My Trip Recommendation: Fuerteventura

Why Fuerteventura? Simple: Good weather all year; Good food; accommodation for an affordable price if you choose the right part of the island and season; long, unexploited white sandy beaches; beautiful dunes,mountains,sea and dessert landscapes; pure and clean sea water; safe and peaceful; loads of sports : surf, trekking, biking etc ; beautiful combination of colors for photography and last but not least cheap car rental to go all over the island.

Well After my introduction I don't need to tell much more lol. A few tips:

Transportation around the island is not great and taking a taxi or tours can get out of budget so my first piece of advice would be:

1. Car rental. Have this booked online is much cheaper than arranging it at the airport and full insurance is also covered online. The cheapest company is one called: "PayLess Car". I have rented with them on a couple of more occasions and I have not had any issues. We rented one regular chevrolet small car for 100 euros a week with full coverage and it was o.k., you don't really need a jeep , the roads are in very good state.

2. If you want to enjoy and see most of the island by car , you should be there at least 4 days although if I were you I'd go at least for a week, once you are there you understand why. It's the perfect place to rest.

3. Where to stay? Uhm. It really depends on what you want and on your budget. To me the best part of the island infrastructure-wise in conjunction with kms of white sandy beaches is definitely the South of the island, a region called : Morro Jable. There you have the touristy part with cafeterias,& shops and only a couple of kms away you have unexploited beaches and mountains. Accommodation in Morro Jable will be more expensive than other parts of the island and it's around 40 mins drive from the airport, so you will need a car to get there.

If you are into wind sports and want to see the most beautiful beaches, the North part of the island is the place to be but remember , you have to like the wind, since it can get very windy in there. This area is called: Corralejo. To me it was beautiful, it had the most beautiful beaches and dune/ desert landscapes but to be honest I'd not stay on this part just because i found it a bit uncomfi to have sand on my eyes when lying on the beach! Anyway, you cannot leave the island without going to see this part, it's just superb!

If your budget is more limited and you don't mind being very close to the airport in amore touristy area where is actually a bit tough to find a true Spanish bar (it's all oriented for tourism) and want to have you own bungalow then you should stay in the centre of the island. This is actually where we stayed (booked via booking.com - 7 nights with breakfast,dinner and our own bungalow for 516 euros - but you had to pay extra for tv ,safe ,internet usage and air-conditioning usage), mainly based on our budget and that we were going to rent a car to travel around so being on the centre was easier to go one day to the south and another day yo the north of the island etc. I'm not going to recommend you where we stayed, do not get me wrong, it was clean and the facilities were good but if we go back i'd rather go to the south of the island,only due to the fact that i have already seen the whole island and i'd stayed only on the south resting and tere you have everything. The problem with the centre locations such as Puerto el Rosario or el Castillo (where we stayed) it's that they are very touristy and over there you can see and hear the planes from the beaches and your room and the beaches are the worse ones,at least for me but the families seemed happy since they have some facilities for kids. So always based your decision on your budget and if you rent a car , it's o.k. you can stay anywhere and travel around!

Places not to be missed (We saw all the below during our 8/day stay):

If you want to see windmills and beautiful little towns go to: Antigua and then to Betancuria (beautiful little town!) , La Oliva,el Cotillo, Tefia and Pajara.

Beaches: Corralejo (North) , El Paso (South) and all alrround Morro Jable.

Landscapes: Dunnes in the Natural park of Corralejo; Mirador Morro Velosa (beautiful!), Embalse de las Peñas; Morro de la Cruz; El cotillo with the beautiful Cliffs and also very nice fish restaurants, Llanos de la Concepcion. And much more!!!

To eat: Don't leave Fuerteventura without having : Papas con Mojo, typical cheese, tomates,ensalada de aguacate, ropa vieja , gambas & fritura de pescado & a coffee called "Barraquito" (uhm!!) and as a dessert: Flan and mus de gofio. We were very lucky and found very good places without having any recommendation here some tips: "Bodegon Don Carmelo" in Betancuria (uhm, try paella, papas con mojo,ensalada de tomate con sirope de Palmera, Barraquito & mousse de Gofio)! and in the little town of Morro Jable there are plenty of fish restaurants that you can try.

The People: We met a lot of friendly people, all spoke different languages so you should not have any issues travelling around the island. We were asking how they felt living there and all agreed that it was a safe, quiet island with a good quality of life.

To Drink: Dark Rum is typical drink on the island, don't leave without trying it!

Shopping: Perfumes (cheaper than in duty free shops! but don't buy them on the most touristy parts of the islands, go to Puerto del Rosario), creams and some electronic devices are cheaper on the island!

On Fuerteventura you have a wide abanico of sport activities and you can even ride a camel or a donkey!

