Uzbekistan: Samarkand & Tashkent

This would be my first trip traveling alone for the last 5 years. Especially after our daughter was born, I thought that the chapter of solo traveling would be closed for a longer period of time. Which wasn’t an issue though. Some chapters close, newer ones open up.

However it turned out, that my girlfriend and I came to an agreement, that we shouldn’t give up traveling with friends, as it was part of our lives prior our relationship. As it wasn’t easy to find a travel partner, I decided to travel abroad by myself again. I needed a change of scenery, and was missing the kind of travel, where I would feel lost in translation. Uzbekistan seemed to be a pretty unique place, and the exact destination for myself on a solo trip.

Everything seemed pretty easy. Flying from Brussels to Istanbul, and straight to Samarkand was kind of a pleasant journey. No visa needed.

After landing in Uzbekistan, I exactly got what I was expected. Almost no English at the airport, a Russian-communist vibe among the Asian looking police- & military men, and everything seemed stricter than usual.

Same procedure outside the airport, groups of men calling for a taxi. The ride to the city was pretty cheap 3-4$. However the communication with the driver was limited to google-translate on his phone. I was asked questions, where I would come from, the reason of my visit… etc, The translator on his phone however was limited to one single short sentence. The whole scene seemed pretty awkward but funny at the same time.

Reaching my B&B hotel, the driver wouldn’t find the exact location, and called the accommodation for help. The alleys where we stopped where hidden in the dark, with restricted public lights. I had to get out of the vehicle and walk through a tunnel, the driver guided me towards the hotel, where the owner was waiting with a flash-light for me. Everything seemed creepy… the hotel manager wouldn’t speak a word of english, but was super gentle. Of course this was at 04:00 in the morning… so I was thankful that everybody, the driver and the owner of the accommodation were helping me to find the way to my bed. No ID-check, no checking-in, no payment… “tomorrow sir. now you go sleep”. I loved it.

Samarkand

The next morning (well it was the same day actually), after waking up, I couldn’t wait to leave the hotel, and heading straight to Registan Square, which was located right next to the hotel. I started the day, with the best sunny weather I could ask for. But I felt thrown back in a different world. Everything was different, the soviet vibe remained, but with a lot of persian/arabic influences. Most people were dressed up in traditional or pretty old-fashioned clothes. The buildings were beautifully ornamented with colorful mosaic-tiles.

Samarkand can keep you busy for 2 whole days. There are plenties of mosques to visit, holy sanctuaries, food & spice markets, a walk through the local neighborhood was fascinating as well. The city did important efforts to make it convenient for tourists to visit Samarkand. There’s a free shuttle that carries the tourists around. The main attractions are connected through a pedestrian street. However besides the tourist attractions, there isn’t much left to do. So I think spending two days in this gem of a city, is plenty enough.

This would be the most impressive sights in the city:

  • Registan Square

  • Shah-I-Zinda

  • Siab Bazaar


I should mention, that despite the lack of communication, as most people won’t speak any English, Uzbek people are super welcoming though. Most of them are friendly and helpful. And there wasn’t a minute where I felt unsafe during my trip.

The only issue I encountered would be the food options. Or the cleanliness of the restaurants. Don’t get me wrong…most places are clean, but while checking most restaurants on google-maps (the reviews), there was always at least one review that mentioned food poisoning. You should avoid tap-water in Uzbekistan, so I followed the same rules, like in India. No salads, only cooked dishes.

“Plov” is the national dish of Uzbekistan. It’s a kind of Byriani, however without the spices, but the flavour of the dish relies on the fats of the meat, to give it some character. A nightmare for vegetarians. Plov often comes with free salads. Most restaurants are limited to soups, salads, and grilled meet. This counts for the average local restaurants. I didn’t visit any fancy places.

Tashkent, the capital, is a more modern city, and has good food options. They vary from traditional dishes to modern international options. But Samarkand’s options were rather limited.

I was fully enjoying my two days in Samarkand and was looking forward getting to Tashkent by train. I was getting up early in the morning, but my airport driver hadn’t replied my text massages, as he was supposed to give me a ride to the central train station. I had to improvise and guessed that it would be pretty easy to find a random driver, which actually was the case. After walking for 10 minutes, a random gentleman stopped by and asked if I needed a ride. I wasn’t sure if he was an official taxi driver, however it would do the job. Reasonable price, and very welcoming!

Samarkand to Tashkent by train.

In Uzbekistan it’s recommended to book your train tickets in advance, as they tend to sell out. So I double booked, in case I would miss my first train. The tickets were around 7-9$ for a 5 hour journey.

The train-ride was hassle free. The main problem, was to figure out on which gate the train would depart, as everything was written in Uzbek on the information panels. And the train agents wouldn’t speak any English, as soon as I made it onto the train. I could lay back and enjoy the journey. Food and drinks were available on the train.


Tashkent

After making it to Tashkent, the wow-effect was gone. It just looked like an average eastern European city at first sight. The Persian influences were gone, and the city was rather marked by eastern European architecture and monuments. The most beautiful tourist activities for myself, were the several subway stations, which reminded me of my trip to Moscow ages ago.

“Kosmonavtlar” was one of the few special stations, as it was dedicated to the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. I was wearing my Yuri Gagarin soviet watch, to give my watch a memorable value. While walking through these, sometimes busy, sometimes empty subway stations, you felt like being thrown back in time.

Once you figure out, how their metro system works, getting around Tashkent is easy, but it takes some time, as the subway stations are sometimes further apart. My main attractions during my stay would have been

  • Chorsu Bazaar

  • Amir Temur Square

  • Minor Mosque

  • Alisher Navoiy Theater

  • Saligokh Street

  • Plov Center & Tashkent Tv Tower

I only had two full days in Tashkent, and I lost some time during my first hours in the city, as I was walking way too much instead of using public transportation. Just let me briefly describe the mentioned points of interests.

The Chorsu Bazaar, was a great spot to take some photographs, however it was less charming than the one in Samarkand. Lots of locals, lots of poor people, and you felt more observed while walking around with a camera. The architecture of the dome shaped market is quite unique and even more impressive by its size on the inside of the building.

Amir Temur Square, was right next to my hotel (Uzbekistan Hotel). My hotel, as well ass the square, were very soviet influenced, which I liked. The hotel had gotten quite a few bad reviews on booking(dot)com. However I was positively surprised. The service was great, the vintage vibe was a plus, and their old fashioned hotel bar was pretty descent. I had an unforgettable night with a Russian guy called Kevin, who I met at the hotel bar, and two chinese-russian business men. The barman Temur was also super welcoming. I was glad that I had picked this dated hotel with a lot of history.

Unluckily Minor Mosque was under construction, and I lost more than an hour, just getting there by train and a moderate walk. But from the outside it looked quite impressive, as it is a quite high building, which reminded me of what I had witnessed in Samarkand.

“Sligokh Street” was very nearby my hotel. The Tashkent “Broadway” get quite lively at night, which lots of games and kid attractions. Street food-stands are all over the place. It is less attractive than Asian night markets, but still a nice area to walk around at night.

After spending 4 days in Uzbekistan, I got used to Plov. It wasn’t really my favorite food, but I felt like it was the safest option, as you couldn’t go wrong with a rice dish that is served with some cooked veggies and meat. There was an enormous Plov Center, right next to the Tashkent Tv Tower. It is considered to be the biggest Plov Pan in the world. The restaurant prepares food for hundreds of customers during lunch hour.

I only spent 4 nights in Uzbekistan, which sounds like a short trip, however the impressions that remained are numerous. It was the perfect short trip, to discover the Uzbek culture, to get to know some random people on my journey. I had a fun night at an old soviet looking bar with people I barely got to know. Lots of great photo shots.

Everybody was very welcoming, obviously it’s not a country, where you will make 100s of friends in a day, as most people are reserved, high-probably due to the language barrier, but once you break the ice, they get very welcoming. I will definitely go back to Uzbekistan with my family.








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New York & California

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Once a huge fan of New York, it took me quite a while to make it back to Manhattan. My last visit to NY was in 2010 and despite being a fan of the city, it didn’t make me come back for more than 10 years. However, after visiting California twice lately, we wanted to spice up our 3rd Californian road trip with another american city.

New York seemed to be the best option for an extender layover of a couple of nights, before making it to California. I was looking forward to see how things had changed after all these years. And man…things did have changed.

From expensive to crazy expensive.

The first things we had noticed, was the price difference of almost anything that we would spend money for. The taxi rate from Newark to the center of Manhattan, a simple hotdog, a bottle of water, street food, Über. Just anything had increased in price, not to mention the hotel rates.

Almost any business is using touch screens, to finalize your receipt. Fast food stores, pizza restaurants, fashion shops, coffee bars… just any employee would flip over the screen towards you, and you had to choose your tip option : 5%, 10%, 15%… or no tip. As we are used to the American system, that employees are heavily relying on their tips, we kinda felt forced to leave a tip after every single purchase. This wasn’t the case 13 years ago, you mostly tipped in restaurants and bars. A taxi tip that went from a couple of dollars, rose to the triple amount.

The first two days, we played their game, however during the holidays we just used the “no tip” button more frequently on their screens. If the city is asking for tremendous prices, the tourists shouldn’t bleed to death, by just tipping any service that absolutely took no effort in the end.

After spending 110$ on a cab, we headed straight to a fast food truck, as most shops were closed at midnight. I spent 10$ on an Indian biriyani dish, which seemed ok, for a monstrous portion, however paying 15$ for 3 small bottles of water, was insane. I had spent 150$ the first 60 minutes in the US.

What makes NYC very unique?

NYC feels like a constantly moving city, at any time of the day. The flow of people never stops. It’s alive, it’s loud, it’s smelly… but somehow in a good way. If you’re into photography or videography, you could describe the city of New York, as “cinematic”. There’s a tiny part of the city’s soul in every frame you will take a photo of. I could spend hours, sitting in a corner, sipping on a coffee, and watching people passing by.

New York has a huge foody scene and absolutely fantastic nightlife. The cocktail scene might be among the top 3 in the country. Legendary bars are still alive, some had to close over the years, new ones are in the process of opening.

Shopping … there’s a shop for almost any kind of interest. Music: record stores, live gigs, music bar, they’ve got it all. Entertainment is endless.

The melting pot of people makes NYC a very diverse city, where you can bump into any culture or cuisine. The city never sleeps. Do you feel like getting bored in the “big apple”? Move over to Brooklyn, Williamsburg, or drive west, towards New Jersey.

New York. New York.

We started our first hour of the next morning visiting the new World Trade Center, which happens to be a train station with a quite impressive architecture. It was a very peaceful place, every 10 minutes the main entrance door of the lower floor would open, and people would rush through the main hall of the modern building. After that, quietness would kick in again. We spent easily 40 minutes there to witness its beauty from every angle.

Little Italy was our next stop, as we were heading for a light breakfast with Italian coffee and some pastries, however, most places were still closed. The streets Little Italy were over packed with outdoor-terraces. During the day, the place looked lively, but it was really hard to get a descent photo of the Italian neighborhood. Things had changed again. Most shops were run by Indians or Pakistanis. Many restaurants were run by Hispanics. So much to “Little Italy”, which turned out as a tourist magnet, with no soul anymore. We had two glasses of wine (which was too warm, a common thing in the US during summer season), one Aperol Spritz, and some bruschette…. food was ok, but drinks were bad. However each drink was 15$ a glass.

As we had seen most tourist attractions on our previous visits in New York, we tried to do new things, even though if they seemed less spectacular. For example the Roosevelt Island Tram, a cable car that takes you over Queensboro Bridge. The ride is quite spectacular, however Roosevelt Island is pretty boring. Just enjoy the view from the other side, grab a photo, and head back to Manhattan.

We headed over to BEST PIZZA, a pizza joint in Brooklyn, that my girlfriend saw on Instagram. A popular Italian chef & food influencer was hyping up the place online, as being one of the best pizza places in New York. I like the typical look of the restaurant, the vibe inside and outside, however the pizza just felt like another New York pizza. The pizza was good, but hyping the place up, didn’t seem obvious to me.

Dumbo was another point, that we were checking out. I don’t know where the name comes from, it sounds like another stupid name for a tourist trap. The first time I was in New York, I went to “Dumbo”, as it was one of the most famous locations from the movie “Once upon a time in America”, a splendid mafia movie. Without a doubt, you do get a fantastic view of the Manhattan bridge, however the place was overcrowded with tourists. We enjoyed the stroll along the river, right next to the Time Out Market. Our daughter enjoy the vintage carousel with a unique view of the NY skyline.

Coney Island was almost a must, as we were visiting in summer. The location with its long beaches, felt very summerish, and it took you out of the big city hustle and bustle. The vintage look of the theme park, and the classic look of the food joints, looks quite intriguing for people that didn’t grow up within the American culture. We loved spending some time there! Definitely a great spot for photos and observing people. The place can get sketchy, as there are lots of weirdos walking around.

We did our mandatory walk to the Central Station and the Brooklyn Bridge. Iconic places in New York.

While being NY we were attracted by the biggest tourist trap, the EDGE. Maybe because of labor day, it turned out as a horrible experience it took us 90 minutes to make it on top of the building. The daytime tickets were all sold-out, so we had to take a night-ticket. Thinking it would be less crowded, we were so wrong. Somehow they couldn’t manage that big amount of people. Making it to the top floor, it took us 10-20 minutes to take some photos in the dark. The view was ok, nothing that we wouldn’t have seen before from the Empire State or from the Top of the Rock. Well, as this place was overcrowded it took us another 90 minute, to make it to the Elevator. So we spent almost 3 hours waiting in line. Horrible experience.

Foodwise to didn’t manage to find a great spot, or visiting any other popular bars or restaurants. We thought the Mercado Little Spain was quite impressive. Having a vaste choice of spanish dishes, high quality food, and some cozy bars within the same building, made us love the place. It was right next to the Chelsea High-Line walk. Chelsea Market was around the corner as well.

One night we had a dinner at Eataly - Downtown which was great as well, even though it’s a huge chain-brand that you can find in several big cities all over the world. We were surprised that you could find any Italian food product in that store. Talking about Italy, the Italian pastry shop, Angelina Bakery Times Square is definitely worth a visit. Expect to wait in line! However, the food might have been the best we had for breakfast during our stay in the US.

Time Square at night was terrible, a crowded place with thousands of sketchy people. Another thing that had changed, to the bad. It was more pleasant during the day.

This would have been our experience in NY, before heading over to California.

California: first stop San Francisco.

For the last 3 years, we were traveling on Labor Day, and because we only spent 2 nights in San Francisco, the 2nd day was very quiet. We didn’t feel like spending too much in the city, as we were visiting the Bay Area in 2022 and 2021. I do love the city, but I felt like not wasting too much time.

It was the first time that we had our accommodation in the china town area (Hilton Hotel). And it was actually a good spot to start the day.

This year we noticed instantly how the city was fighting against its downward spiral, that was pulling SF into a total mess of poverty, addicts, and drugs. Homeless people and drug addicts were always a part of the city, however this year it looks horribly bad. Now that I was traveling with a kid, even me who was used to the street life of the city, had to change the sidewalks to avoid hysterical maniacs screaming and throwing fists during business hours. Mission district became a total mess, I couldn’t enjoy the area anymore. We rushed over to the main playground at Dolores Park, to avoid the crazy people, and gave our daughter a good time. Funnily we bumped into a jazz musician from Luxembourg, and had a chat with him for half an hour. Such a small world.

Cocktail scene in San Francisco.

There were two spots that I wanted to visit: Smuggler’s Cove & Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant.

Smuggler’s Cove released its self-titled tiki-bible about cocktails, and the tiki history and obviously the current tiki-scene in the US. Due to that book, a new world had opened for me and I became a total fan of how a couple of dudes created a whole new “fake” world in the 1940 with fantastic cocktails, and still are getting a kind of revival 80 years later. After trying almost every cocktail from their book, I had to visit this fascinating bar.

Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant, is also a place with a lot of history. In numerous cocktail books you will find the drink that goes with the name “Tommy’s Margarita”. The cocktail which is made of tequila, lime juice and agave syrup, was created in this little family-run Mexican restaurant. The owner Julio Bermejo is also a well-known ambassador for Tequila. Luckily, we had the honor to him in person, and he gave us the best welcome we could have expected, with a free tasting, free shots glasses, a couple of photos, and numerous stories of his world of Tequila. I used to hate Tequila as a spirit. Since I started with “Tommy’s Margarita”, I started to discover the world of Tequilas and Mezcals. Mr. Bermejo, if one day you’re reading this post, thank you for the amazing evening! By the way, the food was good as well, traditional Mexican food. No shi-shi… everything looks authentic.

On this trip, I made my first steps into exploring the cocktail scene with a certain knowledge. After getting more and more intrigued about creating drinks at home, I also loved reading about the historic places where drinks had been created, and where people definitely must have had countless unforgettable nights. San Francisco, New York and New Orleans are highly cultural about their booze scene and history.

