and actually think this blog is well worth a read even though most likely they have absolutely no idea who I am.

I would love to hear from anyone about how they found the blog, what they think and if they have any questions or ideas on posts. You can email me at labellavita.travel@hotmail.com. Would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear from everyone...

Hola from San Sebastian

Hola!!

So we made it San Sebastian. It was a mission train ride from Paris that took us 5 and a half hours but we finally got there.

We are staying right on Playa Del A Concha beach which is the best part of town.
San Sebastian is the cutest beach town and we are loving it here. Everyone is so nice! Its quite an old city with a small old town similar to Dubrovnik and Split in Croatia. Apparently the old town had parts burned down so no buildings are older than the 1800's. Still pretty old though!

Our first night we decided to try some tapas. This being my first time to the mainland Spain I had never had tapas before. Pretty good but ended up being pretty expensive. We wandered around the town a bit and made it back to our room just before the storm hit. Weather forecasts had said it was to rain the entire time we are in San Sebastian. BOOO!

We awoke the next day to discover the weather forecast people were wrong. Thank God! Blue skies laid before us and the mercury hit 27 degrees. I cannot tell you how thankful we were for the beautiful day.
The morning was spent walking up the hill to see Monte Urgull Mendia, which looks like a spanish version of 'Christ the Redeemer' in Brazil. The walk up the steep hill was well worth the effort as the views were amazing that looked out over the beach and further inland.
We spent the afternoon lying on the beach, getting some sun, reading books and relaxing our little hearts out. Such a perfect day!

The last 2 days have been well... less than perfect. It has rained the entire time, which for a beach town where is nothing else to do than go to the beach this has been a bit of struggle to fill our days. We spend our time walking around the shops, and finding cute places to eat dinner. I must say its been a little disappointing the past couple of days as I was keen on getting a tan and spending day after day at the beach. I can only hope the weather for the rest of our trip is great.

Tomorrow we head back to London for a day then Mitch and I head back down to the rest of Spain. I cant wait!!

Adios amigos!!

Saturday 9 July 2011

Bonjour from Paris

Im writing from one of my favourite cities in the world... Paris!

Having been here before in 2009 I had done all the main sites, going in to the louve and seeing mona lisa, going up the eiffel tower, watched a caberet show.. so it left me with nothing else but to enjoy Paris in all its charm!

We are staying right near Notre Dame, right near St Michel's fountain. The best location we could ask for. So close to everything and full of character.
Being right on the Seine we walked up and down the river endlessly looking at the market stalls selling old photos, paris souveniers, and old classic books. I just love it!

I remember my first impression of the Eiffel Tower a couple of years ago, it was one of mixed reactions. I was first in awe at its size and that I was actually standing under, and then on top of one of the worlds most notable attractions... my other reaction was of disappointment that its brown... I wasnt expecting that at all. This time when I visited I didnt have any expectations of course and took in the tower for all its beauty and enjoyed being in the city of love. Our first night in Paris we sat under the tower eating nutella and banana crepes and watched the tower twinkle in the dusk light when the light show started. It was a perfect evening and a great start to the Parisian leg of my 2 month adventure.

Our first full day in Paris we headed to the Marais area and found a famous bakery selling delicious pastries. We couldnt help ourselves and Claire and I got a chocolate Eclair and a lemon meringue pie to share. (They were amazing if anyone is wondering)
We sat down in a park area for a while enjoying the slight bit of sunshine that came with the day and by lunch time we were starving and headed to the famous felafel place. I had never had felafel before so was slightly hesitant in getting it but I loved it. After demolishing the felafel and headed for the louve. We sat outside in the park doing a favourite past time of mine.. people watching and the whole time thinking I cant believe I'm in paris again!!
Later that night we headed to Mont Martre and walked around a bit. The guys trying to con you into making you a bracelet for 200 euros were in full force and one even yelled out to be 'sexy boomba i like your breasts'. I mean really. thats disgusting. I would just like to mention I did not have any sort of revealing top on so it goes to show they are creeps! After seeing the church and then walking along to take some happy snaps of Moulin Rouge we found a cute restaurant and had a great dinner. Blew the daily budget yet again but what the hell...

Our last full day in Paris was pretty great aswell. We started at Champs Elysee and walked the street up to Arc De Triomph. Again taking a few happy snaps. We headed back the Eiffel Tower and we had a picnic in the park under the tower. It was pretty great until a gypsy girl came along and tried to steal our food... literally. I snatched it back off her and we yelled at her to go away... These gypos are the pits!!
The afternoon ended with another walk along the Seine and I bought a few pictures for the one day when I have myself a house and need to decorate. The day finished with another nutella and banana crepe which finished off the trip to Paris with perfection.

I love this city, I really do. Its charm, its beauty and its history is amazing.

Je t'aime Paris... Until next time...

It's been a while...

Bonjour from Paris!

Its been a while since my last post.. forgive me.. im having the time of my life!

I finished my job on June 30, am now unemployeed, no job forseeable in the near future and have set off for the start of my 2 month adventure.

First stop.. Disneyland.
Claire and I have always asked our parents to take us to disneyland.. they never did.. so we had to take ourselves.

The day started early at 5am and I made my wasy sleepily to Kings Cross St Pancras station to meet claire and catch the eurostar to France. It started well.. we go the right platform and got the train and headed for Lille. A quick change over there and we were on our way to Disneyland. Behind us was an old lady who not only breathed so heavy you could hear her from the next carriage but the breathing was so rapid, shallow and lacked any sort of normal breathing qualities we thought she just may cark it.
We finally got to our station and caught the free shuttle to our hotel. We stayed in the Santa Fe Disneyland Hotel which was pretty cool.. old but cool.
Our first afternoon at disneyland started out great.. amazed by the whole park, we lined up for our first ride at thunder mountain. The map said it was 'big thrills' i would say medium thrills but we still had fun. The rest of the afternoon was spent on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and Space mountain. I would say the park is mostly attractions and there are heaps of little kid rides. Hong Kong Disneyland was the same.. I suspect they all must be like this.

Our second day started off at disneyland again with rides on the Peter Pan ride and a walk through Alice's Labrynth. We decided to skip the rest of the rides and head for the Disneyland studios next door. Definitely the right decision and we spent the afternoon on the 'scary' rides. I am now obsessed with the Twilight Zone's Tower of Terror which is like the Giant Drop at Dreamworld only better... We ended up going on the ride 4 times!

I have to commend Disneyland and the Studios on their awesome shows though. We saw a Tarzan one and a action stunt show and were so worth the whole trip to disneyland. they were amazing!
The Disney Parade was also awesome and the highlight for me was seeing the Queen of the Red Hearts take a tumble.. actually not a tumble.. a full on smack to the ground I thought she wasnt getting up. The float was momentarily stopped while the mad hatter helped her up. Classic!

All in all, my trip to Disneyland was pretty great. I had the goal to visit every disneyland in the world.. 2 down (Hong Kong and Paris) so only 2 to go (Tokyo and LA). Will most likely be going to the LA one next September so Ill be making plans to go to Japan in the next few years.

Au Revior!