Best memories I'm taking with me of this trip: Photos jumping and levitating surrounded by beautiful landscapes and no people interfering! Semi-nudists beaches and people dont really caring about what you do or wear on the beach! Mixture of colors and beautiful volcanic landscapes! Bike friendly island and criminality free! Easy roads to follow with our humble map, we only got lost once (this is one achievement for us lol). The Rumanian waitress when we asked here what the Canary dish "ropa vieja" was and she said: "it's food"! People talking in German and English to us in the area of Castillo and having difficulty to find a true Spanish tapas bar! and Last but not least, people seemed stress-free and happy to live on the island! Andres reading out loud to me the 5 books he read on the holidays.

You can see more photos on my flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/people/belendelgado/

Manchester : Lively city with plenty of bars & restaurants

Well many people would be surprised of what Manchester has to offer, it's not all about football and rough areas, it's a city with a big contrast between modern and old English architecture. It's very mixed with different nationalities, people wear and do what they want and nobody cares and they live together, sometimes it was even hard to see British people around! I loved their hairstyles, so different! Same about their clothing style , very edgy and different,not everybody cup of tea but i found it so 80ies/70 ies, they are like in another era!. I wish i could have had a long conversation with one of the locals about the city but we could not understand a word when they were talking, same there when we talked they could not understand us either lol I think we are ready to go to Liverpool now (another city with a tough accent to understand!). We got many recommendations from people of bars & restaurants to go to and areas like : Castlefield with its canals dating form the Roman era where all the city of Manchester started. This is was my fab part, just before getting there you could see the big tall Hilton tower where there is a bar on the top, again my vertigo did not let me go in there, anyway i would not pay 20 pounds for a cocktail there thanx. It was beautiful to see the contrast of the Hilton tower with the Roman architecture. There were many nice terrace bars along the canal where you could have grilled food and/or a drink (I recommend " a daiquiri" o "pi~na colada") , our fav place is called: "Bohemia Bar & grill", which is very busy over the weekend but it's worth waiting. Yeah there were cafeterias & grill bars everywhere and I love grills and coffee!! They also put almonds and olives in most of the bars we went to, i felt like home!! They were really tasty and it was loud inside bars, yeah people talking loud very loud! I loved that! There were restaurants from all around the world, probably due to its multiculturalism.

Our hotel was located only 5 mins away from the station on London road, ideal location just minutes away from piccadilly gardens (centre),it's called "Mc Donald Manchester", Chinatown (a bit smelly place but interesting,anyway), the gay quarter (ideal to have a fun crazy night with all sort of people in shapes and colours lol) and a bit further the beautiful Townhall, National Gallery (St Peter's square) ,the shopping area on Market street, the cathedral and Printworks (go inside, i almost miss it!). A bit further away is Castlefield, you can get there by tram or even on foot (30 mins from piccadilly station / return ticket 2,60 pounds) where you can find the canals & bars i talked about and also the Science museum (free entry). If you are into modern architecture and art, you should go to Harbour city by tram and get to Media city, this part was the most modern of them all (it reminded me of the Docklands area in Dublin) and it also has the Lowry art galley with a theatre,cinema and library (We were lucky to see an Andy Warhol exhibition called "The divas", fab! i totally recommend it for Warhol's lovers like me!). Crossing the river you have the Manchester United stadium and the Imperial war museum. As you can see , you will not get bored in Manchester. Yeah there are rough areas in the city but you don't need to go there as a tourist and yeah it's not the cleanest of the cities (specially piccadilly garden..) but it has other things you can't imagine. We stayed there for 3 nights and we had a great time, i recommend it for a weekend break,maybe not to study English ..but for a break, yeah!!! and remember they have pounds so nothing is cheap..you need a good budget! And yeah ,we could not find the tv set for Shameless but we saw a couple who looked like the protagonist of the famous t.v. serie lol

Last but not least i wanted to leave you with some recommendations we got in case they are useful to you:

Nice places
Room(great cocktails)-top of king street
Grinch –great lunch
Northern Quarter bars
Canal Street-Velvet (gay area)

Deansgate
Goucho Grill(behind Kendals)
Living Room
Hilton Tower –cloud 23
Panache
Good atmosphere
LAVA bar
Cocktail bar at Selfridges


Science Museum
Coronation street set


Triangle –shops
Shoes Moda en Pelle for girls


AVOID :
Deansgate locks
Printworks
Market Street-pickpockets

Aruba : Things to see and new experiences!

For those of you who are wondering where Aruba is , it's located only 27 kms from Venezuela and it belongs to the known "ABC islands" : Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, in the southern warm and beautiful blue Caribbean Sea. I'll start giving you some tips and my opinion of our trip to the island. How to get there? From Ireland there are several options, the easiest are either to go from London or from Amsterdam. From London it's usually cheaper. We flew with Martinair from Amsterdam since it suited better the dates we wanted to travel. Martinair is cheaper than the Dutch company KLM. The plane was very old, not enough space, you had to pay to see movies and meals were not abundant/nor snacks. I had to put up with a huge obese Arubian woman by my side so my 10 hour flight from Aruba to Amsterdam were not very comfy.