Next stop: Santa Cruz

As we only had one and a half day in the city, it felt like we were out of time to enjoy our limited hours in San Francisco. We had lunch in “North Beach” (SF’s little Italy), had a stroll through China Town, went to the touristic Pier 39 with Valentina, so she could witness the sea lions making their funny noises. And a mandatory walk through Height Street, where we discovered a middle-eastern gem of a restaurant called "Abu Salim Middle Eastern Grill”. I think we passed by that restaurant so many times, but never felt like checking it out. Definitely a must-do if you love middle-eastern cuisine. It’s affordable and super delicious.

Before heading towards Santa Cruz, we had a stop in Sausalito, where we had a stroll along the coastal shipping street, where you get a view on San Francisco’s skyline if it’s not too foggy.

After sharing three different Italian sandwiches, we drove southbound to Santa Cruz. We were looking forward for a fun night at the arcades next to the beach, a vintage theme park with all kind of amusement booths and food stands.

The first hour that we spent at the beach in the afternoon was a disappointment as the sea was pretty rough with powerful and high waves, impossible to play around close to the shore. It was windy, and wasn’t actually that warm. We headed back to the city center, as beach time wasn’t an option on that day. It was the first time that we were visiting downtown of Santa Cruz, and it’s a pretty charming and cozy area, however super dead the time we were there.

Later we found out that the theme park was closed as well. We still haven’t figured out if the theme park was only open on weekends, or because of its “private event” that took place that night. No beach, no carousels for our daughter.

The following day, we had planned to move south to Pismo Beach, however noticing the weather situation on the coast with lots of winds, we decided to skip that stop and drive straight to Palm Springs, which should have been our 3rd stop in California. It was a long drive, about 7 or 8 hours, but I was glad that we could spend more time in Palm Springs.

Palm Springs: the hip desert.

This was our 2nd stay in Palm Springs, as we enjoyed it on our first trip, even though we barely discovered anything interesting, as the city center was dead in the evening, when we were visiting in 2019. But we enjoyed the temperatures, the views of the mountains and the zillions of palm trees in and around the city. The city vibe is a mix of hip, chic, snob and arty!

Even this time, we wouldn’t discover the world in Palm Springs, however we had the time to visit its fascinating art museum (well just the outside:). Enjoyed some cocktails, had delicious Mexican food and poke bowls, and were chilling at a pool, with our own tiki-bar in a tiki-liscious motel called “Caliente Tropics”. I loved that place, even though it was just a motel. The tiki decoration, the A-frame entrance of the lobby, the vintage colors from the 60s, it was a hidden gem, super affordable with a lot of charm. And they had their own tiki bar right next to the pool. Our daughter was having fun in the pool, and I was shazam-ing hundreds of songs that were playing in the background, while sipping on my Mai Tai.

Tiki in Palm Springs.

What I do love about Palm Springs, would be the amusing “the dolce far’niente”, while feeling the heat on your skin, laying in the shadow by the pool, while watching the mountains and palmtree with a drink in your hand.

Surprisingly Palm Springs has three “well-known” tiki bars in its city center.

  • Bootlegger Tiki

  • Tonga Hut (there’s another in Hollywood)

  • The Reef (the poolbar in our hotel)

Tiki bars, were almost non-existent in Europe for a long time, and the ones that opened, still wouldn’t convince like their american pioneering bars, which were a big thing when the whole tiki movement exploded in the 1950s until the 1970s. So I was glad, that I could discover them, while they are still open. Some of them, had been torn down, or had to close over the years.

Sadly when you’re traveling with a kid in the US, you’re only allowed into tiki bars, if they’re serving food, some would turn “+21” after 8pm.

Los Angeles & Disneyland.

I’ve been to Los Angeles countless times… and still every time I get there, I discover something new.
The Santa Monica Pier, 3rd Street Promenade, Venice Beach and Venice Shopping were mandatory spots. Every year we have to stop at “Salt & Straw” in Venice, for their amazing ice-creams.

This year I discovered Redondo Beach Pier for the first time, and I was surprised that it’s actually the coolest pier among Manhattan, Hermosa, Redondo. It’s a pier, where many people are coming together to enjoy a dinner with sunset, with their families. The pier was busy, full of locals, many Mexican families. On the lower level, are a bunch of bars, and big fish restaurant that serves the freshest seafood dishes.

We had a drink at “Old Tony’s” bar, which isn’t a tiki bar. It does however come with a similar vibe, as it’s a maritime decorated old vintage bar, where you get a free “maitai” glass as a souvenir, if you order their cocktail. The glass looks pretty cool, and “tony’s maitai” was alright, for the price you pay for with a free glass. The location with a view on the ocean, was definitely enjoyable.

Besides getting my mai tai glass, I think Disneyland surprisingly convinced me as well. It was my first time in a Disney theme park, and also the first time for my daughter, who had a blast. If you make it to the park, you got to forget about your wallet, and don’t mind the prices. Everything is crazy expensive (15$ for 2 bottles of water, 35$ for Mickey Mouse ears"), but the fun you get is worth the price. It was funny to see, that there more adults enjoying themselves, than little kids. We were visiting on a weekend, and the whole place was packed. Definitely a memorable day as a family.

And of course… another tiki bar at Disneyland: Trader Sam’s enchanted Tiki Bar. The drinks were fantastic, good service, the crowd obviously Disney fans, but that was ok. I emptied two drinks within 10 minutes, bought 2 mugs, and went back to my girlfriend and daughter, …quite tipsy.

California, mon amour.

California never gets tiring, nor boring. It’s a fantastic state, that comes with surprises on each trip. The food is great, most of the people you meet along are overly friendly, the weather is awesome (on most days), but nothing comes for free, and nothing’s cheap. Despite being unlucky with the “beach weather” in Santa Cruz, we made the best out of it.

Doing New York and California on the same trip was quite interesting as well, however we noticed that on our future trips, we will have to spend more nights at the same place with our daughter, as changing the accommodation on a daily basis, was a little too much for her, as she wouldn’t feel “at home”, if we are changing beds every night.

















Familytrip to Naxos & Paros

It was about time for the usual summertime routine.. Greece here we come! This time would be different, as we invited our parents to join us to that beautiful country with its amazing cyclades islands. Vanessa’s parents, and my parents hadn’t been to Greece yet, and we felt like showing them what we’ve been fascinated about these last couple of years.

My parents have reached the age, where they keep on slowing down, and so we tried to make it a very convenient and easy trip for them. Traveling around with ferries can be quite convenient but also a hassle if you’re traveling on a high-summer peak. Therefor we opted for two places that we’ve already been to, and where we knew it would be pretty easy to walk around without any vehicles: Naxos & Paros.

Athens.

The usual ritual: taking off in Luxembourg, and landing in Athens. Meeting up with our taxi-friend Dimitris, who’d bring us to the city center. Athens was never the city we were raving about, it’s not that pretty, lots of traffic, there aren’t a hundred things to do in the center. However we keep on appreciating our times in Athens more and more each time we visit. It’s the food, the people, the fair prices, and the cool bars. The historic architecture is beautiful, but once you’ve seen it, it becomes a normal part of the neighborhood.

Our parents did enjoyed our first dinner, with a splendid view at the acropolis. Food was amazing, and we just had ordered too many dishes to share.

Naxos.

I won’t get too much into details, as we almost did exactly the same things like the previous year. Naxos is very cozy, due to its long pedestrian area. The strip is packed with restaurants and bars, and parallel to the main road you have an old town area behind the front buildings. Nothing really spectacular to take photos of. The main parts to film would be the Old Town, the sunset at the harbor and the Portara (the temple of Apollo). And from the Avaton Bar, you get a splendid view all over the Island. Naxos is a great island, for families, to walk through the tiny alleys, do some window shopping, enjoy the weather with great food and some bottles of wine. It’s not trendy or hip like Mykonos, even though Naxos attracts a lot of tourists, but also many greek tourists.

We had two fantastic dinners at the following restaurants:

  • 520 Cocktail Bar Restaurant (with a view at the harbor)

  • Apostolis (beautifully hidden and decorated with hanging lanterns)

Food was excellent on both occasions.

The hotel where we stayed at was called “Saint George Hotel”. It was a lovely but basic hotel, with the usual greek touch: white walls, some greek decoration. We were offered a bottle of housemade wine on our arrival (it was pretty bad, but we liked the gesture of the owner). Free cookies as well. The best part was the location, as we had a direct view to the beach in front of our room. The ocean was only meters away. Definitely one of the coziest hotels we’ve ever stayed at in Greece, considering the location, and its view once you step out of the room.

Paros.

It would be our third time in Paros, and still it wouldn’t disappoint. The location and the food are hard to beat. This year we stayed again at the Riviere Residence, with its lovely hosts Mina & Emma. Their guest house has the perfect location, comes with an almost private swimming pool (we were the only ones using it), and the breakfast is the best!

Actually this time we wouldn’t discover something new. It was crazy warm, approximately 38°. We enjoyed the family time in the pool, had some naps, enjoyed the views at the harbor, did some shopping, and worshiped the Greek food, we were craving for.

Paros is becoming more crowded from year to year… it’s obvious that such a beautiful place attracts the crowds. Especially the younger generation. At night it gets crazy busy, but until 19:00 in the evening, it still remains pretty quiet and peaceful.

We managed to convince our family about the beauty and hospitality of Greece. For my parents it was something new, they sadly discovered it too late in their life, how to jump from country to country, from island to island without any hassle. Vanessa’s parents they do have the travel bug, and have been to quite a few countries, but nevertheless they enjoyed Greek as much as we did.



















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BANGKOK & PHUKET (first time after covid)

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We’ve been traveling to Japan in April, and I felt like writing everything down, as soon as we came back home, instead of starting with this post about our trip to Thailand in February. This doesn’t mean that Thailand was less enjoyable.

As always, Bangkok really convinced us with its never ending magic. There are always a few corners in the city that are left undiscovered. This would have been our 6th or 7th time in Bangkok, and still we weren’t bored for an hour.

However writing about your trips and experiences abroad, kinda feels like comparing it to a book or a record. There’s always a right moment for a book or a record, even if you kept it at home for many many years. But one day, it comes up in your head, that “right now” would be the perfect moment to dive deep into it.

And that’s how I felt, writing about Thailand. I’ve already written a couple of posts about our trips to Thailand. I felt like repeating myself with this one.

BANGKOK.

So usually Bangkok is the springboard, where we first land in Thailand, and then move on to the next destination on our journey. It was supposed to be a short trip for only 6 nights in Thailand. It was the first time for us, returning to “Siam” after the pandemic. And also the first time traveling to this country with a kid. Imagine not going to Khao San at night, as we were traveling as parents this time. But guess what, she was all part of it. The binge drinking nights are somehow over, however we still enjoyed some cocktails at the parallel street Rambuttri Road, which is more laid back, and also more quite. But we walked through Khao San at night, and witnessed the madness. Well when we started our first day, in the old neighbourhood Talat Noi, nearby the busy streets of China Town. We opted for a different location, just to change the scenery of our Bangkok experience. We stayed at the Photo Hostel, which was a pretty nice hostel (with private rooms). The owner, who was a dutch expat, and a professional photographer, was very welcoming. Some of his work was hung for display on the walls of the coffee shop. It wasn’t a party hostel. Right outside of the hostel, you could step into a neighbourhood filled with street art. It was old, kinda dirty, but arty. The busy mainroad of Chinatown was nearby, and it was actually the first time we visited Chinatown in Bangkok. It was pretty cool, especially at night, with the all the lit neon signs. A paradise for photographers.

We met up with Vanessa’s parents at our usual rooftop bar (SALA ROOF TOP), which offers a splendid view onto Wat Arun, which is divinely lit at night. A beautiful spectacle to witness, while sipping on your drink. And it was nice to see, how much her parents liked it as well. The view over the lit temples at night is just mesmerizing. Surrounded by such much beauty, the golden and colorful temples, are coming with a hint of spirituality all over the city.

“MUENG BURAN” is an authentic, but still artificial theme park, in a suburb of Bangkok. You are entering the entrance gate of a huge park, where you gotta pay an entrance fee, and you gotta add some bahts to rent a golf caddy or a bike. Yes, you read correctly, a golf caddy. Inside the park, you will have the exact location of ancient temples, and old remaining houses of ancient villages. However they refurbished the buildings, to make them look nicer. However the architecture is still very appealing, even though you might think, that you’ve seen all the temples in Thailand. The park is huge, and you really need a vehicle to make it through the heat, to visit all of the locations in the park. And still we had missed a temple or two. It sounds like a tourist trap, but in my own personal opinion it’s not . It’s artificial nowadays, but still a fascinating place for photographers.

By coincidence, we noticed a photograph of a huge golden budha at the photo hostel. And my girlfriend told me that it must be in Bangkok, which I didn’t believe, as I was supposed to have witnessed most corners in Bangkok. We asked the owner of the hostel, and he approved that the photo was shot in the city. It’s a new buddha statue, that they finished only a couple of months prior our trip. It’s huge! And is located right in the middle of the city, surrounded by a poorer neighbourhood.

The worshipping place is free to visit, and it’s actually a cool trip to walk through the small local village, until you reach the buddha statue. At least calculate 2-3 hours for the whole experience. On our last day, we went to the mandatory stop at Chatuchak weekend market. We also visited its beautiful park, guess the name, Chatuchak Park.

The only tourist trap, we had experience must have been "Asiatique The Riverfront", which is supposed to be a night market, next to a harbor. It attracted a fancier kind of crowd. The restaurants were rather a mix of local and international cuisine. Half of the shops were empty, high probably due to the pandemic. Asiatique Riverfront, might be one of the few things that you can skip in Bangkok, or just don’t expect too much when you get there.

PHUKET.

Phuket is one of the few cities, where people will give you an eye-rolling look, when you’re mentioning the city’s name. It used to be one of the major tourist hot spots of Thailand, a city were you would encounter many wild British and Russian crowds. A friend at work, however told me that he enjoyed Phuket a lot more than Kho Samui, as there would still be untouched corners on the island, that would be quite beautiful.

As for myself, I was more attracted by the city center, as Phuket Old Town looked quite photogenic, as far as I could tell from the google-search images. Was I dissappointed ? Not by the look of the city center, however rather about the size of the town. It’s majorly only 4 blocks, and it takes you less than 1 hour to just walk around the main corners. There’s really not much going on. Foodwise, it is way less appealing than Bangkok, everything has been adapted to mass tourism. There are a few small & cosy restaurants, but you can count ‘em on one hand. So you can really do everything that is located in and around the city center, in 1 day. The “Chillva Night Market Phuket” included. As we weren’t visiting on a weekend, we missed the Phuket Old Town Market. The Chillva Market was a nice alternative, to at least witness the busy thai nightmarkets, while being in Phuket.

On our first day we bumped into our driver, whose name was Ake. Considering the prices of the rental cars, and how much he would charge us for being our driver for a whole day, we opted for the second option, so we wouldn’t have to worry about driving home at night, or driving back home while being super tired.

Did we do any special out of line…no the usual things you would do as a tourist, however we enjoyed doing them and discovering the island. Among the main spots that we visited were:

  • The Chalong temple

  • The Big Buddha

  • Ma Doo Bua Cafe

  • Nai Thon Beach

  • Samet Nangshe

We do appreciate visiting thai temples, as they are often quite beautiful, and somehow we don’t seem to get tired of worship places. Especially the thai temples, that are super colorful, adorned with golds and sparkling stones. The Chalong temple enclosure regroups some worship buildings with lots of greens and palmtrees around it. Stopping by to walk around for 30 minutes, won’t be a waste of time. Definitely a must see, while in Phuket.

The Big Buddha is the most popular landmark in Phuket, due to its size, and easily recognizable from afar. The first big buddha statue I ever saw, was the one in Hong Kong. Both seem to be very similiar as far as I can remember. The one in Hong Kong is nicer though, due to its location and surroundings. But while in Phuket… it’s definitely on the to-do list.

Ma Doo Bua Cafe, became a favorite spot among the tourists, and it’s actually just a restaurant. From the outside it doesn’t look that appealing, however the backside of the restaurants reveals a unique photospot to take some instagram footage. There’s a big pond, with huge lotus leaves, and obviously you gotta stand in line, to wait for your turn for taking some photos of your beloved ones.
Our food for lunch was great, the restaurant is beautiful on its own, and you get a very nice view while sharing some dishes. We didn’t regret waiting in line for 20-25 minutes waiting for a free table. If I remember correctly, you only get the chance to take some photos, if you get a free table at the restaurant.

The distances to drive, aren’t short ones. As we were heading towards Samet Nangshe, which is located outside of Phuket, further north, we decided to stop by at the Nai Thon Beach. It was quite a nice, and much less crowded than Koron Beach, the first one we visited. We enjoyed the refreshing dip into the ocean, while Ake was waiting for us, to take us to our last and most memorable spot in Phuket.

