17 July 2017

Piazza Santa Croce | Going Beyond Florence's Santa Maria del Fiore



Is there a city in Italy that isn't full of city gems? Florence is no different as it scored big on that lottery and is filled with so much history. Said to be one of Europe's great art cities and it not just a city with beautiful art but beautiful architecture at almost every turn.  The city that has given birth to many luxury good companies, Salvatore Ferragamo to name a few of my favorite Italian brands was founded in Florence and is still headquartered here. Having searched high and low for where to stay in the shadows of Santa Maria del Fiore's Dome, with no luck we finally found something right by Piazza Santa Croce. Thinking that we were miles from everything, we couldn't have been more wrong.

Piazza Santa Croce is a little gem you need to add to your visit when you Florence. Our apartment in a street right next to Santa Croce church. Two streets over we had the Arno River and close by Ponte Vecchio and right across the river from us is Piazza Michaelangelo offering amazing views of the city vista. Needless to say, we had struck gold! Busy enough with Italian cafes, restaurants, shops, and galleries but quiet enough to enjoy surrounding without hordes of tourists clogging up the area too much. Santa Croce as well as offering a stunning focal point with its beautiful facade is also a place many Italian greats have been buried.  Known as Temple of Italian Glorie, Santa Croce is where Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Galileo and many illustrious Italians are buried. The church overlooks a piazza. This is also where another Italian sport was born; Calcio Fiorentino


20 June 2017

Svinafellsjokull Glacier - Jaw Dropping Glacier Views You Need to Add to Your Icelandic Adventure





Welcome to the land of surprises! After planning and reviewing our planned explorations of Iceland we thought we had our itinerary down to a T! (Scratch that! I thought I had it down to a T, I am more of a planner and Igal goes with the flow.) Then we arrived in Iceland, picked our campervan rental and embarked our a journey on Iceland’s Ring Road. All along thinking that we were going to be ticking off bucket list items one by one.

 

9 June 2017

Taxi! Sensational Arrivals In Venice - Book A Stylish Arrival Without Breaking The Bank



I love a little luxury when you can get it. Even better is when you have a little luxury without blowing the bank account. Well, that's exactly how we were rolling in Venice on our last trip. The last time I was in Venice was during the summer peak season in Venice and as you can image it was busy, crowded and all the vaparotto aka water buses were packed to the brim. With a little creativity and searching, I found out that you can buy vouchers for shared taxis in Venice. Yes, you can ride the Venetian taxis from the airport to your hotel(or the nearest stop to your hotel), all without spending a lot of money.

4 June 2017

Room With A View | Where To Stay In Phuket


When planning a trip to Thailand, I was keen not to leave without seeing Phuket. I wanted to explore the island as much as possible. From the beautiful beaches to markets as well as surrounding islands and bays close to Phuket. The planned explorations of Phuket meant that we would be visiting various corners of Phuket which meant to make this easy and accessible to areas we were planning on visiting, we would need to change hotels. Ikon Hotel was one of three beautiful hotels we sampled during our visit to this popular and beautiful part of Thailand.

27 May 2017

Sleeping Sound Under Secret Iceland Waterfalls | A Must Have Experience When You Visit Iceland



Oh Iceland, a country that is probably on every wanderlusting traveler's bucket list. The land of fire and ice is brimming with waterfalls, volcanoes, geysers, glaciers, geothermal pools and somewhere in all of that is an adventure to be had. Adventure is my middle name! With that in mind, we set off in a camper van down south of Iceland. Having stopped to see Geysers we stumbled on Godafoss by accident as we didn't realise just how close it was from the Geysers and boiling earth of Litl Geyser. Having made a few stops along the way it wasn't until late in the night that we stumbled on Seljalandsfoss, this was close to the mark I had placed on a map to get us to the camping spot we were going to spend a night. I actually had no idea our camping spot was going to be right next to the falls. We arrived after midnight, but there was still a bit of light. We had Seljalandsfoss all to ourselves!