Aruba has its own small airport with all commodities. Our luggage came on time from Dublin , so no complaints. No issues on the border, nothing. We took the bus to go to the hotel on time and in the hotel, Holiday Inn, thanx to my husband charm we got one of the best rooms with a very nice Sea view! About Holiday inn i have to say that i'm very pleased with the service they offer to be a all-inclusive resort. My only complaints are about the phenomenon of the queueing to book sunbeds (people there from 5.30 a.m.!!) and to book for restaurants at 8.00 a.m. I think i woke up earlier every day in Aruba than here to go to work! (never later than 6.30 a.m.). Due to the intensive heat in Aruba it can reach up to 35 degrees (humid temperature), you cannot afford not to have shadow on the beach (So leave the jackets in your country!)! Only stupid tourists all burned due to the sun did that, we even saw a woman with a bandage due to the sun-burns. You cannot play with the sun in these days!! Going back to the queueing issue, i know it's the same in most of the resorts, so nothing specific from Holiday Inn. It's a good hotel more family type, not very romantic for couples. A very busy hotel and a bit loud some times but being in the Caribbean loud music cannot be an issue! Last afivce about Holiday Inn try to avoid eating in the buffet "Coral restaurant", food is much nicer in the "sea breeze restaurant" or on the Italian one (of course you will need to book for dinner but for lunch , See bree breeze is o.k. to go without reservation)

We were in the area of Palm Beach, the most tourist one ,specially with U.s. tourists which meant that all was very expensive. Even the shops and restaurants were built in a very American style, I felt like in U.s.a. ,specially when they did not have the local currency: Arubian florins and asked us to pay in $ !! In the end we ended up exchanging our Florins to be able to get by!

Yeah, depending on what part of the island you are going to stay, exchanging Arubian Florins is not going to bring you much, I'd advise you to take $, otherwise the mess will start when you pay in one currency and they give you another one! 1 euros = 2 Florins.

We thought that being the island a former Spanish and Dutch colony , it would have a Spanish and/or Dutch influence. Well in relation to the Spanish, there is actually influence, most of the natives speak Spanish! English and their own language Papimento. In relation to architecture , we didnt see any Spanish or Dutch influence, only a fake mill on Palm beach imitating the Dutch ones. There are many chalets in different colours and many American influenced buildings/restaurants.

Most beautiful beaches for me were: Baby beach (hard to find, you need to go by car) and Eagle beach. Palm beach is very nice if you want to have an infrastructure for toursits with plenty of sunbeds/water sports and small bars on the beach. It depends on what you are looking for.

Landscapes have a vulcanic vegetation : Cactus everywhere and beautiful divi divi trees ,which look like big Bonsais! I was fascinated by them specially!

Where to go on the island and hoe:

Best option is to rent a jeep. If there is no budget for a jeep, you can rent a car for 65 $ a day (this was the cheapest we found) but you will not be able to go through all the roads of the national park.

Dont miss : National Arikok park , natural bridge, the caves, Californian Lighthouse (go to see the sunset there and have dinner in the restaurant!)Eagle and Baby beach (good for snorkling!). For shopping or Casinos (There are plenty of them) you can go to Palm Beach or the capital: Oranjestadt. Do not expect good value shops , most of them are very expensive brands like Louis Vutton ! It was hard for me to find small typical pottery from the area!

To eat: There are loads of grills to eat meat but also diff restaurants from around the worldfor those who are not brave enough to taste some of the local dishes like turtle soup or iguanas (They told it tastes like chicken, I was actually eating chicken all the time so i hope they dont give me iguana instead!). I have to say that it was not easy to find places with local food where we stayed and they also told us that it was forbidden to cook the iguanas. (shame on them!)

Dont forget: Plug adaptor (like the one for U.s.a or Canada, will do) , Sun cream with very high protection (sun is very powerful there!), Mosquito repellent! (specially at night!), bring a good camera with you to take nice pictures of the sunset! (one of the most beautiful i have seen!), look for a hotel with internet (it's not easy to find internet connection, if you dont have it in your hotel), bring your driving licence ! (forget about renting a bike, as i wanted to, there are no bikers and it's a bit dangerous, traffic can get heavy on the island!).

My First time..

I had never seen iguanas before and I was fascinated by them ,running loose ! They only came out in the heat or at night and were not dangerous at all.

First time i was on a jeep on a dessert-like landscape! First time for Andres driving one, too! He did a good job, the American tourists that were in our jeep also agree, very nice couple celebrating their anniversary: Bob and Melanie.

First time i tasted the Daiquiri cocktail , tasty!! and sweet!!

First time i actually drank water on a Caribbean island, in Aruba it's safe to drink running water everywhere, it was fab!

First time i lay-down on a sun bed inside a swimming pool, i loved it! but i actually got a bit sun burn due to this.. it was so comfy..

First time I flew with Martinair, dont think it's going to happen again if i can avoid it..

First time on Curacao island, only at the airport but it looked very nice, similar to Aruba with the divi divi trees!

First time i saw Divi-divi trees!! spent time looking for one i saw on a book and we found it on eagle beach! fab!

First time i have heard Papimento language (couldn't understand a thing!) and first time i have met locals from Aruba, very nice people!!!