Samet Nangshe, could be considered as the Halong Bay (Vietnam) in Thailand. Except that you don’t need to jump on a boat, and drive away from the coast, until you get to the main spot of the rocky bay. Samet Nangshe’s Viewpoint is located on the mainland. However you need to jump onto a special "4x4 SUV” that takes you to the viewpoint, as the roads are crazy steep. Maybe you could walk there, however it’s not reachable with a normal car. Reaching the viewpoint, you’ll notice that it was worth it, driving almost 90 minutes to reach Samet Nangshe. As for myself, it was my favorite spot among the sightseeing we did in Phuket.

And after a planned out day, we were glad that we didn’t have to drive all the way back to our hotel, thanks to Ake.

On our last day in Phuket (we only stayed 3 days), we decided to do some last shopping and walking around Old Town, until we would be heading back to the airport in the evening.

Getting back to the airport can take easily more than an hour, depending on the traffic.

Phuket was enjoyable. Would I recommend it, yes, without a doubt. We’ve been in Krabi before the pandemic, where we stayed in Ao Nang. Ao Nang was less appealing than Phuket. The coolest part of Krabi, was the boat ride to Phi Phi Islands, and spending a night there. Phi Phi Island is also reachable from Phuket. I guess Phuket would be more enjoyable, if you rent a scooter, and discover the surrounding on your own. While writing this post, I had to correct myself numerous times, because I wanted to describe Phuket as an Island, however it’s reachable by car from the mainland so it still belongs to the mainland of Thailand. However Phuket definitely feels like being stuck on an island.

Would I turn back to Phuket? Probably not. As there are still so many places left to discover in Thailand. And the only thing that bothered me in Phuket, were the distances you had to drive to get from point A to point B. Nothing is really close. That was the only downside.

In the end we enjoyed getting back to Thailand, for the first time after the pandemic, and we made the best out of our 7 days. Especially traveling with a kid. And we figured out, that Bangkok is still more fascinating than some of the “islands”. Can’t way to get back to Bangkok anytime soon.




































































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Seoul & Osaka

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In 2014 I visited Japan for the very first time. It blew my mind. I fell in love with that country. And after a memorable 5 days trip to Japan, I promised myself I would turn back every single year.

And I did, until Covid happened. Japan closed its doors for tourism for almost 3 years.

Beginning of this year, visitor were allowed back to the country, and we couldn’t wait any longer to get back. The very first trip together with my girlfriend was in Japan. And now it was about time to show our daughter that beautiful country, where mom & dad came together.

Osaka over Tokyo.

So far I’ve visited Tokyo twice. Don’t get me wrong. Tokyo is amazing. It’s the big japanese capital. It’s diverse, entertaining, photogenic, crazy and peaceful at the same time… but I can’t help it, to still appreciate Osaka a lot more than the capital.

It’s the soul of Osaka that fascinates me more than Tokyo. This trip would be my 6th visit in Osaka. And still I keep going to the same places as if it would be my first holidays in Japan.

Why did we choose Osaka as our destination in Japan? It’s perfectly located to do several daytrips around its neighbouring cities: Nara, Kyoto, Arashiyama, even Hiroshima (which isn’t too close).

NARA.

We decided to visit Nara on our first day, as we couldn’t wait to see the smile of our daughter, while she would meet up with a deer for the first time. The deers run freely through Nara’s several parks. You can pet & feed them. It’s fascinating everytime again. The deer-parks are surrounded by walking paths, the famous gigantic Todai-Ji temple, a pagoda, cherry blossoms during spring. Nara has that typical japanese village vibe, which attracts way too many visitors.

This year, it was the first time for us, where the deers wouldn’t eat the animal-cookies, tourists were buying, to feed them. Usually they are mostly loved by the deers, however this year, they were over-fed as too many tourists were heading over to the deer-city. We were visiting Nara on a sunday, and it was packed with people. Due to the crowds, it lost some of its magic. However it was still a memorable experience.

Nara is easily reachable by train from Osaka, and it takes about 40 minutes.

The same day, in the afternoon, we headed back to Osaka, to the Expo Park, to meet up with our friend Yasuyo who had organized a BBQ afternoon with other japanese friends, who wanted to practice their english. It was a great first day, with lots of laughters and enjoyment.

KYOTO & ARASHIYAMA.

Kyoto must be the most cultural city of Japan. It used to be the capital of Japan before Tokyo. It’s so diverse, and has so much to offer. We headed to Arashiyama, a suburb of Kyoto, as we opted for another animal experience for our daughter, the monkey feeding.

It may sound like a tourist trap, but it ain’t. As soon as you step out of the trainstation, it feels like walking towards a village from a japanese fairy tale. Beautiful rivers and its wooden bridges, an alley full to tiny charming shops. An enchanting bamboo forest (one of only a few in Japan), this one’s the most famous one. As already mentioned. the monkey park, where people walk into a cabin, and the free monkeys are climbing around that cabin, to wait until they are being fed by the visitors.

It was the first time, I ever did the river-cruise with a small paddle-boat. It wasn’t as easy as it looked, paddling against the stream.

The different shades of green in the background of Arashiyama’s forests, make the landscape look like a painting. I love spending time in Arashiyama, everytime again I am visiting Osaka. This year, like already mentioned, it was packed with too many tourists. Maybe it was because of the sakura season, that it attracted more tourists than usually, or was it the golden week? People were eager to get back to Japan after covid, the same as we did.

And of course, I wouldn’t forget about the mandatory green mochi filled with bean-paste. Every time again I would have one at the same stand, where I had my first matcha-mochi in 2014.

On our last day of this trip, we decided to head back to the center of Kyoto, nearby Kamo River that runs through the middle of the city. We passed hundreds of shops, walked through the Gyon neighborhood, until we reached Hōkan-ji pagoda. It’s such a picturesque city, it may feel like you’re stuck in a japanese fairytale.

HIROSHIMA.

I wanted to bring my girlfriend to a new city, she hasn’t visited yet. Hiroshima was a nice option, because of its history, the part of riding a shinkansen (rapid train), and the bonus of visiting another deer-village, the island of Miyajima.

As we spent a limited time in Japan, we didn’t want to lose half a day, while spending a night on Miyajima island. So we decided, to do a one-day-trip. We started with the Peace Memorial Park, where you can witness the only building that wasn’t completely turned into ashes, when the first atomic bomb hit the city in 1945. We moved on to the Hiroshima castle, which was less impressive that I had in mind. And from the castle we headed straight to Miyajima Island, which took another 35-40 minutes by train.

It was my second time at the Peace Memorial Park. I’m not sure if I’m the only one, however as soon as I started reading the informations noted on the monuments, I felt the same sadness inside of me, as the first time I was visiting Hiroshima. Knowing how many lives were ended, seconds after the blast of the bomb, at that exact spot where we were standing.

The ferry ride to Miyajima, is quite beautiful. And so is the island. The only concern we had, was that all the shops and restaurants were starting to close after 16:30 (4:30pm). We were hopelessly looking for a restaurant, as we haven’t had lunch yet, and really wanted to try Hiroshima’s okonomiyaki, their most popular savory pancake dish. After a lovely 2 hour stay on the island, we headed back home with an empty stomach. Around the time, when we reached the island 15:30, the tide kicked in, and we were able to walk nearby the big red tori gate. I’d rather have watched it standing in the water, surrounded by moving waves. You can’t win all the time.

Hiroshima is easily doable within a day, train rides included. However rushing through the main interest points, will still be stressful. I would suggest, to spend a night on the island, if you have the time.

Osaka, Namba.

We spent most evenings in Osaka, as it never disappoints. It’s a never-ending shopping paradise, there are just too many shops to explore. The neon lights at night, are giving the city a film-noir futuristic look, as we know it from the movie bladerunner, which was highprobably heavily inspired by Osaka’s city look.

Streetfood is amazing and cheap. Within the same street, you’ll get a big variety of food options. We love Ramen, Gyoza and kushikatsu. You can hardly find bad food in Japan (well we did in Arashiyama).

Weirdly it’s been the first time that I noticed the boom of Gashapon madness. “Gashapon" are vending machines with tiny toys that are wrapped in a plastic ball, and are being sold for 300-400 yen on every street corner. They toys are weird, cool, cute, and the whole thing can get very addictive. We spent quite some money on these toys as our daughter loved them as well. Everytime we had too many coins in our pockets from the train rides, we spent them at a gashapon store. I witness these toys before at the airport, or bigger train stations, however now they’re literally at every street corner.

Another mandatory visit would be the Shinsekai area, with its eyecatcher the Tsūtenkaku tower. The neighborhood is super busy at night, and offers many charming restaurants. The whole lit up alley is super photogenic, maybe the most instagramable spot in Osaka. We also visited Tower Knives, which offers a big vareity of japanese knives, with a great service, and you can add any name-carving to your selection. After having bought 3 kitchen knives, this year I opted for the Higonokami, a traditional pocket knife, just a cool souvenir, to remember this fantastic trip. And while being amazed about the knife madness happening at the shop, and the great service, I bought another small kitchen knife for my home-bar, with the engraved name of Valentina, our daughter. 

This year we discovered the unusual Yasaka Shrine in Namba, Osaka. When you think, you’ve seen it all (temples), there’s always another shrine or temple, that will impress you with its unusual look. Yasaka is one of time, as it is built in the shape of a huge green dragon head.
We spent another dinner-night with Yasuyo and Odie, in an underground Izakaya, to end this trip in a proper way. They introduced us to japanese dishes, that we wouldn’t have ordered by ourselves, and our daughter and us, we got spoiled with too many presents.

 

2 days in Seoul.

To reach Japan, we had a stop-over in Seoul, as the flights were supposed to be cheaper through South-Korea, compared to flying straight to Japan from Europe. It was a bonus for Vanessa, so she would get a +1 on her list of visited countries.

Seoul is different. It’s not Osaka, it’s not Japan. I was my second time in Seoul, and I liked it a little bit better now, than the first time. That’s mostly the case, when I turn back to a country, that didn’t impress me much, for the second time. While flying towards South-Korea, I watched a new korean movie called “The Brokers”. I love korean movies! And the scenic views, that were shown in the movie, made me quite curious about the rest of the country. It will still be hard for South-Korea to win my heart, as I will always compare it to Japan. However i’m pretty sure that we will do a roadtrip in the near future, to discover more of South-Korea. For a country that releases so many great movies, there has to be something special about it.

On this trip, which was very short, as our flight got delayed, we were super limited in time. We rushed to the Gyeongbokgung Palace, which was super busy, and 50% of the people were dressed up in Hanbok clothes, traditional korean clothes. After that we jumped to Bukchon Hanok Village which was super crowded, almost impossible to snap a descent photo.

Strolling through the streets, along many cute shops, we had a coffe, and visited the Gwangjang Food Market after sunset. They have so many food stands in the indoor food hall, however the food variety is rather limited compared to the numerous vendors. The food we had, was ok, nothing comparable to thai food. But we enjoyed the whole vibe. And it’s definitely a cool place to take some photos. We also noticed the stand, from the Netflix streetfood serie.


I was shooting an endless amount of photos on this trip. Check the photo gallery button below.

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Kuala Lumpur & Singapore

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Flights became super super expensive during the two weeks of christmas school holidays in Luxembourg. We were endlessly looking for affordable flights, however without any luck. Flights to Thailand reached the 2k limit (a single ticket), other destinations like Guatemala just came up with a horrible flight schedule. In the end we ended up booking two city trips, of two cities and two countries I haven’t visited yet:

  • Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

  • Singapore, Singapore.

Well after having visited most asian countries, you could think “Kuala Lumpur …oh just another asian capital.”. However it was just the perfect match for us, as we have been traveling to asian- and arabic cities. We discovered both worlds, both cultures… and suddenly both world fuse together.

Bali, Thailand, Vietnam, … you will find minorities of the muslim religion. However in Kuala Lumpur it was the main religion. It was a melting pot of muslim, hindu and chinese culture. And it just felt different than any other previous country we visited prior this trip.

The airport of Kuala Lumpur is located further away from the city center. It easily takes between 60-70 minutes to make it to the airport by uber/taxi. Everything is quite cheap in Kuala Lumpur. And you get endless food options. Arabic-, halal-, chinese-, indian food… you never get bored while looking for the perfect dinner place.

Uber which is crazy cheap in KL, makes everything easily accessible. Our hotel was located in the Bukit Bintang area. It was the heart of the city center, surrounded by a couple of muslim corners, where you would find endless options of restaurants & supermarkets, a night food market, and millions of shops (shopping malls).

Every Uber we booked was between 1-5 euros.

The highlight in Kuala Lumpur was the majestic Batu Caves Temple. It’s definitely an eye catcher. It’s for free. If you get there early in the morning (around 10am) you still can avoid the crowds that show up during mid-day. The big golden statue, the colorful steps, the hindus, the inside of the cave.. this all sums up to make it a crazy photogenic place. Definitely the highlight in Kuala Lumpur.

Jalan Alor. 

Jalan Alor was located next to our hotel. It’s one of the most popular street food markets, maybe the biggest one? It wouldn’t beat the ones we’d visited in Thailand. However it’s worth a visit, especially at night with hundreds of hanging red lanterns. We opted for a delicious Iraki Restaurant, called “TARMA” just around the corner.

Petaling Street Market.

Petaling Street Market is part of the chinese neighborhood. The main street, is packed with stalls, that sell all kind of crap nobody needs. However the whole area has a couple of cute restaurants, an indoor market, plenties of street art. It’s definitely a spot where you can easily spend some hours and take some photos. Besides the market street, it feels authentic, and we tried to make it back at night for dinner, as it seemed to become very colorful at night, however due to the rainy weather we couldn’t make it back on our last night in KL.

The Federal Territory Mosque

From afar we could witness a beautiful mosque with a huge dome. We decided to visit the mosque as we were kinda attracted by its size. As we were entering the building we were greeted by security, and they informed us that we had to visit the mosque with a guide. The first moment we were hesitating, as it mostly comes with a donation, many attempts to slightly convert us into muslims (kind of). We weren’t in the mood, to hear the stories of how great their religion is. It was just too warm outside for this kind of activities. However we ended up in a small office, all three of us, dressed up in religious dresses. Our guide was Shahira, a lovely older lady. We couldn’t see her face, as she was wearing a facemask, due to covid. The tour lasted almost an hour, and it turned out to be pretty interesting. The whole tour was for free, nobody ever asked for a donation, no attempts to convert us… super friendly people, doing an effort to show tourists their place of worship. We donated a couple of bucks, as the whole ambience was super welcoming. Just the opposite of what I’ve experienced in Morocco.

Later I noticed, that we headed to the wrong mosque. During the whole trip I wanted to visit the pink mosque. So that’s gotta be for the next time.

Petrona Towers.

Obviously they’re part of the city’s landscape. But they’re only magnificent at night. At nighttime both towers shine like a pair of diamonds, and you can see them from almost every corner in the center of KL.

Not too far away from the towers, we went to the Heliport Bar, which seemed to be a cool bar, at the top floor of a skyscraper. From the bar you would walk up to a helipad (during the day), that transforms into a rooftop bar at night. We paid 20$ entrance, even though Valentina wasn’t allowed to make it onto the helipad. So we decided that we would enjoy some drinks, and just have a sneak peak individually on the helipad to take a great photo of the splendid view of the Petrona Towers. While having our drinks it started raining like hell, and they had to close the access to the rooftop. Unlucky again.

Thean Hou Temple

This one is definitely an eye catcher among all the worship places in Kuala Lumpur. What makes it very “picturesque” are the countless hanging lanterns filling up the roof-level of the outdoor area of the temple. Needless to say, we didn’t pay much attention about its history, we tried to get a couple of descent shots, while having only a couple more hours left in Malaysia prior our flight to the next destination. You get a descent skyline view from the temple. In its basement you can try some local food. As it’s located a little bit further out from any busy street, we had a hard time finding an UBER, as there was no wifi connection nearby.

Definitely a great spot to take some fancy photographs.

And this is how the first part of our trip came to an end. After spending 3 nights in Kuala Lumpur, we definitely enjoyed our time there, and made the best out of it, despite having a couple of hours of rain in the evenings.

The kindness of the local people, the cheap prices, and the diversity ,in general, that Malaysia is offering to the tourists, convinced us to come back in the nearby future, where we would love to explore the beaches & islands of Malaysia, and Malacca a charming city nearby Kuala Lumpur.


SINGAPORE.

This was my first time visiting Singapore as a destination. However I already had a 10 hour stay in Singapore, due to a connecting flight to Bali. Back then, I really didn’t enjoy Singapore. After discovering one of Indonesia’s most popular Island, Singapore felt rather dull. However as we looking for a second destination on this one-week journey, Singapore just felt like the best option. I had absolutely no expectations for the second part of our trip.