First time i see so many Italians on Aruba!! I didn't know it was so popular in Italy!! Even Berlusconi has a house there! From the rest of Europe there were only Dutch.

Aruba has also many offers for people who want to have a good time, drinking, there are drinking tours on boats and special buses from the island.

It's a very safe island, we could leave the bags on the bags on the beach and nothing happened, we didnt feel unsafe any time.

We had a great time, specially enjoyed the sunsets, beaches and jeep tour around the islands with the agency palm tours. If you want to see my best photos of the islands visit the following link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/belendelgado/sets/72157626665373512/with/5696806860/

As a conclusion, the island reminded me a bit of Lanzarote due to the vulcanic landscapes and although i liked the island, i dont think i'll be going back, it's definitely too expensive and to me, i prefer more authentic islands with true natives. I love Caribbean, who doesnt? but in the future, we will go to the Colombian Caribbean, it's half price, also safe and more authentic!!

Carnaval in Venice (2011)

What can I tell you about our trip to the Carnaval in Venice? To see the traditional Venecian carnaval masks, you need to head to San Marco square where you can find most of them, if you walk around the city you may see some bit the biggest concentration of them all are in San Marco. On our way to San Marco we saw some masks, we thought were good until we actually saw some of the elaborated masks, gee you can tell it's a big deal for them and their aim is to win the mask competition! It's serious for them! Not like some tourists you can see that tried to be dressed in a Venecian style but didn't manage! Of course we were true tourists and had our masks on, i bought one of my masks on eBay because I thought it was going to be tough to find masks in Venice on the last days of Carnaval, gee how wrong i was! There are stands of masks everywhere on the streets and you can buy one from 8 to 11 euros! Of course, they are fakes but they do the trick!If you are more demanding you can go into a shop (they are all open) and find a real one from 30 to more than hundred euros.

If you ask me if it was worth it to go to see Venice in Carnival, my answer is Yes!! it's something unique you can only see there surrounded by the canals but I would say it's something to do once in your life time! I wouldn't tak a small kid there as some did struggling with their trolleys among the mass of people ,so leave the kids at home!

Forget about going on a Gondola ,they charge from 80 euros onwards ! If you really want to go on a gondola trip you can do so for only 50 cents! They are a bit longer than the gondolas and they are used by the Venetians to cross small distances, they are called "traghetto", they have specific timetables, look for them on the internet. We didn't manage to go on one because we preferred to get most of the day taking pictures of all the masks we found on the way. More info on traghetti can be found here:
http://www.travelsignposts.com/Venice/gondola.php

Some tips:

1. Don't stay in Venice since it can get very expensive, you can get easily to Venice on a tren (Destination: Venecia St. Lucia) for an affordable price. So consider to stay in cities close to Venice like : Mestre, Marghera,Dolo, Mirano or any other small town in the Veneto region. We stayed for example with our friend in Vicenza, an hour and a half in a regional train but in a Eurostar train it takes only 30 mins and you pay 13 euros for one way.
2. If you are going to Venice for the Carnival and you are going to stay in another town, due to the amount of people from Italy and other tourists that actually go there by train, I would advise you to buy with enough time in advanced a return ticket on a Eurostar train, they are the only one with booked seats , otherwise you will need to "fight your way" to find a place in a regional train (from 16.00 pm the station is overcrowded!), we felt like in India..,it's not very well organized and it can get messy, it took us 2 hours running around the station to find actually a train and then once we managed to get in, we were stuck in one for an hour ,with no air conditioning and surrounded by people everywhere..,my friend tried to warn me to leave Venice at an earlier time..I should have listened to him. Even when we stopped in one station, one guy tried to get into the train by the window..!!
3. If you want to have a good meal in Venice ,with wine,dessert and coffee for 30 euros per person, I truly recommend a palce called : Hosteria al Vecio Bragosso, in the strada nuova 4386 s.s. apostoli, check their web page: http://www.alveciobragosso.com/ristorante-venezia.htm , it was my second time in Venice and my second time there and gee i love it! I recommend: Frittura mista (fish like in the south of Spain!uhm!) and scalopini borgonzola (delicate pork meat with mushrooms! uhm!) and to drink : Prosecco and as a dessert : tiramisu and cafe macciatone! This restaurant is not in the tourist area and you will need to ask to get there, we always get lost to find it lol.
4. Dont leave Venice without eating sweets or cakes in one of the pasticceria (pastry shops)!
5. Take a good camera with you, otherwise you will regret not having good pictures, it's unbelievable how people pose for you when they see a nikon or canon slrs professional camera! I was impressed by the amount of tourists that had nikons and/or canons, gee! It was funny ,too when the masks posed for us all the time, they may have thought we were professional photographers, don't know lol but they did not pose when they saw a small regular digital camera!
6. Get ready to be surrounded by a crowd of people and that in some small bridges ,you will find Italian policemen telling you to walk quickly and not to stop and go in the direction that they say.
7. One place to go before you die, it has to be Venice! A city that changes with the weather, when i was there first time it was foggy and without people, it was in February 3 years ago, it had a dull touch! however ,when it's sunny, the city changes completely! The colours, the walls, all!
8. Dont expect to see a perfect painted city, Venice is a city that is humid and it's charm comes from the painting falling off the walls and its old bridges and small narrow streets!
9. If you go for Carnival, please do not wear a tacky fancy dress that do not match with the style and elegance of this carnaval, some tourists did actually wore some horrible fancy dressed that destroyed the atmosphere! and!! do not expect to get drunk and crazy, Venice has a different approach and there are no clubs or pubs to dance. There is a big stage where some music at some times of the days will be played but again as I said it's not clubbing oriented.
10. Fly to Venice (Trevisso) with ryanair or to Bologna (2 hours by train to Venice).
11. If you want to see the city in a quiet atmosphere , do like me and go in February! The weather may not be good but you will be able to stop on every corner/bridge without having loads of tourists on your pics!

A cemetery full of art and dead celebrities: Père Lachaise (Paris)

One of the visitis I enjoyed the most in our second trip to Paris, was the visit to this beautiful and of course peaceful cemetery in Paris: Père Lachaise, also commonly known by "the city of dead". I'm going to give you some tips that helped me.

How to get there:

Père Lachaise is one of the biggest cemeteries in Europe so if you are in a rush (unless you live in Paris and can go back different days) what you need to do first is to decide what tombs you are interested in. The cemetery has many doors, I was for example very interested in seeing Oscar Wildes' tomb and Edit Piaf (they were on the same area) so in order to do this you need to :

Take line 3, stop: Gambetta, walk the street "rue de Rondeaux" and only in a couple of minutes you will get to "Porte Gambetta" - secondary entry of the cemetery. I personally liked more this part of the cemetery where you can find many tribute tombs/statues to jews who died in concentration camps like the one in Dachau or in Auschwitz ,even tribute to casualties who died on the Airfrance crash over Rio de Janeiro a couple of years ago.

If on the contrary you are more interested to see Jim's Morrison's tomb or other musicians or composers like Chopin, they are just on the opposite side of the cemetery so you will need to take a different metro line to go to the main entry:

Take Line 2, Metro Phillippe Auguste and take the Rue de Repos,only on 5 minute walk, you will find on your right the Porte du Rep'os. Once you get in, on your left oyu can find a house where free maps of the cemetery with all the division numbers are given (this is essential not to get lost, believe me!).

What we did as we only had 4 hours to visit the cemetery we took the metro twice not to lose time and I don't regret it,it was the best decision and we got to see it all! (you can buy, on the metro machine, a bunch of 10- metro ticket for 12 euros and you have for 12 trips!).

All the above may look simple but it took me a while to do a research to go to the right cemetery door to see the celebrities I wanted to see.

Further Tips:

Have a look at the cemetery web page before you go and you get a list of celebrities and in what division (it's divided in division numbers) and number of the tomb they are located.

Take into consideration that free maps for the cemetery are only given on the main entry , on the other entries you will find a sign with all the numbers only at the entrance ,what we did was to take a picture of it with the camera since we didn't have a map (because Oscar Wilde is at the other end,as I have explained) and this helped us a lot!

Preferably go in spring time where it has to be nice to walk along the cemetery and see all pieces of art that you find, really..you can see some on the pics.We went in winter time and it was very cold.. so you don't enjoy it that much if the weather is not nice.

I found beautiful the garden of remembrance very interesting, it's very close to the Gambetta door inside the cemetery. To me it was the first time that i saw human dead ashes spread on a garden with roses..some ignorant tourists were stepping on to the garden...please don't do that.. and please respect the tombs, too.. I still can't believe the amount of red lip kisses I saw on Oscar Wilde's tomb..,which it was a pity .

The cemetery is a bit far away form the city, so I'd advise you to go very early in the morning to be there at the opening time and spend the morning there, we for example wen to the cemetery and in the afternoon as it was a Monday , we went to the flee market , which is only on at the weekends and on Mondays.

If somebody finds Maria's Callas tomb please let me know, we didn't have time to go and see her.

Web page for the cemetery can be found:

http://www.pere-lachaise.com/perelachaise.php?lang=en

Have a look at it and see what does it look like, you can even do a virtual tour and look up the celebrities on a search engine! Surprisingly enough, this cemetery is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Paris.

Donde est'an los Fuegos artificiales? Matarile,rile,rile (Paris 2011!)

Miles de personas esperaban durante horas como nosotros , los fuegos artificiales junto la Torre Eiffel, sino en su defecto, un concierto, un discurso del alcalde, un reloj o alguna campanada grabada o algo! No me entend'ais mal, yo adoro Paris pero compar'andolo con otras grandes capitales como Madrid, Berl'in o Londres..., se lo podian currar un poco m'as a parte de iluminar durante un par de minutos la torre Eiffel con luces parpadeantes..