Mostly, every time I visit a country, I didn’t like at first sight, it keeps growing on me after getting there for a second time. And this was the case with Singapore.

On my first trip, I rushed from the airport, to Little India, the Marina Bay Sands shopping center, and the Garden by the Bay. Everything felt artificial, kind of like Dubai. It was a melting pot of multiple cultures, but didn’t really had a face of its own. I think back then, I was looking for photogenic spots, busy streets, … the stuff I encountered in Bali.

On this trip, I somehow started to enjoy these same aspects of Singapore, that I didn’t like on my one day visit in 2018.

Traveling as a family.

Maybe it was the fact, that we were traveling with a one year old kid, that made Singapore more enjoyable. Singapore is super clean, getting around in the city is super convenient, it’s safe, and it offers lots of indoor activities as well, if the weather won’t show its best smile.

Little India.

As we haven’t been to India recently, I really enjoyed spending some time in Little India. It’s not as photogenic as India itself, but it has a very similiar vibe, especially in the evening or the early morning. Little India is busy, it’s colorful, it smells like India, and it’s full of Indian people dressed in sarees and dottis. And in comparison to other areas of Singapore, the food in restaurants is quite cheap.

Chinatown.

I read several articles that Chinatown in San Francisco, would be the biggest community outside of China. To me, it seemed that Singapore’s Chinatown was way bigger than the one in SF. The restaurants along the main road, were super packed in the evening. Most of them, were serving authentic Chinese food. It was loud, stressful, and the food was different, from that what we were used to eat in chinese restaurants.

The beautiful Buddha Tooth Relic Temple was our favorite spot in Chinatown. I’d recommend to visit the temple at night. It looks way more impressive when it’s dark, due to the red shining color.

Kampong Glam.

The hippest among all the cultural neighborhoods was the Muslim area called “Kampong Glam”. Haji Lane is colorful, packed with street art, hip shops, it’s not the kind of street you would except in a muslim neighorhood, nearby a big mosque. The food variety is endless, from Mexican, to Thai food, and several Arabic restaurants.

The Sultan Mosque is quite the eyecatcher with its golden dome covering the antique looking building.

Sadly it was the only place in Singapore, where people were bothering us, and asking us constantly to visit their restaurants.





The Bay Area.

The Marina Bay area, is quite touristy. Its mall is very posh, and you won’t find any budget-friendly shops. The food court is interesting though, as it offers every food you can imagine. As for the kiddy part: you can book a canal boat ride through a canal that goes through the mall. I think it’s 15 to 20$ per boat. Next to the foodcourt, is a digital playground for kids.

The famous lit trees at the Supertree Groove, start their show at 7:45 pm, and there’s another show at 8:45pm. One night we were passing the magical garden after 10:00pm and whole place was dark, all the lights were turned off. Just as a reminder that the trees aren’t lit all night.

The park is quite big, and it’s definitely enjoyable to have a walk through it.

From the garden, you can walk through the Marina Bay Hotel, to reach the shopping Mall. You gotta cross a bridge, from which you can witness the inside of the expensive hotel. Its fantastic roof-top swimmingpool is only accessible for their hotel guests. Next time when we will be in Singapore, we will try to spend at least one night at this hotel, just to get access to its pool area.

Eats & drinks.

Drinking gets quite expensive. One afternoon, we went to the Raffles Hotel, to stop there for a drink, as the cocktail “Singapore Sling” was invented in that particular place. To witness that historical bar, we had to stand in line for 20-30 minutes. Prices per drink, were insane. One “Sling” was 35us$. They were delicious… what else would you expect from a 35$ drink? As we really enjoyed the vibe of the bar, we went for a second round. They were serving free peanuts, and you were allowed to discard its shell on the floor.

It was funny to watch the people leaving the door with a big smile on their face, while we were waiting impatiently in the entrance queue. I guessed everybody was feeling tipsy after two or more drinks… or maybe it was the satisfying smile of a happy customer.

The bar is worth the visit, their Singapore Sling is the best I ever had.

Even the salty check, wasn’t able to remove the grin from our face while walking out the door.

Night Food Market.

Lau Pa Sat Hawker Centre is big food market, that attracts many tourists and locals as well. It’s a place where you can find cheap food in Singapore, as some restaurants can get quite pricy. As for myself I was overwhelmed, as I had way too many options to chose from. At first sight it seems easy to get lost among the hundreds of people running around ordering their favorite dish.

Singapore is full of colors, full of flavours, it’s clean, it’s convenient.
You get in touch with the 3 main cultures: arabic, chinese, indian. It’s all a melting pot of diversity.
If I could choose between Dubai or Singapore, I’d go for Singapore in a heartbeat.

Maybe as a solo traveler Singapore isn’t the best option, however as a group of friends or family, it’s definitely worth the visit for a couple of days.


































Oahu, HAWAII

Hawaii used to be that untouchable place, that kind of felt out of reach. While growing up it was always pictured as what we considered as “paradise” back then. Later while growing up, the paradise-ish island, became a synonym for the surfer hotspot in the world, an island where the coolest hippies would hang out. For many years it should have been the perfect spot for a honeymoon, as it would have been a unique destination, expensive to get there, and high probably lots of memories you would never forget.

Just months before traveling to Hawaii, I slipped into the culture of Tiki drinks. Hawaii is part of that world, as it is highly influenced by the Polynesian culture. Just another fascination that turned the state of Hawaii into a special place to visit.


Oahu.

Just before traveling to Hawaii, you gotta figure out which island you plan on visiting. As we had to fit everything into a period of 14 days, considering that San Francisco and Los Angeles shortened our Hawaii stay to 6 nights, we opted for the big island of Oahu.

A few friends thought that Hawaii would look less impressive to us, as we’ve already been to other fascinating places in the world. Comparable places would be Bali or Mauritius. We were eager to find out, if they were right.

A pitstop in San Franicsco.

We decided to start our journey in San Francisco, one of my very favorite cities in the US. It was my second time with Vanessa. Our first US trip after the pandemic. My 9th visit of the city.

San Francisco is a city with many unforgotten memories. There might be prettier cities to visit in the US, as during the last decade, San Francisco went on a downward spiral with its numerous drug addicts and homeless people spreading all over the city center, especially in the Tenderloin neighborhood.

However once you notice the soul of its city, it’s hard to not fall in love with it. On our first day however, I was shocked how deserted some neighborhoods looked after the pandemic. We arrived in the early afternoon and went straight to the fisherman’s wharf. China Town looked empty for the first time since I’ve kept visiting SF. North Beach (italian hood) seemed more lively than what I had in mind. The fisherman’s wharf just looked empty. It felt like we were part of 200 visitors in the whole street stretching along the shore. San Francisco wasn’t the city I was used to see.

Instead of doing the usual touristic places. We decided to make it less stressful. We used UBER rides to make it to all the point we wanted to visit, without any hassle. Spending some time at the Mission Dolores Park with our daughter, gave us the feel of being a local. Visiting our friend Nicole at her shop “Fleedwood” in Clement Street, looked like a different San Francisco as well. Clement street truly looks like a hidden gem. It feels like a small town hidden in a big city.

After visiting Myanmar, I ordered a Burmese cookbook on amazon. There aren’t many good ones, I went for the fanciest one which was “Burma Superstar”, and I remembered that their restaurant used to be in San Francisco. Just by coincidence we found out that “Burma Superstar” was located in Clement Street. On a Friday night, the place was packed, and we were lucky to book one of the last tables by the end of the night.

We visited colorful Castro and the north-west side of San Francisco with its beaches. We did the trail from Ocean Beach to Baker Beach, following its path to the Golden Gate. It was a mix of pure beauty, windy moments, and a big pain in the ass. The weather wasn’t on its peak as we reached Ocean Beach by UBER. We decided to have lunch at a posh beachfront restaurant. I’m not sure if Vanessa liked the place, however it was my second visit, and I just loved the view we got while enjoying our food. Lunch was pretty expensive for what it was. The stuck up customers at the restaurant, felt like being part of the upper society class. A big thumb down for that part.

After lunch we decided to do the trail. It wasn’t easy, as we were carrying our daughter in her stroller. And the trail is really just meant to walk on it. There were too many stairs to carry the stroller up and down. By the end of the trail our shirts were soaking wet.

It took us two runs to see the Golden Gate Bridge in its full size and colors. Due to the fog it seamed like a curse. On our previous trip in 2020, Vanessa didn’t manage to see the bridge. This time it wouldn’t be easier. But in the end it all went fine.

I’m glad that we enjoyed San Francisco a lot more this time, as we weren’t rushing like on our first trip together. And still after having made it 9 times to SF, there are still so many corners left undiscovered. Recently I read an article where they were explaining, that San Francisco, because of its location, surrounded by water, being located in the front tip of bay, it will never feel like a big city, as the city just can’t expand itself, kind of like Manhattan. The mix of vintage houses, restaurant & bars mixed with modern looking concept stores, the constant changing weather, the melting pot of cultures which is reflecting the endless options for food, the Victorian colored houses… it just never gets boring.


Aloha.

“Aloha” was the first sign I read while rolling down the escalator at Honolulu’s airport. Just another outdated airport. The way to our hotel, wasn’t that spectacular, however the buildings around the city center reminded me a lot of the japan’s rural areas.

The street signs close to our hotel were written in Japanese. I was quite surprised how much “Japan” was part of Honolulu.

We were located in the very center of Honolulu, however the area packed with hotels isn’t much appealing. The “Hilton” across our street however was quite spectacular, because of its polynesian village. They had a tiny village built up inside their hotel. Just behind the HILTON, there was an artifcially built cove for the visitors. The palmtrees building up height, along the beach, was quite an idylic spot to lay back and watch the waves.

In the evening we walked toward Waikiki Beach. Waikiki was definitely more lively than our hotel’s neighbourhood. At first sight it looked quite entertaining, but after 2 or 3 nights, it bebcame pretty dull, as it is 100% touristic. The coolest things we noticed were the shops with floral hawaiian shirts. Maybe 90% of all the male tourists were wearing those shirts. I had to buy some for myself.



Exploring the Island.

On our second day, we picked up our rental car. It was a nicest car, I ever rented, a brand new BMW X3. We quickly noticed that there are only 3 main roads, that you can choose to drive around the island. Which also means that there are no shortcuts. I really takes forever if you just wanna head somewhere else on the island.

As we were watching the street food documentary about the US on Netflix, we discovered a few hidden gems of Oahu. Ry’s Poke Shack in the north shore of the island was the first one we tried, as “Da Bald Guy” with its eye catching food truck was closed. The poke bowl at Ry’s was definitely not the cheaper side, however it was super delicious, and in the end it was worth its price (15$). It quickly turned out that street food wasn’t cheap, unlike in Thailand where you get amazing meal for 2$.


The northshore of Oahu was without a doubt more laid back. Lots of food shacks, surfer spots (without any surfers), local neighborhoods, lots of greenish nature.

However on our second or third day, we got tired of driving along the same roads. It just felt like being stuck on a circular train line. Most of the coolest spots were located in the north. However most places were closing very early in the evening. There wouldn’t be any shops or bars in the north. Nightlife is really limited to the center of Honolulu.

Nature wise, the island is pretty beautiful. But you can’t drive up to the volcano, or any other higher point on the island. You do have access to a parking lot at ground level, after that you’re on your own, to walk about the hills & an mountains for more astonishing views. Hiking isn’t part of your daily activity if you’re carrying a stroller and baby stuff. So we just stuck to the road and drove around Oahu.

We visited the popular botanical garden, which entrance is pretty famous on Instagram. The wide lane leading to a scenic mountain, through a palm tree lane. After COVID, stopping your car isn’t allowed anymore, and you might risk a fine if you do so. Maybe Instagram is the result of these new set regulations. (On our way back out, I dropped Vanessa earlier, and drove out. She took my cam, and while walking up the hill, towards the exit, she grabbed a couple of shots, so we could enjoy our own instagramable photos of the botanical garden. Is it worth visiting the park? Of course, after parking your car, close to the reception, you can follow a path down to the lake. The views you will get from that lake, are absolutely hawaiian. The other vista points inside the park are less appealing. However it’s free, so it’s a no-brainer.

The Japanese temple “Byodo-In” was worth to visit as well. We have seen so many temples on our trips, from different colors, different styles. Byodo-In is just pretty unique, because of its set location. The red wooden bridge that you cross, that leads up to the temple, which is surrounded by a mountainous green background. Yes of course, it’s just another Japanese temple, but without a doubt a really nice one.


Everything has been americanized.

What bothered me the most during our visit in Hawaii, was the lack of an authentic island vibe. Polynesian culture, polynesian architecture, the usual tourist traps that you get caught into during an island holidays abroad… nothing really felt like being far far away from the mainland. Obviously there were many palmtrees and the ocean was always in sight, but this also happens in California.

While driving north bound along one of the train main roads that lead to the North Shore, we noticed families laying under huge tents at the beach. It wasn’t only the tents that caught our eyes, it was the whole living-room that those people brought to the beach: a barbecue-grill, a kitchen table, an inflatable couch or bed, huge ice boxes carrying cans of drinks of food. It wasn’t only one fully equipped tent, but a few next to each other. The beaches were packed with heavy american families, well obviously locals, just sitting at the beach, but trying so hard to bring their own living room to the beach.

It hid the view to the beach from the road. All we could see, were tents next to each other. Maybe it was a sunday, or a holiday, I can’t really remember, however there are the things you wouldn’t notice in Europe or Asia.

It just got worse when were driving back to the Japanese Temple. You had to cross a cemetery road that lead up to the hill where the temple was located. People were barbequeing with a grill, tables and chairs next to their relatives graves. Grilling some meat next to a tomb. It just couldn’t get worse.

There weren’t barely any restaurans in the northern part of Oahu, except for food-trucks and food-stalls. However there was a supermarket around every corner.

One of the hippest breakfast spots was the “Sunrise Shack” along the road, next to the beach. It showed up in a couple of movies. It’s been shared on so many Instagram accounts. We decided to have a stop there, for breakfast. The yellow color of the wooden cabin, and the seated area next to it, looked very welcoming. The coffee was pretty good, and the acai bowl was alright. We enjoyed our little break at the shack. On our last day, we had to find out, that there was another “sunrise shack” in a big shopping mall downtown in Honolulu. It became so popular, that they had to turn it into a marketing gem.

It was actually the opposite of what we expected in Hawaii. The surfer vibe, we felt it more in California than in Hawaii, the birth place of surfing. Surfboard rentals weren’t easy to find, or were we really looking at the wrong places? I sneaked up in different locations to find a hidden surfing spot, however we never got lucky.

Another thing we noticed, was that many locals (Hawaiian people) weren’t really friendly or welcoming. Usually american people are super friendly, and try to make up for a conversation. Always smiling, and greeting everybody. This wasn’t the case in Hawaii.

Haleiwa.

Haleiwa is a lovely tiny (touristic) village in the northern part. And it just represented what I was expecting to witness in Haiwaii: colorful wooden houses, lots of greens (especially palmtrees), a couple of interesting shops. Sadly it was very popular among the tourists. People would stand in line for 20 minutes to get a shaved icecream. We had to try it ourselves. In the end we just couldn’t understand how people would stand in line for shaved ice covered with artificial sirup flavours.

There were a couple of good spots to take some photos. A couple of different food trucks were available. And there were tons of shops where you could spend some money. It’s hard to describe what was so special about Haleiwa. Maybe because it was just the oppositve of Honolulu, just a cosy village instead of a big fancy city-center.

Haleiwa was part of our more enjoyable moments in Oahu.

Luau at the Hilton Polynesian Village.

There aren’t many free Luaus (hula show) on the Island. On our second last days we trying to find out were we could enjoy a lovely polynesian dance show to end our holidays on the island. However most places were sold out, or they were just way to expensive. And we weren’t sure if our daughter would sit still for more than 20 minutes. The show was supposed to last more than 2 hours, including a dinner buffet. So we skipped that part. While the sun was setting down, we could witness the Luau that took place in the backyard of the Hilton hotel. It was pretty wonderful. The music, the dances, the traditional dresses/costumes. It’s definitely something that seemed kind of authentic, even though it’s a mass tourism attraction.

Now after coming back home, and digesting what we had experienced in Hawaii. We agreed that we would turn back and visit another Island, maybe Maui on a next trip Hawaii. This time we would make it there without any huge expectations, and high probably we would enjoy it a lot more.

Don’t get me wrong. Hawaii is a beautiful place. But there are also so many beautiful places all over the world that do look alike, and which are definitely much much cheaper than the 50st state of the US.