Trip recommendation> Brussels, Gent and Brugges

Recently I travelled to Belgium for the very first time and I was nicely surprised! I organized the 4/day trip myself online. My itinerary was:

First day in Brussels arriving very early in the morning, we stayed at a very peculiar Bed and B in the city centre. I found accommodation in Brussels very expensive. We managed to 'see the old town, the mini,mini 50 cms Maneken Pis statue and all its streets surrounded by chocolate wafers and sweets. I couldn't resist to the delicious and inviting smell and i had a wafre with chocolate sauce! From there we went to the famous Tin-Tin shop and there is also a nice graffiti on the way of the Belgian comic character. On the Belgian corner shop we bought some original souvenirs! and from there to the beautiful Grand Place which reminded me of the Marienplatz in Munich but more impressive!At night we went to the numerous Mariscos restaurants where the typical mussels were on offer. I was amazed at the similar plates of Paella served at the Rue of Bouchers Beenhouv, you can't leave Belgium without eating Mussels either!. It's also worth it to walk around and see the different chocolateries! dont miss a visit to the EU parliament!

Second day in 45 minutes we arrived in one of the frequently scheduled trains to Gent. I bough online the ticket which allowed me to take any train going to Gent with the printed ticket to the Station of Gent-Sint-Pieters. Tickets to travel throughout Belgium for a reasonable price can be found at: www.b-rail.be. It's very convenient! Of Gent I loved everything! its buildings,its variety of bars (go to Flamingos bar!) and original shops,its canals ,its boats, taking long strolls around the city,its Castle,its bridges, The adoration of the Lamb of Van Eyck in the cathedral,its tram and even its bikes which are everywhere (watch out! you maybe run over by one bike,they go very fast!!) hotels prices in Gent are more affordable and of better quality. I stayed at a nice hotel very close to the train station,to save me time when i went to Brugges. We decided to stay for 2 nights in Gent and the next morning we took a train to Brugge (train schedules can always be found on the internet on the page i have given you before).I almost forgot! to travel by tram, get an 8 euro ticket for one zone ,from the station you can get tram 21 and 22 to go to the city centre.

Our third day we went to the famous city of Brugges, first i saw at the train station was the they were selling the Irish movie I watched a couple of years ago: "In Bruges", which I watched again after having seen the city and i actually liked it even more! At the station ,we bought a map of the city and it took us around 20 minutes walking to go to the city centre. We met a very nice Argentinian girl who was our travel companion in Brugges. About Brugges what can I say? its narrow and fairy/tale houses,its horses carriages,its canals,its love lake,its swans and its boats! the only thing i didn't like was the amount of tourists in Brugges and I also found some restaurants very expensive. Hotels were much more expensive in Brugge and you dont need more than a day to see this city, so im glad we chose Gent which is actually much bigger than Brugges and there are more things to do than In Brugges.

Last but not least, people in Belgium working in the tourist areas, speak many languages or at least the ones we encountered! even Spanish! so it's not hard to get by in Belgium eiher with French,English,German , Flemish or if you are lucky like us Spanish!

On our last day we walked around Gent before heading off to Brussels to take our plane in the evening!

Farewell to a land of beautiful buildings, delicious chocolates and with a clear European charm! I definitely recommend this trip for a long weekend break!ah! dont forget to bring coins to go to public toilets in Belgium, in most places you have to pay from 30 cents to 50!so dont drink a lot of liquid! i had to pay even in Mcdonalds to go!

My favorite places: Canada

One place you have to go and see is definitely Canada! I happened to have a good friend there who was my guide for most of my trip. I travelled around the states of Ontario and Quebec.

My first 2 days I was on my own in the modern city of Toronto! I was fascinated by the skyscrapers in the downtown where I stayed at, the beautiful harbour , the Ontario lake and the islands and I have to say that although there were some homeless in the street, i felt pretty safe. There was one square that reminded me of the Picadilly Circus in London and even the tour double-deck buses were red! Toronto has very good means of transportation> tram,bus and subway. Although the private coach company (airport express) from the international Pearson airport was a bit expensive, i'd advise you to buy a return ticket for 36 dollars which is valid for 90 days and takes you to downtown in only 25 minutes.

I wish i had had more time to spend in Toronto to be able to go on a cruise to the islands or to the Museum of Contemporary art and to do some shopping in the Eaton centre! Toronto is a expensive city and all around Canada taxes are not included in the prices you pay for clothing,food or bills in bars or restaurants, so always take that into account.

I spent half a day in the Niagara Falls, next time I'll stay overnight there since there is so much to do with the Niagara city entertainment shows and funny museums! It's worth it to stay! you can go by bus form Toronto like I did on a budget company that goes there daily for only 15 $ one way. Once you get ot the Niagara City coach station, it's a 40 minute walk to the falls or you can take a transit bus or taxi. I felt adventurous and walked all the way but I would advice you to take the transit bus not to lose any time! You can also go to the Niagara falls from Toronto on a tour bus but they charge you minimun 50 $ and you dont have a lot of free time to hang out.

After coming back from the falls, on my third day from Toronto I travelled by rail canada train (I bought the tickets on their web page), the ticket was a bit expensive but it was a nice way to see Canada for longer than 4 hours until I got to Ottawa.

Ottawa is a cozy traditional city with an impressive parliament which reminds me of the Big Ben and lovely castle just above the river.

By car we got to the beautiful mountain landscaping full of wild woods and lakes in the bilingual area of Tremblant in Quebec. It has it all, you can have a swim in the lakes in the summer and in winter yo can go skying in the multiple skiing resorts with lovely cafeterias and restaurants. Hidden in the mountains you have an amazing shop of Tommy Hillfiger where discounts up to 50 % can be found all year long! These discounts are only offered in this place because Tommy has a house in the area.

Last but not least, I spent my last day in the European-American style city of Montreal. I would have need at least other 2 days to be able to enjoy the city more, i only could appreciate the charm of the old city of Montreal, the harbour with its great atmosphere and inviting cafeterias. It was amazing to see the mixture of skyscrapers and Georgian style buildings. Montreal even has a replica of the French Cathedral of Notredame, they are very similar indeed!

Dont leave the state of Quebec without having maple sirope and poutine! 2 of the specialities of the area!Canada is a very ethnically and culturally mixed country and specially in the state of Quebec inhabitants speak more French than English and street signs are in both languages.

Ah! i almost forgot the cheapest airline that goes to Canada is airtransat, it's actually good value and they fly to the main cities!

I have to thank my friend Cristina and their family for the wonderful tour around Canada! i hope to be back soon!

Around Ireland: Inis Mór island (Aran Islands)

Our search of the deep true Irish culture continued and we are just back from a magical place called: Inishmore (in Irish: Inis Mór). As we have been living in Ireland for more than 5 years now, we know that in order to travel around Ireland you have to be very well prepared to confront the changeable weather: waterproof trousers and jacket,rain boots, a couple of torches and a couple of fleeces.

To get to the island you can go either by ferry for 40 minutes or like we did, by a small aircraft for 8-people on a 10-minute flight only. The aircraft flies very low and it´s very nice to see the islands from the sky, I truly recommend it (you pay 45 euros for a return ticket) you can check: http://www.aerarannislands.ie/index.php?page=group-rates. A shuttle bus will take you to the Connemara airport from Galway in only 30 minutes. Inismore is the biggest of the 3 beautiful Aran island on the Atlantic ocean. According to what the locals told us it has around 900 inhabitants and everybody knows each other, the most popular hobby is : gossip which spreads quickly! There is no crime at all there so no police is needed, there are no petrol stations, nor big shops or other common places we take for granted in this globalized world. There is only one small bank, 3 schools and when you get sick they come to pick you up by helicopter. The means of transports around the island is mainly by: pony carriages, bikes and for the oldest tourists there are around 3 small vans that take them in a tour around the island for 2 hours (10 euros each). No map will help you on this island since there are no street names and only a few signs and all in gaelic! People from the island are extremely nice and helpful and their main language is Irish, which unfortunately it´s only spoken in a few places in Ireland. There are no big luxurious hotels to stay on the island, only bed and breakfasts from the locals. Without knowing it, i booked a room for 2 in the most beautiful spot of the island, "The Man of Aran cottage" whose owner Joe and wife Maury treat you like one member of their family, we had long conversations with them while having a homemade Irish breakfast in the morning with the products from their own garden. They have been for 18 years in the business and take care of every detail. We were lucky we got the cottage number 5 just in front of the ocean, you pay 45 euros per person but it´s well worth it (they can make you a discount if you are a group)!The reservation is done by email and then you pay at the end of your stay. You can find them here: http://www.manofarancottage.com/about.html.
We rented our bike in town and cycled all the way to the cottage with our rucksacks, i have to say that if somebody would have told me that it was going to take me an hour to get there, i may have chosen another means of transport but it was an experience for me, to be honest! Just 5 mins before arriving we saw one tourist lying on the road because she was hit by a car, being her an American tourist going in the wrong direction with the bike,she was taken quickly to the mainland. There are only a few cars on the island but on the Aran islands , it´s like in the U.k. and cars go on the left and some tourists are unaware and a beautiful trip can end up badly.
I could be writing for hours about Inis Mór but I’m going to sum it up now:
@ Beautiful colours of landscapes and sky free of pollution where you can see the stars at night!
@Perfect place to get away from hectic life
@go to the local pub, Joe ,to listen to live music and have a wonderful meal, i recommend the cheese cake with Baileys
@have a coffee on the Man of Aran small shop in town
@choose a bed and breakfast a bit far away from town
@Don´t miss the fort of Dún Aonghasa and its beautiful cliffs, our cottage was only 10 minutes away from this site
@if you want to rent a bike do it directly in the main shop in town, 10 euros per day
@if you need to leave your bags , you can leave them at the tourist office
@don´t miss the smallest church in Europe and the beautiful cemetery with celtic crosses just in front of the ocean (both of them very close to the airport)
@choose carefully the time of the year when you want to go there, for us September has been very nice, they told us that many bed and breakfasts close from October to January (the lowest temperature being 7 degrees and the hottest 20 degrees,so leave the bikini at home!)