Los Angeles - The city of angels…

Weirdly, we enjoyed the two days in Los Angeles, after having spent a week in Hawaii. We rented a bike at Venice Beach, and were riding those beach cruisers into the sunset. We spent some time at the Santa Monica pier with our daughter. Had the best ice-cream at Salt & Straw, and finished our trip with a majestic mexican dinner. Watching the people, being amazed by a nightly bike parade with endless flashing lights and loud music along the beach, spending some money at hip shops in Venice… everything instantly felt like summer, or the end of summer. As for myself, these few hours in California felt more authentic than anything I experienced in Hawaii.

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Greece 3.0 : Naxos & Paros

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It’s becoming kind of a ritual, making Greece part of our yearly summer holidays. Within Europe it’s one of those countries, where we easily feel at home. Is it the Greek people, their climate, their food? Or it’s just maybe a bit of everything thrown together, that convinces us as a whole. This year, it would be our third visit to the Cyclades within a two year period. We don’t ever get tired of it.

Naxos.

As usual, we landed in Athens. Our favorite taxi driver Dimitris would pick us up at the airport, and bring us to the same bargain hotel, where we stay at every time we set food in Athens. Dimitris became part of our journey in Greece, as he picks us up, and drops us wherever, and whenever we need his service. Such a gentleman!

We only spent 1 night in Athens, but we tried as much food as we could on the first day. We can’t get enough, the food scene in Athens is a one of a kind.

Our new destination within the Cyclades would be Naxos this year. We heard lots about it, read its name in many reviews and blogs. However we still didn’t know what to expect, as beating Paros would be a though challenge. Funnily this year, the ferry ride was more entertaining, as our daughter Valentina, was socialising with everybody on the boat. It wasn’t as relaxing for us, compared to having a nap for the following three hours. But we got to meet a young couple from Athens, and a few other parents with their kids.

Three hours later we hit Naxos. At first sight it didn’t look as cozy as Paros (Nausa). We still were ready to give it a chance. The temperatures on the island were very summer-ish. We enjoyed the white houses surrounded by hills and the sea. That’s what we were looking for. While walking along the biggest pedestrian road, leading to our hotel, we noticed the countless restaurants and bars, and we couldn’t wait any longer to try them all. This year, compared to 2021, the prices of the hotels had doubled. You could notice the difference.

As we were traveling with a one year old kid, we didn’t plan to visit any sights outside of the city center, as we only stayed for 3 nights. Nearby our hotel, we checked out the Agios Georgios Beach. It wasn’t an eyercatcher, however we just wouldn’t mind, as we were enjoying our time in Greece.

The center of Naxos has its nice parts. You will get some descent places for dinner. There aren’t too many appealing bars. Our two favorite ones were the funky “Swing” and the rather cosy “Kitron” (where all the drinks were mixed with a local liquor that is made with the plant …guess the name… Kitron). Having a drink at Swing , we run into the couple that we met on the boat.

On our last day we discovered the Old Town Market. It looks typically greek, like the shopping alleys in Mykonos and Nausa. In the white maze, we randomly discovered the cute restaurant “Apostolis”, definitely an eye catcher, and so was the food.

As we stayed 3 days in Naxos, there’s plenty of choice from wine bars, cocktail bars, fish restaurants, Greek taverns. At night it gets really touristy, as thousands of people are walking up and down the pedestrian street. Lots of pretty people though. We enjoyed our drinks with a seaview.

As for myself, my favorite part in Naxos would but the bathing place, right next to the harbor, and in front of the Portara monument. It’s a place where many locals jump into the water to cool down, during the hot afternoons. It’s the place where old and young people meet. To me it just felt authentically greek. No bars, no shops, just salted water and a rocky landscape that surrounds it. The cruiser boats just next it, just diminishes its charm, however it really didn’t really bother me during my swimming session.

Naxos passed the test. It just wouldn’t compete against our still favorite place in Greece (Paros), however we noticed that there’s something likeable about Naxos. It’s most definitely touristic, and it doesn’t offer the vibe of our favorite island, however you can spend some lovely days in Naxos, and enjoy everything that we love about Greece: kind people, amazing food, the sun and the sea. And of course visiting neighbouring islands during the day would be another option, if you spend more days in Naxos.

Paros, mon amour.

Visiting one place for a second time, can be daring at some point. Usually if you do get back to a city, it’s because you loved it so much, and just can’t wait to feel that emotion of joy and pleasure again. However if we won’t feel the same joy again on the second trip, it could end up as a disappointment. Normally the second trip needs to convince as much, or even more, to make it a worthy comeback. Paros just wouldn’t disappoint this year.

We changed the hotel, as our previous one (from last year) was fully booked. Kind of disappointed we thought the new one wouldn’t fulfill our expectations, but we were wrong. The charming guesthouse “Rivière Residence” was perfectly located in the very center of Naousa. The breakfast was the best, we had ever experienced in Greece. The whole place was just super cosy and it came with a pool. Everybody was happy.

The nightly dinners were just perfect, we felt happy at the right place. We opted to check out different places, instead of the harbor restaurants. “Kapari” was one of the better places, that we discovered in Greece. Great service, excellent food, and the hanging lanterns gave the whole a magnificent vibe after sunset.

Actually we didn’t do that much within the city. We just relaxed with our daughter in the pool, went for some walks through out the city center.

We booked a rental car for one afternoon, as we wanted to explore Anti-Paros. The nice part of the trip to Anti-Paros is, that you drive straight onto the ferry without geting out of the car, and it will bring you to the other side of the ocean within 5-7 minutes. Hassle-free for 10€. Be aware that you only have a bad internet connection on the island. We were looking for some touristic spots on google maps, however we had a hard time making our internet work. The island just looks like any other deserted landscape on the Cyclades. The city center during the day was quite pretty, but because of the high temperatures and barely no shadows along the street, we rushed through it. I can imagine that Anti-Paros is more enjoyable at night, however you always have to rely on your car. So drinking wine and driving back to Naussa, isn’t the best option. We were told by our taxi driver, that Tom Hanks and Monica Bellucci own a villa on Anti-Paros, with the reason that it’s super quiet, and far away from the crowd, as it is less busy or populated than Paros.

As this was already our 3rd holiday-trip on the Cyclades I just would keep repeating myself about our fascination of the islands with its white houses and the blue rooftops. You either love them, or you don’t. While we were meeting up with a friend in Athens, he told us, that he was less impressed with the dry landscapes in Greece, and that he’d rather visit Korfu because of its green natural surrounding. That would definitely be a point, that I could understand.

But once again, we loved Paros (well Naussa) that much, that we decided to get back for summer ‘23.




Vietnam 2.0 (Ho Chi Min, Hoi An, Hanoi)

It should have become my second trip to Vietnam. In 2016 I really did have a unique experience while traveling across Vietnam, by bus and night train. This time, we’d visit Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh and Hoi An. I was looking forward to visit Hoi An, as I missed it on my first Vietnamese adventure.

However it turned out as the worst start I ever had for trip.

VISA MADNESS.

Well, partially it could have been our fault, as we have been lazy with the VISA ON ARRIVAL procedure that you need to apply for, prior the departure. The official website says it wouldn’t last longer than 3 days to get the approval.

On Monday I filled out all the form for our family (3 visas), on Friday morning, the day of our departure, I still didn’t get any approval in my mailbox. After sending a mail already on Thursday, and not getting a reply, I decided to make a phone call to Vietnam, as we really needed these letter form to make it onto the plane.

Reaching a clerk on the line, I told them, that our visa hasn’t been approved yet, and that we would need them by tonight. “Sorry sir, it’s 5pm, too late. We can’t help you, change your flight”. I told them, that we couldn’t switch our flights, as our holidays had to end within a week, due to school holidays. Changing the schedule of our trip wasn’t an option. But they just didn’t mind and wouldn’t help.

So I tried several offices, and I always got the same response “weekend will start in one hour, sorry can’t help” (due to the time difference). Devastated about canceling our holidays, we tried every website or facebook account which could be helpful, so I made another phone call to a service we found on FB, which mentioned they would approve emergency visas within an hour. After telling our situation for the 10th time, same response “sorry it’s almost weekend, can’t help”. I replied that they mentioned on their website about the 24/24h service, and that we need the visas for tonight, however we would land on the following day in Vietnam, and that I would be willing pay any price. “Wait! Please get in touch with my supervisor”. So we managed with a LOT of luck to get emergency visas for 150$ per person. I was in touch with a young lady on whatsapp, and she helped us through the whole procedure. In the end, it worked out. It was a shit load of money, as we already had paid for the initial visas, but we didn’t want to cancel our holidays, so we agreed to pay the amount of 450$. In the end I gave her another 50$, as she was the only person among 10 contacts, who was willing to help us.

So the moral of the story… don’t believe what they say about the processing time. After this mess, I’d recommend to apply for the visa at least 10 days before your departure.


Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh, who used to go by the name of Saigon, was our city of arrival, as we planned to visit our friend Craig, who moved from Luxembourg to Vietnam two years ago. So it would be great to meet him again in person, while we’d be visiting Vietnam.

We were so glad that we’d made it and that in the end the whole visa thing turned out well.

As soon as we reached the hotel we headed out to get some street food, as it was already pretty late (10pm).

We should also mention that we got scammed by a taxi driver. Outside the airport, we just stood in line, to get onto an official yellow taxi, to avoid any kind of rip off. However, even while jumping on a so-called official taxi. The taxi meter rose pretty fast, and quickly reached the 25$ after only a few minutes driving. So I texted Craig, and he mentioned to never pay more than 12-15$ for a taxi. By then, we reached the 35$. I told the taxi to stop, as I wouldn’t pay the amount. He told us, that the gas prices went through the roof lately, and because of that, the prices were way more expensive than they used to be. We bargained for a set price of 35$, otherwise we would just drop us in the middle of the main road. Traveling with the baby, we agreed to pay. Later at the hotel, the staff told us to take a photo of the license in the windshield, and call the police, so the taxi driver would lose his job. Upon reaching the hotel, I handed over a money bill (worth 50$), and the driver tried to rip me off again, with turning back less money.

First the visa issues, now this… it all started so well. :)

Ho Chi Min was cleaner than I thought, but less “asian” than I expected. It just looked like a regular big city, with lots of tall concrete buildings. The street food, didn’t look very inviting. So our first dinner consisted of 2 grilled rice paper, with spring onions, some meat and french cheese on it. It wasn’t great.

On the second day, we started with some street markets, tourist shit that we love. And it felt great being back in Asia, as it was the first time after two years, due to the pandemic. We visited the main sights in HCM that we wanted to discover: the pink church, the book street, the old post office, and the 42 Nguyen Hue Coffee Apartment.

If you’ve visited Hanoi before, Ho Chi Minh, might look less appealing, because it’s more modern, less sketchy, and people seem to have a higher standard of living. It just wasn’t like the Vietnam that I had in mind after my last trip.

Ho Chi Min people, however were the nicest I had met in Vietnam. They were kinda talkative, and trying to socialize with us. So many locals wanted to take a photo with our daughter. All the people we got in touch with, were very helpful and welcoming.

Foodwise, it wasn’t as great as Hanoi for example. You really had to know where to look for a good restaurant. Streetfood didn’t seem that appealing to us. Everything was super cheap though, you never had to care about money.

A surprisingly cool evening happened to take place right in front of our hotel, as Vietnam was playing against Thailand (soccer game). Guess who won? Vietnam of course… the hell broke loose! Suddenly after the end of the game, millions of scooters were cruising through the city center, chanting, screaming, pushing the horn, singing… it was just a huge party all over Ho Chi Minh. And still they all celebrated with the biggest respect towards pedestrians, and the police force. No fights, no dangerous speeding. It was pretty unique moment, to be part of it.

During the day we walked through the Bui Vien avenue, which is comparable to Bangkok’s Khao San Road. Quiet during the day, but crazy lively at night. The party road of the city. As we were traveling with a 1 year old daughter, we thought that we should skip this part. However I can imagine, that we would have loved it on our early trips.

Meeting our friend Craig was kind of the nicest part of our Ho Chi Minh experience. We met up twice and had dinner with him in places where we might haven’t found by ourselves. The pho (vietnamese soup) was the best we had for only 3-4$. His neighbourhood was fancy, and quite different to the city center. We were glad to get invited for a drink at his place, just before he would leave it for his next destination Indonesia in the upcoming months.

Hoi An.

We took two inland flights within 7 days in Vietnam, and all these went flawless. Traveling by plane was so easy and stress-less. And the tickets were crazy cheap as well (25€ per flight).

Hoi An was the next stop. Our friend Craig warned us, that Hoi An would be super touristic. We didn’t mind, as we really wanted to witness all the things we knew from google or Instagram : colorful lanterns, boat rides on the river, great Vietnamese dinners in the evening, traditional colorful clothing… we wanted the whole experience.

Hoi An, already offered what we were missing in Ho Chi Minh. The rural life, the locals, tiny street markets, all kind of street food, open air bars… it just seemed more authentic to western tourists who wanted to experience Asia.

It took us 10 minutes walking to reach the old town of Hoi An, which was the most famous part of the city, we all the tourists were gathering together. Despite being touristic it was crazy beautiful, and so photogenic. Especially during evening hours when the lanterns were lit.

The Old Town feels like a maze, because it’s divided in so many tiny alleys which all look alike after a while, and it’s hard to not get lost. In between the alleys you will find street markets, services for boat rides, colorful lanterns hanging all over the city. As soon as you start getting out of Old Town, you will bump into a row of tailors hunting for tourists to make them buy tailored clothes for a super cheap price. First we tried to avoid them, however on our last day we figured out how cheap a suit would be, and that they could have it done within 3 hours. Just before leaving for the airport, two different shops brought us 2 complete men suits, 4 men shirts, 3 women dresses (all hand made) for 350$. Their service was insane… they were working super fast, and the tissues we used were completely different to what we are used in Europe. Getting something done by a tailor, will be a must on our future trips to Asia.

Besides the city center and appreciating our fancy hotel Hoi An, we didn’t do that much. We enjoyed the sights and colors of the Old Town, fueled up the sunshine, and tasted some Vietnamese food. It was a beautiful experience visiting Hoi An.

The gentleman (pictured on the middle photo above) was selling black&white photoprints on rice paper in the city center of Hoi An. The smell of antique wooden furniture in his shop, the black&white prints all over the entrance and his walls inside the shop, gave this whole place a special vibe, and many people were stopping by to watch these photos of war. The shopkeeper told me his story about the war versus the U.S., as he was navy soldier during war times. He showed me his bullet wounds on this legs, when he get shot by the Americans. This conversation was very deep and interesting at the same time. As I bought a couple of photos, he allowed me to take a portrait of him.


Hanoi.

After 6 years have passed, I was curious about getting back to Hanoi. On the way from the airport to the hotel, so many memories popped up, that I had forgotten about, however seeing the buildings and the streets, the memories felt like it would have been only a year appart.

As we arrived very late at night, we decided to start our exploring of the city on the next morning. Hanoi just felt like the complete opposite of Ho Chi Minh. It’s more chaotic, it’s dirtier, it smells bad in some areas, however it’s definitely how I had Vietnam in mind… authentic.

Around Hoan Kiem Lake, most streets are covered with trees, they are super lively due to the high traffic, and the endless shops and foodstalls along the road. You mostly just walk on the road, as there’s no space on the sidewalk due to the parked motorbikes.

Hanoi is a big city, however if you plan your daytrips well enough, you can see most of it within 2 days. That’s what we had, 2 nights. As it was the first time for my girlfriend in the city, I wanted to show her what I had found most fascinating in and around the city: the Hoan Kiem Lake, Long Bien Bridge, Ho Chi Minh-Mausoleum (which wasn’t accessible due to road blocks), the crashed B52 bomber, and its worn down neighborhood.

We definitely loved the area around Hoan Kiem Lake. It’s the right place to watch people. The red bridge on the lake always looks appealing while walking by. The shops around the lake, and the coffee places nearby makes it an enjoyable place throughout the day. Especially on weekends, where they will close the main roads, children are allowed to play on the streets, and it’s even more lively.

Walking towards Long Bien Bridge, you do walk through some smelly and rough blocks. It doesn’t make Hanoi really appealing. However I do love walking upon the bridge, seeing the crazy motorbike traffic passing by, getting a view over endless fields, and just seeing that old rusty bridge in front of you. It felt as intriguing as the first time.

The small pond where the B52 bomber had crashed, was just a mess, the water is filled up with trash and seaweed. I wouldn’t even take a photo. The walk towards Quang An, took us almost 90 minutes. In the end it wasn’t fun anymore, as the sun was burning our skin, and we just wouldn’t find any water on the stretch that leaded along the Ho Tay lake. Quang An just felt like the westerner’s area, where you would find many fancy dining options, and designer shops, however without any Vietnamese customers. It just didn’t feel right. Obviously the restaurants looked promising, however the vibe wasn’t right. A place were rich folks loved to hang out. There was absolutely nothing interesting in the neighborhood, even though Quang An was praised online, to have become to new hangout place for the hip folks. I prefer the run down places, that seem more authentic, and they come with a communist vibe. Well we enjoyed our ramen never the less.

On our last day (our departure back home was around midnight) I visited the surroundings of the Nhà Thờ Lớn Hà Nội cathedral, as I was looking for a poster-shop that used to sell communist propaganda posters printed on rice paper. Back then, when I was visiting Hanoi for the first time, I was amazed by the graphic design of those vintage prints. Sadly the shop didn’t exist anymore. But luckily a new one opened in the same street. The artshop “Collective Memory - The House of Curios” had opened next-door, and it was way more arty than the mentioned poster shop. I was welcomed by the nicest shop-holders I had met in Hanoi. After a little chat about the world, they recommended me a unique dining experience on our last night at Chả Cá Thăng Long, to get a proper typical Vietnamese dish before jumping into the airplane. It was quite an experience, as it felt like a hidden place. The restaurant was a big beautiful villa hidden among palm trees in a private entrance. We were sat outside among the locals. Without any big talks, they started asking for drinks, while setting up our table. They only offered one fish dish, quick and simple. The fish gets served with greens, that you cook all together in a wok, right on your table. The food was excellent! The location was beautiful, and it was relatively cheap compared to what it looks from the outside.

Definitely the perfect farewell dinner for this beautiful one week trip in Vietnam.
















Dubai - We did it

Another destination, that I always tried to avoid. The mecca of mass tourism, pulling travelers into the void of luxurious hotels, credit card wonderland, and bragging with record breaking architecture. There’s just no stop for the imagination and budget of creating a new modern world. Dubai is different, Dubai is big, Dubai is rich, … so was it really that bad for someone who seeks the simple and authentic travel experience?

How did we ended up in Dubai by the way? We only had a week off in April for the Easter holidays. Still many countries didn’t make it easy to enter their country, with covid-testing, PLF forms… we wanted a hassle free one week holiday, with pleasant weather conditions. The price for the flight tickets, were among the cheapest we had found, so we told ourselves “Why not?”. Initially we would have loved to witness the World Exposition that took place in Dubai, as it seemed to be something out of this world. Once again, there was no limit in creativity and hi-tech, for Dubai’s world expo. However we just missed it, as we were too late by only a few days.



Do you really need to visit Dubai ?

In short…. No. Definitely not. Was it that bad? No it was alright.

Let’s make it super easy, with a pros and cons:

  • (-) it’s really expensive

  • (-) Dubai is huge, it takes time to move from A to B

  • (-) Emiratis are hard to meet & find

  • (-) No bars.. only in Hotels or at the beach.


  • (+) the weather is always great

  • (+) you get all kind of food, everywhere

  • (+) shopping, shopping, shopping

  • (+) you can easily stay a week in Dubai, without getting bored


Yeah, you need a well packed wallet to enjoy Dubai. Taxis aren’t that cheap, as you usually spend 20-30 minutes to reach your destination. Dubai is huge indeed. Prior the trip, I expected the size of Vegas, just a main road, surrounded by hotels and shopping malls. But no, I was so wrong. From our hotel at Jumeira Beach to the Dubai Mall, we needed at least 25 minutes by train & walking. Because of the traffic and redlights, it would have taken us easily 15-20 minutes by car.

When you’ve made it to the Emirates, you expect to get a full blast of arabic culture. Sadly the only experience you get is paying for the experience. Buying arabic fragrances, fashion accessories, or arabic food…nothing comes for free. And you hardly ever bump into Emiratis. The employes that will serve you or offer you any service, will 99.9% be an immigrant, mostly form asian or african countries. It was fascinating to see, how many people were from Pakistan, India or Sri Lanka. Don’t get me wrong! There’s nothing to complaing about that… however if you visit Italy, you expect to meet Italians, in France, you wanna hear the french language, while someone brings you the wine or baguette to the table. However in Dubai, it’s all english, because of the huge melting pot of different nations in Dubai.

You can make it your own way in Dubai.

You wanna spend money, just go for it. You feel like spending your time at the beach, you can do it. You wanna be adventurous, go sky diving or deep-sea diving. You can do whatever your feel like in Dubai. Again it’s not the most authentic place, and you gotta wave with bills, to make it happen.

During our one week holidays, we obviously visited some of the major attractions like the Frame of Dubai, Dubai Mall and Burshkalifa. Why not? We tried to get a more local feel, while visiting the Souks, however it was just another tourist trap. We crossed the river by a tiny wooden boat and headed to Al Seef, which comes up with a different face of Dubai. You get the vibe of an arabic old town, which was totally ok to visit for an hour, walk around the alleys and souks, but be prepared for the hassle.

If you aren’t in a rush, their metro network is really good, and you can reach almost every destinaion by train within the city.

As we booked our hotel in the JBR (Jumeira Beach Resort) area, we wanted to spend time at the beach as well with our baby daughter. The hotel was 15 minutes walking away from the beach, nothing’s really close in Dubai. On our first day, we were all satisfied that we got a sunbed and umbrella, and we thought it would be for free, as no one showed up for the bill. Later we found out that you pay 35€ for a sunbed, but you had to pay in front of the beach, and register your spot. Luckily we had a free afternoon at the beach, but disgusted afterwards to spend 70€ for 2 sunbeds at the beach. So we avoided the cosy sunbeds, and visited a waterplayground with our daughter during the week, which was super cheap. She was happy, and we enjoyed the watergames while the soil was burning during midday.

In my opinion JBR is a great location to book your hotel. It’s definitely touristic, that’s all you see in the streets, tourists. But you got everything you need to spend your evenings walking around: restaurants, shops, playground and games for kids, ice-cream and coffees, and everything is very safe and accessible for pedestrians. Some people love all-inclusive resorts, because they don’t have to leave the resort at all during their stay. Actually the worst part for me, spending your holidays in a hotel. So JBR in Dubai, gave me the feel of a resort, but it was right in front of the hotel, and it felt more like a small village, and you actually had to leave your hotel.

The most memorable tourist attraction for us was the Global Village. It looks like a theme park, but as soon as you step inside, you see all the signs with the names of the countries. Every country that is listed in the park, has its own area, where you can taste specific foods from that country, or specific products that come from the given countries. For example, for accessing “China” you had to cross red wooden bridges, to access a gate surrounded by fake brick walls, fake temples, chinese music… it was just insane, how pretty they decorated each section, with lights, colors, music, costumes… At some point we were rushing through the countries, as we couldn’t wait to try all their food and drinks. In the end we went to a floating marked (which looked like the ones in Thailand), as we were craving Pad-Thai. The food was excellent, while we enjoyed our minutes in Thailand, the country we’ve been missing for the last two years.

no PCR, no mosque

After doing lots of touristic things, we were looking forward to see the beautiful mosque in Abu Dhabi. It only takes 40-50 minutes to make it to Abu Dhabi by car. Getting there by taxi, will cost around 80-100€. Which is totally ok, considering the price we pay at home in our country. We felt it was worth the price.

Even from afar, the mosque looked mind blowing, it reminded me of the Taj Mahal, which gave me the same impression, when I first got to see it. As soon as we stepped out of the taxi, we headed towards the entrance, and decided to have a bottle of water first. While we were giving some water to our daughter, a family from Thailand asked us if we would be visiting the mosque, and they told us, that they were denied entrance, because they couldn’t present a PCR-test, that has been made maximum 14 days, prior the date of our visit. We couldn’t believe it. We made it to Dubai without any test, restaurants were open, no masks, nothing…. and for that mind-blowing beautiful mosque, we needed a PCR. At the entrance, obviously they didn’t let us in.

Later we were told, that if we would have flown into Abu Dhabi, we would have needed a PCR-Test for the flight, as laws are different than those from Dubai. Disappointed to took some photos from the outside, and called another taxi to get back to Dubai. I hope that I will get the chance to make it to that mosque one more time, maybe with a longer layover in Abu Dhabi.

Solid Tiki Bar

Just before making it to Dubai, weeks before, I totally got into the world of “TIKI”. There’s a ban for alcoholic drinks in public, so don’t expect to grab a beer in the street. However some fancy bars are hidden inside the bigger hotels. For “Trader Vic’s”, you’ll find the bar at the HILTON Hotel at JBR Beach.

It’s located on the 2nd floor of the hotel, and you’re free to visit the bar, even without being a guest a at Hilton’s. Just to make it short, there were 2 main dudes who started the tiki thing “Don the Beach Comber” and “Trader Vic’s”. So I felt pretty excited to visit one of the few “Trader Vic’s” bars left. The hotel bar, definitely hits the tropical beach vibe, with all kinds of wooden artifacts, tiki statues, and maritime lamps.

The drinks, which got served in fancy tiki-mugs, were excellent, however rather on the expensive side. Expect to pay around 12-15€ for a drink. Food was good, but for finger food, it was pricey as well. The music wasn’t, what I was expecting in a tiki bar, however we definitely enjoyed our 2 visits there. Our daughter enjoyed it as well.

 

Seek and find

Obviously you’ll find some hidden gems in the city, if you prepare well before visiting Dubai. It definitely has a lot to offer, however 85% of all these attractions, won’t be or fray, and most will be super touristic. Through Instagram I discovered a beautiful “Iranian Mosque”. If you look it up on social media, you’ll notice the 100’s of beautiful photographs of influencers swirling around the colorful tiles of the mosque. It took us 3 attempts to find the right mosque (the one we wanted to see), it’s located right across the “Iranian Hosptial” (look for that one on Google Maps). There are a couple of Iranian mosques spreaded through out the city, but the previous one, is the most photogenic.

Walking around Al Seef (old town), you will discover some cosy bars or restaurants, colorful street arts, and the souks. It will be less expensive, as visiting the top of Burj Khalifa. As far as I can remember, they were selling tickets at the Dubai Mall to get on top of the worldfamous skyscraper for 180€ (190$), per person. So buying two tickets to get on top, would the price we paid for a flight ticket.

So we decided to opt for cheaper experiences, like spending time at the waterperk with our daughter at JBR, which cost only 8€.

Another scam, was the aquarium at Dubai Mall. From the outside, the aquarium just looks fantastic, with its fascinating aquatic world behind the glass. The colors, the fishes, the lights, they’re just mesmerizing. So we stood in line, and paid 50€ per person for the whole experience. The Aquarium on the ground floor, actually isn’t bigger than what you see for free from the outside. After walking through the amazing tunnel, in which you will spend not more than 2 minutes, you will get to an elevator, that will bring you to the next level, where all the tourists come together for a walking tour through a kind of park. It was funny to see the penguins, however we just walked through the whole thing, as it just felt lame, paying that much for just another tourist trap. In the end it wasn’t worth the money.

You can’t go wrong with food and shopping in Dubai, however opting for crazy adventurous experiences, will come with their price.

Would we turn back to Dubai?

To be honest, if we would be desperately reaching for the sun during our coldest winter months, and i’d fancy some cosy times at the beach, and enjoy some delicious food in the evening, watching my daughter play at the beach, i'd make it back to Dubai. People who are fond of all-inclusive resorts, definitely will enjoy their holidays in Dubai.

However if you’re looking for an authentic and more eye-opening experience, fly a little further and go for a better and cheaper Asian destination.











One Week in Mexico City - An authentic experience

It’s sad to agree, that I grew up with movies and music clips, telling me how Mexico is supposed to look like. I’ve always been highly intrigued by the mexican culture, curious about their cuisine, and kinda liked some of the mexican music. Until recently I had no clue about Mexico City, however I was convinced that culturaly-wise it would easily beat Cancun, Tijuana or any other major tourist spot in México.

I still remember how amazed I was, when I was visiting San Francisco in 2015, and showing up at the concert of the band “Big big love”, who were based in Mexico City. An amazing concert, I was blown away. And still they didn’t sound like a traditional marriachi band or gangster rap music. The Mission district in San Francisco is also heavily influenced by the latino culture.

Getting my 4th tattoo by Indio Reyes, a tattoo artist from Guadalajara (after 10 years I finally figured out how to pronounce the name correctly), will always remain a great memory. During the tattoo session we were chatting about mexican gangster movies, and he told me his personal experiences of the rough life in Mexico.

And still …. I’d never had a clue what was going on in Mexico. Is Mexico really that rough? Is it as dangerous as pictured in the movies?

Prior my departure, people from work, were asking me, what the hell I was supposed to do in Mexico City for a week. That I should watch my back every second, and I should avoid to get into trouble. Super annoying…

Long story, cut short…. Mexico City was worth the trip! Every single day was quite unique, and we didn’t fell bored, even after 7 days.


Foreword.

The only thing that kind of bothered me, was the fact, that I didn’t want to attract the attention of the locals with my camera. As a foreigner, depending where you are visiting in Mexico, you’re the Gringo. The Gringo is supposed to carry the money, and living a wealthy life.

The locals at the Taco booth, are working their ass off, preparing the most delicious tacos, for less than a dollar. So in my own opinion, it wouldn’t be welcoming or fair, if I would stick my camera in front of their nose, and doing my thing with my photo-gear… I would have loved to take more shots, more clips…however out of respect, I stayed in stealth mode during this trip to avoid any trouble with my camera.

Tepito on the first day.

We were staying at City Centro Hotel, which was a pretty cool hotel. It was mixture of art house meets gothic church. Definitely a must-stay for people who like to take fancy photos of the hotel or portraits of their loved ones. The decor and the light was perfect for photo shootings.

The location was perfect as well, as it was in the very center of the historical district, just minutes away from Zacalõ.

Like already mentioned, we didn’t know much about the city. So after leaving the hotel on the first morning, we went to the world famous main square called Zacalo, and went to El Cardenal for breakfast. We didn’t expect something as fancy… we were threated like kings & queens. We paid for a fullbreakfast for 2 people in a fancy place 15$. And their housemade chocolate milk was the best I ever had.

After breakfast, we blindly walked up north, through the colorful alleys and followed the street markets along the way. While walking through the middle of the markets, an older lady pushed me, and showed me with her hand to hide my camera, that was hanging down my shoulder. Without understanding her words, she made me aware that it wouldn’t be the best place to show off a camera.

Minutes later I checked google maps, and I figured out, that we landed in Tepito. I’ve read about that neighbourhood, before making the trip, as I was intrigued to visit it, because it was known for being one of the roughest neighbourhoods in the City of Mexico. Tepito is also called “Barrio Bravo”, translated it means “the brave hood”. I was glad that we made it to Tepito, but on the other side, I also hesitated to take photos of people. After walking through the markets of the “barrio bravo”, we felt more and more relaxed, as the locals were rather kind and welcoming. We had some fresh fruits, a taco, some drinks.. spent some pesos on stuff, no one needs… and we felt happy to be in Mexico.

The markets are like a maze… they are endless, and it’s pretty hard to find your way out of it. As we managed to get out of Tepito, we discovered two more markets.

Our first day consisted of markets, fresh fruits and tacos. Not too bad.

Was Tepito rough ? Nope, not during the day…
Would I recommend it? Yes.
Would I go back after 10pm? Nope.

Markets, Markets, Markets…

When you think you’ve seen it all before, Mexico City definitely breaks the records of street markets, they are numerous, they are endless, and they are just anywhere. The first one we visited was "Mercado de Artesanías La Ciudadela”, a local market where they sell all kind of crafts and clothes. A paradise of souvenir shops. We easily lost track of time and spent more than 3 hours.

  • La Merced Mercado

  • Tepito Mercado

  • Coyoacan Mercado

These 3 were among the ones we visited. And they were huge.. we mostly got lost. Never the less, each of them were fun to visit, mainly because you’re trying every time to discover a hidden gem to buy among all the stalls. They sell everything from clothes to lucha libre masks, from fruits to savoury tacos, from animals to meat, from booze to juices… there’s nothing you can’t find at the “mercado”.

Lively during the day, dead at night.

We arrived around 11pm in Mexico city. After passing the customs and immigration, it only took us 15-18 minutes to reach downtown, we were surprise how deserted and dark the alleys were. Our taxi driver had a hard time finding the hotel, … most parts of the streets were literally dead, there wasn’t a soul out there.

The next morning as we were leaving the hotel at 9 am, the streets carried some moving early birds, but still not the busy life that we expected in Mexico. Passing 11 o’clock, the city exploded. You had to wait in line to get a juice or a taco at your favorite street food-booth. The sidewalks were full of people… this went on til around 7 or 8 pm, and then everybody seemed to vanish. This was pretty unusual for a big city.

Depending on the area, the park next to the “palacio postal” was always busy, even until very late at night. The main pedestrian shopping street next to Zacalò was also very busy until midnight. However most of the restaurants or mobile taquerias started shutting their business between 9 and 10 pm. It wasn’t like in Asia, were night markets attract the crowds until passed midnight… Numerous times we had a hard time finding food, if we wouldn’t leave early enough for dinner.

The weekend was different obviously. Mexico City seemed way more busy on a Friday or Saturday night.