Locals like the American pub , we went there and we actually didnt´like the food, the Joe´s pub was much nicer, don’t waste tour time there.

@leave your umbrella at home and bring better what I recommended at the top of this post , all the American tourists in shorts got a bit wet.

To me it has been one of the most beautiful wedding anniversaries i have had with my beloved husband, he was so happy cycling and talking to the locals that only to see this it was well worth it!We have definitely a different view of Ireland, the more we get to know it , the more we like it!

Around Ireland: Sligo - Green Landscapes and tradition

Our aim is to see the most of Ireland by train as it´s one of our favourite means of transport. It took us around 3 hours to get there from Dublin , all green landscapes with cows and sheep. I noticed more cows in these area than in the Galway one.I dont know how many pics i took of them, i find cows so cute!

A couple of weeks ago we where in Sligo, capital of the county of Sligo in the Republic of Ireland, it has a population of around 1800 people. Sligo had a big influence in the poems of the Irish poet " Yeats", who spent many childhood summers in there. Yeats statue can be found just outside the beautiful building of the Ulster Bank at the heart of the town.

We stayed at the Glasshouse hotel which plays an important part mingling in the Sligo town with the traditional country style Irish buildings and the modernity of this innovative hotel full of glass just above the Garavogue river, much cleaner and nicer than the Dublin Liffey river. I totally recommend this four star hotel to have a nice weekend break, the lay-out of the room was very nice and modern with free internet and tv, breakfast was not great but you can´t have it all!For me, it has been the nicest hotel we have been to in Ireland. It´s located just at the heart of the city centre and it has a pub with a nice atmosphere at night, if the weather is good you can even have a nice drink by the river. If you travel around Ireland for a weekend break, it´s important ot go to a nice hotel in case the weather is crap and you dont want to leave the hotel!

Sligo it´s very different from Dublin, it´s a ver y traditional Irish place , quiet and clean, you could go nicely for a walk. Just a few kms away you can go to do some surfing to the Strandhill beach, if you are brave enough to surf in the Irish sea. There are a few coaches going there departing from the city centre.

Sligo is very small and you can see it in a couple of hours, we fnid a bit hard to find a place for lunch, being used to have so much variety of places in Dublin, in Sligo there are not so many restaurants, we ended up in an Italian restaurant, I think we were the only non-Irish there and sometimes we felt being stared at by the locals lol!

We felt very comfi in Sligo and we promised to be back again!

My favourite cities : Berlín

I have been to Berlin a couple of times and I wanted to write some recommendations for those who haven´t been there yet. If you are thinking of what to do Next Years Eve and you are not afraid of minus temperatures and snow, I totally recommend the experience of going to Berlin to celebrate in the big outdoors party in the Brandenburg Tor. Entrance is free ,you may not be able to be in the first row of the main stage due to the popularity of this event and amount of attendees but there are big screens and music for around of 2 kms or longer and you can have a really good time. It´s very welll organized, if one part is very crowded, you have to keep on walking for a few metres to the next entrance until there is enough room for everybody. I took my Spanish tradition of eating 12 grapes to Berlin and i bought them in advanced at a little fruit shop at the Alexanderplatz station. The only thing that stopped us from staying longer at the outdoor party was that we didnt have proper snow boots but the atmosphere was great, you could by German sausages, cocktails and watch the fireworks surrounded by people from different ages and nationalities. On that night the underground is operative all night long so we coudl even go back to the hotel by underground.

In case you decide to go, don´t do like us and book your hotel well in advanced, otherwise prices can bve very high. The hotel where we stayed in ,has beven one of my favourite ones, so far but you would need to have a good budget. It was call "Park plaza, wallstreet Berlin", it´s a very modern and original hotel Andywarhol style ! breakfast was fab and it was well located. If you are on a shorter bduget, youth hostels in Berlin have usually a very nice buffet breakfast and you can experienced the graffiti life-side of the city! in the one i was in when i was erasmus the entrance looked like what we call in Spanish "ocupa house" and the "recepcionist" was totally high on cannabis!

Berlin has an excellent transporation system, if you are going for at least 3 days you should buy a 3-day ticket to be able to go by tram,underground,S-bahn and bus.

Don´t miss:

-East Side Gallery to see the wall of Berlin in a very artistic way!
-Museum of the wall in Checkpoint Charlie - you will need to be in the mood of reading in French,English or German , different true stories of waht people did to cross from East to West
-Ampelmann shops- unique trafficlights men wearing a hat has many shops around town
-Museum Insel- if you have time for more museums, don´t miss the museum for Egypt
-Reichstag - Pariliament- you have to queue for long but it´s totally worth it, i loved the parliment visit
-Gedächniss Kirche - old bombed church surrounded by modern Berlin
-Der sieger- golden Angel in a very high column, beautiful area , where the famous Love Parade used to take place
-Brandenburg Tor-
-Central train station and Alexandre-platz
-Berliner Dom- one of my favourite buildings...

and many more in a city full of contrast between the modern world and a piece of history ,still very present!