UBER, über alles...

The good thing about Mexico City, there’s a free-wifi-spot almost around every main crossing or corner. Is it any beneficial to your instagram addiciton…nope, but it’s very helpful to call an UBER without having a local data simcard on your phone. Once you requested an UBER, you’re good to go. You don’t need any internet connection after the driver has picked you up. Later when you turn back to your hotel, you can add any tip to the fares if you feel like.

One day we requested an UBER from the historical district to the Floating Gardens of Xochimilco. It took us 50 minutes to reach it, and we only paid 12$. The fare to the airport would be 7-8 $ depending on the time you’re requesting the ride.

This means, UBER makes your life easier in Mexico, and you don’t need a sim card to use it.
Just as a side notice… almost none of the drivers spoke a word of English.


Floating Gardens of Xochimilco

It sounds weird, driving for 50 minutes in car to jump on a colorful boat, to float down a canal. But the experience was quite satisfying. As it was kind of different than the Allepey Backwaters that we experienced in India or the Bangkok river floats. What made it different in Mexico? Obviously the shape and the colors of the boats… they had a unique design we haven’t witnessed before.

The coolest part I guess, were the Marriacchis literally jumping onto your boat and playing mexican folk music, all dressed up in their beautiful Mexican tuxedos. They would play a song for 6-7$, as a group of 5-6 musicians. Sadly our musicians were playing right next to our boat.

We were one of the few tourists on the floating boats. Many mexican people were renting the boat for a 2 hour ride, and they would bring their own food or booze, and have a proper lunch with their closed ones. All the people were having a hell of a time…eating, singing and even dancing on the boat. The one hour tour would cost 500 pesos (25$ per boat). So splitting it by 4-6 people, gets you a pretty fair deal for 120 minutes of a hell of a time.

Nature wise it’s less impressive than the backwaters in India, however compared to Bangkok, it’s definitely nicer (and cleaner), however the presence of the temples in Bangkok made it all worth it again.



The Mexico City experience

What are the absolute must-sees in the city? Well you can’t compare Mexico City to New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles… but you could rather compare it to an amazing European capital city. It’s not the major tourists spots that are crazy interesting in CDMX, but rather the diversity of the city.

Every neighbourhood, kinda looks the same, but still different and unique at the same time. Each block of the city has its own kind of shops. One whole area is mainly selling music equipment, so consider it to be very loud and noisy. The following neighborhood, would mainly sell bathroom equipment, less crowded and a lot calmer. The hood before that, would mainly sell art-tools like paper, colors and brushes.

The shops will change from area to area, and so do the murals (street art) and people on the street.

In every area, you will find something that might catch your interest; be it a cool bar, a unique restaurant, a popular taco-truck, a park… there’s always something to do, where ever you’re walking.

This would one of our typical daytime routines:

  • we get out of the hotel, walk towards Zacalo. On the way there’s an amazing bakery Pasteleria Ideal, that works as a self-service and offers a wide diversity of pastries. After getting some sweets, next stop would be a take away coffee, from one of the many coffee shops (coffee was mostly good!)

  • walking towards the San Juan Market, we would have many options for a juice, fresh fruits, or just any kind of food. In front of the San Juan Market, there was the Fatasma Taco truck, where you could meet and greet a well know luchador (wrestler), who was always wearing his lucha libre mask.

  • walking east, you would make it to the barrio chino (chinatown) and move on to the very top of the Torre Latinoamericana (the top deck of a sky scraper).

  • walking up north you could check out one of the mercados, pass the Mexico Arena of the main wrestling stadium and move on to the shopping Area of ROMA (north or south)

Any directions you turn, there are always many options to check out. Shopping wise you can get anything you want, it feels pretty much like the US. And the look of the streets reminded so many time about LA.

LUCHA LIBRE on a Friday night.

Watching a mexican wrestling show, called Lucha Libre, was definitely on my to-do list, or maybe even on a bucket-list. We’ve all seen it on tv, Nacho Libre happened to be an epic comedy about the lucha, however none of my friends has ever been to a wrestling show.

Twice or sometimes even three times a week, you get the chance to enjoy the entertainment at the “Arena Mexico”. You can buy the tickets right in front of the arena, and the price range varey from 10-40$. We took the mid price ticket, which was around 20$. Our daughter didn’t have to pay for the entrance. And we managed to get a great view in the 8th or 9th row, in front of the ring.

Even though I’m so not a fan of american wrestling shows, Lucha Libre turned out to be really cool, and very impressive. The athletes put on such an amazing show, that it’s really hard to believe, that it’s just a show, and not a real fight. In my opinion, the mexican wrestlers are way more athletic and acrobatic than their american colleagues.

After entering the arena, an older gentleman lead us to our seat, and obviously he asked for a tip, and he wouldn’t leave until you handed him some pesos. Buying a soda, the seller, who was standing in-between the rows, told you “here's your change, and the 1$ is for me”, they took the tip without even asking. We didn’t care at all, but some tourists got really pissed, as you’re just “another gringo” with money for them.

The show was worth every pesos. Sadly we didn’t stay until the end, because our 11 months old daughter, was less fascinated by the show than we were. Outside the arena they sold all kinds of lucha merchandise. You’ get a shirt for 8$, a lot less than in a shop.

Definitely a night to remember!


Last hours in Mexico City

So after having visited most of our hotspots on our wishlist, we visited the colorful kiosk "Alameda de Santa María”, located a short taxi ride away from the city center. The kiosk is part of the Alameda Park. It’s a peaceful area, nothing to exciting, but definitely a cool spot to take some photos of your family or friends. The details, patterns, and colors of the construction are quite impressive.

Following the visit to the park, we were looking forward to witness the incredible library “Biblioteca Vasconcelos”. The inside of the building, considering what we’ve read and seen online, looks like a highly modern building taken out from a sci-fi movie. Sadly due to the pandemic, the library was temporary closed.

We’ve seen a lot of things in Mexico’s capital. I’m pretty sure that we haven’t seen it all. However as we were traveling with a one year old baby, we were glad that we could enjoy all these beautiful places, with summerish temperatures during the day, great food, and millions of colors around us.

We decided that we would make it back next year, and hopefully our daughter will be more cooperative with longer drives, as we would opt for a roadtrip. Mexico we really liked you!



























Ile Maurice - 12 days in Mauritius

After having visited Curacao a little bit more than 2 months ago, we got a taste of how it feels like being again far away from home. The nine hour flights to the dutch caribbean, differed from the closer european trips we did the last two years during pandemic times.

Checking the traveling updates on daily basis, we were patiently waiting for the news that North America would open its borders again for travelers. And they did, Canada and America started welcoming Europeans again. However December wouldn’t be the best season to get into a holiday mood. Asian countries were still shut down for tourists.

As Mauritius popped up on the list, it just felt like a match to what we were expecting on a last big trip, before Vanessa would start working again, after her 1 year lay off, after giving birth.

Mauritians were enjoying their summer season, the islands looks and feels very tropical, the hindu culture was widely spread throughout the island, street markets, a different cuisine,… everything that we were missing in Curacao, Mauritius Island had it.

It was quite surprising to notice that Mauritius is located on the african continent, not too far away from Madagascar. “Ile Maurice” is the only african country, where Hinduism is the most dominant religion. And while wandering across the island, we didn’t feel like being in Africa, as the locals reminded me so much of indian people… speaking french. As we speak french, it was quite helpful to get into instant conversations.

Grand Baie & Pereybere.

We booked our first hotel in Pereybere, as it was located close enough to Grand Baie, which was supposed to be THE town of the island. It definitely wasn’t the case. Pereybere was cosier, cleaner, and offered the most beautiful beach we experienced on the island. Nothing amazing, but very relaxing with a right mix of tourists and locals.

Food trucks were very popular among the crowds, and they were spread out all over the beaches and city centers. The served food was usually a mix of creole, indian and thai food. Cheap and delicious!

There was actually nothing in both villages, that would cost you more than 1 or 2 hours of your time. We needed to rent a car, to start discovering the rest of the island.

Our first hotel “Bleu de toi” in Pereybere was absolutely wonderful, and it made us feel like being back in Thailand (exotic garden, cosy pool, endless palm trees, coconuts, colorful birds…). They helped us booking the car for our two-weeks-stay.

However…. this was my first time driving on the left lane, with a steering wheel on the right side.
It was really something that I tried to avoid for ages, as I expected my brain not to cope too well with the lane switch. To be honest, it was actually quite easy, because we were renting an automatic car.

Driving a scooter in Bali, was easy… driving a car here in Mauritius, wasn’t equally easy, however after surviving the first 30 minutes, you kinda got used to it.

Next to our hotel, was the hippest spot we witnessed on the island, it was a coffee & breakfast bar called “Bloom”, very stylish with great food, however super horrible service. Besides “Bloom”, the beach and a bunch of average restaurants, there wasn’t much to discover in Pereybere, but we did enjoyed the quietness and simplicity of the area.

Grand Baie was less charming, it was loud, dirty, and everybody tried to sell you something. We randomly discovered the Grand Baie Bazarr on our last day. The shop keepers were trying so hard to make us buy something, that we literally ran off.

Where to stay on Mauritius Island ?

Prior our holidays, we were googling to find the best area to book our accommodations. Most bloggers were writing about Grand Baie and Flic-en-Flac being the hippest spots, and the most lively at night. Were these bloggers right? Hard to agree, however traveling during a pandemic makes every city completely different, compared to what it used to be years ago.

Like on a compass, you can clearly divide Mauritius into 4 main areas, the North, the South, East and West.

North & South

We informed ourselves with blog posts and figured out the northern part of the country would be the more entertaining area. However it turned out that we enjoyed the south much more. The main attractions of the island would be located around the capital Port Louis, and on the southern part of the map.

North sounded more fancy, but it wasn’t. The least enjoyable city would be Grand Baie, that everybody is talking about.

All the beaches we visited were equally mediocre. The surround palm trees made the beaches look spectacular, however the dirty waters, the tons of seaweeds, the rough sand, diminished the whole experience.

East & West

West clearly wins. The major attractions were located on the west side. Inbetween, but further on the west side, you would find “Goodlands”. The most authentic city we had witnessed, as we were the only tourists among the locals for a couple of hours. Temples, food markets, pooja shops, and all kind of shops that actually don’t attract the typical tourists… we loved it. It felt authentic, and completely different than the big resorts, or fancy places that visitors tend to attend.

The West coast definitely is worth the ride to discover its natural beauty, however expect to pass drive many big hotels and golf fields.

Mauritius actually isn’t that small

As we booked 12 nights on the island, we first panicked that it would get boring for spending that much time on the same island. We initially had the idea of visiting Reunion Island during the same trip. We were so wrong. Mauritius has so much to offer, that it keeps you easily busy for 2 weeks.

Our first taxi ride from the airport to Grand Baie lasted around 70-80 minutes (2700 rupees = 54 euro). It felt like an never ending journey, as I expected to reach the hotel within half an hour.

Driving form the very north to the very north will take an hour. Driving from the very east side to the west end side, will take you another 30-40 minutes. On daily basis we spent comfortably 2 hours driving around.


Mauritus can be affordable

Before heading to the island, I was told, that I should expect prices like in Curacao: overpriced food and drinks, and that I should hire a taxi for 100 euro a full day. Here’s a list of some expenses:

  • taxi to airport - 2700 rupees - 54 euro

  • sim card - 400 rupees - 8 euro

  • price of a local meal - 270 rupees - 5,50 euro

  • a fresh cut pineapple at the beach - 150 rupees - 3 euro

  • car rental for 12 days - 18500 rupees - 373 euro

  • local veggie roti (street-food) - 30 rupees - 60 cent

  • dinner for 2 people with drinks 900 rupees - 18 euro (2 people!)

My personal must-sees

Without a doubt I enjoyed “Ile Maurice” as a whole. The whole package made it a unique experience, that would always make us wanna go back. The memories would consist, of the great weather during the european winter season, the beauty of the island’s nature, cheap food (actually most things were kinda cheap), super friendly citizens, the endless amount of palm trees, the right amount of tourist attractions, learning about their culture while following our journey, safety, rum culture, …

However if I would have to recommend something, it would be these following attractions:

  • Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Garden (in Pamplemousses)

  • sunset bathing at Pereybere Beach (it’s a simple, but cosy & beautiful beach)

  • Vanilla Nature Park (tortoises, tortoises and even more tortoises… mind blowing!)

  • Cap Malheureux

  • Goodlands

To keep it short, I will just summarize these previous favorites.

The botanical garden in Pamplemousses is quite an eye-catcher… it’s huge, it’s green, colorful, and so photogenic. Wanna post some great shots on Instagram? Expect to spend at least 2 hours at the park.

What we did like about Pereybere Beach: it was clean, the bottom of the sea wasn’t muddy, as many other beaches. Barely no seaweeds in the water. People from all cultural and religious backgrounds were bathing at the same time. And by the way, it’s definitely a pretty beach, if you ask me.

Have you ever fed a tortoise? A big tortoise… one that is over 100 years old. These lovely and impressive animals are just laying around at the Vanilla Nature Park. They ask a small entrance fee. The petting and feeding is free (if you find some greens on the ground). Otherwise you can buy some plants for a couple of cents. I would say spending time with the tortoises really made it a happy day. Such cool animals!

As soon as you are driving by the chapel/church “Notre-Dame Auxiliatrice” at Cap Malheureux, it pulls your car aside to the closest parking, because the whole place is just crazy beautiful. The long stretched island in the background, in between blue-greenish water and trees, in the foreground a chapel with its attractive red colored roof. It’s a fest for your eyes. For my taste it’s a little bit too touristic, as the locals are trying to make you spend money for souvenirs or taking photos of the fishermen. But it’s still worth it.

Wanna experience the authentic city life? Go spend some time at Goodlands. Is it pretty? No. Is it cool? Most definitely.


The kindness of the local Mauritians

What impressed us quite a lot, was the kindness of Mauritius people. Arriving at every hotel, we got a free welcome drink. Always without alcohol, but they looked fancy, and tasted delicious. Have you ever tried ice cold & sweetened lemongrass tea. So good!

While we were having breakfast at the guesthouse “Bleu de toi”, the lady who was preparing the food, carried and played around with our daughter, so we could enjoy the breakfast for 5 to 10 minutes. Our baby girl loved discovering the surroundings with her.

At the restaurant at night, same story. The manager took our daughter and showed her around, while we were eating our dishes.

It was just 5-7 minutes, however long enough to just eat without taking care of an excited baby.
Many locals wanted to have her on their arms. They seemed very touchy towards little kids.
This was also a nice opportunity to get in touch with locals, or ask them questions about their country and daily life.

When we checked out from the guesthouse, the lady offered us a cute little dress for our daughter. Priceless!

At our last hotel, the super welcoming manager, threw in a couple of free rums, offered us two cans of Mauritius tea brands, and took some photos with our daughter behind the bar.

We were spoilt with the hospitality of Greek people during our summer trips in Greece. We thought this couldn’t be topped, but look here, Mauritius was just even crazier in that sense.

Vanessa, Valentina and I… we enjoyed our time in Mauritius and would certainly recommend to everybody to visit this gem of an island.

While leaving the country, I forgot my credit card in the rental car, that I parked at the wrong spot, as we were quite late, and we couldn’t see the traffic sign for the drop-off parking. Later, as we were sitting on the airplane, I texted the contact person, and apologized for not making it to the drop-off zone. The gentleman informed me that I had forgotten my credit card in the car. He asked me if he should bring it to the terminal. As it was too late, he sent a proof that he had cut the card in tiny little pieces. A final proof just before take off, how helpful the locals are. Thank you Mauritius!



























10 days in Curacao (The dutch Caribbean)

After a couple Europe trips, and following the 18 months of pandemic restrictions, we finally managed to get out of Europe for the first time. Aiming for a specific country wasn’t that easy, as the individual Covid rules were changing daily from country to country. Something that was legal this week, could have become illegal the following week.

Thailand wasn’t open yet for tourism, except Phuket. Same counts for the U.S . Infections were on the rise in Columbia and Mexico. There wasn’t a real safe zone that could promise safe holidays without a hassle.

Curaçao popped up; the infection curve was quite low, and the allowance for vaccinated travelers made it easy to visit the country. All we needed was a PCR-test, and a travel insurance (due to covid). On the 3rd day, we would have to undergo another Antigen-Test in Curacao for 20 us$. Everything turned out just fine. We made it to the Caribbean !


After passing the usual business upon arrival at the airport (a local simcard was 50$), we stepped outside the arrival hall, and noticed the dutch language among the locals chitchatting with the tourists. American fastfood stores were decorating the first sights on the island.

The taxi driver, was a bulky bald guy, with a suntan and a dutch english accent. He reminded me so much of the dutch legendary fighter Bas Rutten. Curaçao seemed to be a big melting pot of the european and african culture.

Sadly during our taxi ride (which was 40$ to get to the city center of Willemstad) we were told, that the government imposed another curfew, starting at midnight. The shops had to close at 18:00h (6pm). Restaurants could remain open until 23:00 (11pm).

While choosing between Aruba and Curacao, we went for Curacao partially as it was supposed to have less restrictions. But I think in the end it was coping with the same pandemic restrictions as Aruba.


Willemstad.

After checking in at the Saint Tropez Hotel at around 9pm, we decided to have a walk, to see what the streets would be like around our accomodation. That first night we noticed that actually not much was going on. For a travel destination, and by the way, not a cheap one, the city was literally dead at night.

All the menus and signs were written in english and dutch. Prices were shown in “guilders” and US-dollars. You could pay in both currency. (1$ = 2 guilders).

We decided to split our stay at two different hotels during our 10 day stay on the island. Willemstad seemed to be the busiest city, other areas were rather known for its fancy resorts. During the following days, it turned out that our expectations of the city center slightly differed from what was actually happening.

Don’t get me wrong, the neighbourhoods are kinda unique, colorful houses with a tiny touch of Cuba, mixed with the architecture of the Netherlands. Some restaurants and bars are bordering with the sea, which comes with a splending view while enjoying your order. There were a couple of palmtrees spread out through out the city, that would give you a caribbean feel. Some parts of the city were pretty indeed.

On the other hand, at the most famous pedestrian bridge, Queen Emma Bridge, the luxurious stores, Rolex, Panerai, Tudor, ..were lined up, to decorate the most popular colored houses of the city. There was this weird contrast between poverty and luxury, nothing was left inbetween both ends. And you could feel that as a tourist, walking around with your camera on the back, and the locals staring at you while smoking a cigarette or sharing a cheap drink.

As for myself I missed the african/caribbean influence in the streets of Willemstad. It felt so heavily european. And it was supposed to please the tourists. Fancy dining places, luxurious hotels. Half alive in the morning, and dead at night (obviously due to the pandemic).

The restaurants were rather flashy, knowing that the locals don’t make the kind of money, the “white tourists” are bringing money to the island. Nothing was cheap. Expect to pay 30$ for a meal at a restaurant, 10-12$ for a drink. Some nights we ended up paying 100$ for 2 people, with only one drink (no bottle).

We managed to visit Plasa Bieu a couple of times. Plasa Bieu was a local foodcourt, where the citizens of Willemstad went for lunch. The place opened at 11:00 and closed its doors when the food was sold out (around 3 or 4 pm). It was the only kind of authentic food place that we discovered in Willemstad. Even there you had to pay 8-12$ for an average dish: rice, beans and meet or fish. They served it in paper boxes or paper plates. I loved it, as it felt less flashy than its surrounding restaurants.

Willemstad didn’t have much to offer, Queen Emma bridge, the colorful houses, a handful of very uninteresting shops, 2 neighbourhoods (Otrobanda & Punda). You could go for the aquarium and the “blue curacao” liquor factory. However it all looked super dull online, that we didn’t do the tour.

There was a daily market, which we visited a couple of times in the morning, as it was one of the few places that felt curacao-ish. Locals selling their crafts and homemade products for cheap money. It reminded us of the night markets in asia, kind of… but still not comparable with their huge markets.

South of Willemstad, we spent half a day at Mambo Beach, which is a man-made beach with sand, huts and palmtrees. Actually it’s worth to spend some time there, especially with kids. Mambo beach, hosts many shops and beach bars, and is definitely up to entertain the tourists. We enjoyed our visit.

Certainly the main city isn’t culturally on top, however you can find some delicious options, to spend your money. We loved Kome & Roast Cannibal Rumbar. The last one offers all kinds of foods, despite its carnivorish name. The staff of “Roast” was super friendly and offered us the best service. Without a doubt a fine dining spot!

The island & beach hopping.

You get can the full blast experience of Willemstad within two whole days. There’s really not that much to enjoy in the main city. Get a car and witness what Curacao is famous for, its blue shiny coves. We managed to see a handful of beaches:

  • Playa Fort

  • Playa Lagun

  • Playa Kenepa (Grote Knip)

  • Playa Jeremi

  • Playa Grandi

  • Porto Marie

  • Mambo Beach

To be honest, I’m not a beach bum. I could survive a trip for not getting a sun tan, however I do really love the sea, and be in the water. So we had couple of joyful mornings drive across the green island, to do some snorkeling in the clearest waters. The photos speak for themselves. I can’t deny the beauty of Curacao’s beaches.

The downside would have been the hundreds of dutch tourists. Barely no locals were visiting the beaches, except on our last morning in Lagun Beach, where a group of “Curacaoans” were enjoying themselves in the shadow under a palmtree, dancing, twerking and having a good laugh. All the tourists on the beach, including us, really enjoyed their presence, as it made the beach day more authentic. That’s actually what I expected on the island: rum, dancing, loud latin/african music, and lots of laughter.

Our favorites must have been Playa Lagun, for its cosiness, and Playa Kenepa for it’s wide angled view from above the entrance to the beach.

Snorkeling was kinda fun at any beach. We were lucky to meet a turtle underwater, while snorkeling far away from the tourist crowds. It’s was one single water turtle, but we were the only ones spending time with the animal. Definitely one of my highlights at the beach.

Expect to drive 30-45 minutes to reach most of the beaches and coves. The route isn’t very entertaining, you will get short instant scenic sights, but most views are just about the green plains of the island. On the way to the beach, there are two main spots where you can observe the pink flamingos. As they live free in a natural environment, you are just able to take photos from a certain distance. Nice to see, but don’t expect too much of an experience.


Bring drinks and food as well! Only a few beaches have a bar. As the temperatures tend to get very high around noon, it would feel like a torture to not hydrate yourself. Obviously if you fancy an umbrella or a sun-bed you gotta pay 10-12$.


Local life.

What I actually missed during this trip, was the interraction with local people. We only shared some small talk with waitresses or the women at the marked, where we spent our money. I can’t tell if the curacao people were rather reserved, or due to the pandemic, that the whole city was in a slow motion mode.

The only communication happened when we had to spent some money. Some people consider their experience as a paradise on earth, because of the wonderful beaches, however this wasn’t the case for myself.

The covid pandemic definitely hit the whole world right in its hard. And the poorer countries are without a doubt struggling a lot more with their weaker economy. On our last two nights, the streets got pretty busy for a couple of hours, and I can imagine that pre-covid, Curacao could have been a lot nicer. However as already mentioned, outside of Willemstad, there’s really nothing to experience except raw nature without its people.

As for myself I enjoyed the strolls through the neighborhood, as it didn’t feel like being in a dutch city. The wooden houses and the colors were rather on the caribbean flair.

It definitely felt great to be far away from home again, after being attached to the closer countries for more than a year. I expected Curaçao to be a little more of an eye-opener. This wasn’t the case for my own personal preference. However I will just stop complaining about it.

We had a lovely time with our daughter, who was discovering the waves and the dips into clear blueish water. This would count for me as well. I learned that there’s a language called “papiamento” out there. Blue Curacao (the liquor) is way overrated or underrated…from now on the blue colored cocktails will always remind me of the beautiful coves of Curaçao.

(This beautiful coctail, was served at the restaurant “BALI”, which serves thai and indonesian food. Definitely a recommandation, as we were blown away by their padthai.)


























Back to the Greek Islands: Paros & Syros

After our wonderful trip in June to Greece, we wanted to choose the next destination for our summer holidays. As both of us, wanted a +1 on the country-list we visited, we went for Malta, as we haven’t been there yet. Sadly, and luckily at the same time, the government of Malta decided a week prior our departure, to close their borders, and only grant access for vaccinated people to their country.

My girlfriend and I, we wouldn’t fulfill the requirements at the time yet, which meant our summer holidays were canceled. As we have already been several times to Spain, Portugal, and Italy… we didn’t hesitate to throw Greece in the room. As we really had enjoyed our time while doing island hopping in June, falling in love with the Greek cuisine, nothing would be wrong, to make it back to the Cyclades only one month later.

Obviously we wanted to discover two new islands. We could have debated for hours, which island would be the best one to visit, as there’s an endless amount of options. We knew this wouldn’t be the last time either, so opted for Syros & Paros.

Syros.

As Athens makes it pretty convenient to reach it from Luxembourg, we spent the first night in the capital, because we were looking forward for another great dinner in the city.

It felt like a déja-vu, as we experience the same lovely dinners only a month ago. We decided to make it a short night, as we had to get up early, take a cab, and make it onto the ferry.

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Syros was only 2 hours away from Athens. Syros might have the most exciting approaching view, while the ferry starts its docking routine onto the shore. The hills and tall buildings of Syros gives its the city that antic vibe as we know it from ancient italian cities. The buildings look pretty much alike, just different than the usual white houses.

Because Syros seemed to be and look different than its neighboring islands, it seemed more intriguing than just “another island”. Sadly it wasn’t that much special. First of all, it seemed almost dead throughout half a day, the streets remained empty and most shops were closed after lunch until 5pm. So the best hours to visit the city was in the morning or in the early evening.

The restaurants were mostly just packed at night. Throughout the city didn’t seem very attractive.

Before making it to Syros, we read that it offers numerous shopping places. In my own personal opinion the shops were pretty dull, nothing that would catch our interests. Unluckily we also managed to have a drink and some tapas/mezes at two awful places. This was the first time where we got to have bad food. And thankfully it remained the only one.

Syros’s streets made it easy to walk around with a stroller, as the streets had marble sidewalks. Besides two very scenic view points, and its two charming public bathing spots, there wasn’t really much left to discover. The whole vibe of the city just seemed boring and touristic.

The nightly dinner close to the water were alright, but nothing special. It would get quite busy at night though, compared to a dead city during midday, people seemed to enjoy the lower temperatures, followed by a windy breeze.

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I felt pretty disappointed, as I expected a lot more. The hotel we stayed at, offered a perfect location, and the staff was super friendly. However besides a couple of charming corners on the island, we missed the scenic view from Mykonos or Santorini. Obviously those are hard to beat.

We spent one afternoon at one beach, which isn’t worth writing about. The water was clear and warm, however the beach was packed and there was barely no space to move around on the grey thick stoney sand.

Syros to me, felt more like the harbour area of Italy, or Spain. It didn’t give me the wow effect we experienced on our first Greece trip. I won’t complain too much about it, as we are still satisfied that we could see something else, and maybe not the most typical tourist destination in Greece.


Paros

After 3 nights, we moved on to Paros. We didn’t really know what to expect from Paros, except for its charming harbor in Naussa, that reminded us of Mykonos. We left the ferry in Parikia, which didn’t blow us away either. Too many people were jumping off the big ship, and it was barely impossible to get a cab, that would bring us 3 to Naussa. After the first taxis had left the ferry terminal, we were walking around to find a cab, without any hope. I called the hotel, and we were told, due to the high amount of tourists in Paros this year, everybody was fighting for a ride. We were told to wait at the taxi stand, and pray for a drive to show up. After half an hour we got lucky and made it to Naussa.

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Our hotel Parian Lithos Hotel, was just amazing! A natural wellness spot, that offered cosiness and quietness. I instantly fell in love with it. From our room’s terrace we had a view onto the agean sea. Walking down the road and a tiny path, within a minute you could jump into the water, and have a dive around a little cove, a hidden gem, that attracted 2-3 people in the morning or in the evening at sunset. It felt like a private cove, that belonged to us, … skinny dipping would have been an option.

Every morning after waking up, I tried to dip into to water for 10 minutes, take a shower, and share the breakfast with our little family.

Walking up-hill, to follow the paths along the beach towards the center of Naoussa took us 10 minutes to reach the buzzling streets of the town. On our first night we were amazed how many people were enjoying their nights on the island. Too many great restaurants too list. The area around the harbor was a tourist magnet, everybody was rumbling to get a table close to the water, and under the lights, that gave this place a special tough. It just felt like the perfect place, to have the perfect dinner, in the most greek harbour village. What in experience. We were mesmerized by what we saw in front of us.

It was just the complete opposite of Syros. It felt so much more like Mykonos, flowers, white walls, octopus hanging on a rail next to the water, countless fisherboats, the sound of waves crashing. We just fell back in love with Greece, like we did during our first trip.

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As for myself, I could have spend a week in Naoussa, eating & drinking the homemade wine by our hotel. Everything looked so photogenic in Naoussa.

We decided to rent a car, as we had planned to spend 3 full days on the island. While driving around it felt a little bit like Santorini, big deserted areas, with not that much to do. As it was burning hot during the middle of the day, most traditional villages remained empty, except for a couple of tourists trying to get some shots of the colorful doors and houses.

The beaches were alright. We visited the closest to our hotel “Kolympethres Beach” which just felt like a local beach with crystal clear water, and the rather fancy “Faragas Beach” that looks actually a lot nicer than on the photos online. Under the umbrella at Faragas, you had a push-button to order drinks from the bar. It was the best beach we had experienced in Greece so far.

We were looking forward to visit Anti Paros, the little island just next to Paros. Sadly we didn’t make it, as we were struggling with the results of our Antigen Tests on our last day on the island.

We didn’t visit Parikia either, because we enjoyed it so much to spend our time in Naoussa. It’s hard to describe why we would recommend you to visit this special place, as it doesn’t offer that many touristic attractions, however it’s the vibe and busy life that happens within the small village of Naoussa.

The food was exceptional. Some fine dining places, were just a bit more expensive than the usual greek cuisine you would get. Expect to pay around 100€ for two people without too many drinks. The nights get quite busy, and on specific days through out the week, you really need to book your table. We were looking forward to eat at “BARBAROSSA”. Their terrace might be the most bustling spot among the restaurants, and it definitely attracts the customers. We fancied one night to spoil ourselves. The service was impersonal and quite bad, as all the waiters work with headsets, and they barely interact with you. The food was a blast ! Without a doubt it was one of the best restaurants we tried during our trip. However is it worth the money and its lame posh customers? I can’t tell. However the scenic spot where you eat, is worth the money.

I wish that we can make it back someday to that beautiful island, and get the chance to spend a couple more nights at Parian Lithos Hotel. Check out their hotel, you won’t be disappointed.

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The Greek Islands: Mykonos & Santorini (with a baby)

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What a year it has been so far. The second wave of our pandemic kicked in during the first quarter of the year. Europe locked itself down, and traveling went into pause-mode… again. That same first quarter of 2021, in march, I became a father of our lovely daughter. Three months later, we decided to get out of our country, and see what it feels and looks like to travel with a 3 month old baby.

In my opinion we chose the perfect location to make it an easy journey with a newborn and still experiencing something unique within Europe. It took me too long to make it to Greece, so glad that our daughter had the chance to see those beautiful cities after opening her eyes not too long ago.

Arrival in Athens.

We booked a flight from our homecountry to Athens, as it was the best city that would match our schedule and budget. The arrival happened without a hassle, we just had to hand out our negative result of the PCR test and we were good to go and jumped onto the first taxi waiting in line, outside the airport.

The taxi driver happened to be Dimitris, a gentle 40-year-old man. During the ride he turned off the taxi-meter and the first thing that came up in my head “that man is about to rip you off”, so I asked him, why he decided to turn off the taxi meter. We were told, that we pay a fix price for the airport transfer (35 €), we looked it up online and he was right. He stopped his car just to proove us that he wasn’t lying, showed us a pamphlet with the taxi fares. I almost felt bad for asking.

The good thing about our story, Dimitris seemed to be a very trustful person after our complicated start, that we decided to keep his phone number, and call him for every trip we had in and around Athens.

My impression about Athens.

Initially we didn’t plan on spending too much time in Athens. While preparing our trip, we couldn’t find too many sightseeing spots that would catch our interests. So we decided to book a hotel close to the Acropolis, to witness its beauty in the early morning from our balcony.

We also visited that main attraction in Athens as it was located only 10 minutes walking away from our hotel. To be honest I expected something more impressive. We were glad that the top-hill wasn’t packed with tourists, due to the covid pandemic. However they were still restoring and fixing up the Acropolis. The monument looked like a construction site. The entrance was 20 Euro per person, not the cheapest attraction I’ve been to.

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The Acropolis has been one of those things that I’ve known from the history books since I was a kid, and finally managed to see it in real. Therefor I didn’t regret spending the 20€ bill to see “the show”. You get a pretty impressive view of Athens from top of the hill.

As it was already 18:30 when left the main attraction, we walked downhill towards Plaka, and Monastiraki Square. Without its historical monuments, Athens would be comparable to an average Italian city. The family houses look quite similar. And the city shares another common thing with Italy… the amazing food ! And the show must go on… after our first culinary experience in Athens, we came to the conclusion, that the Greek cuisine made it among our favorites of Europe. On our way back home from the islands, we spent two more days in Athens. We discovered so many hip & fancy looking bars and restaurants. Every dish we ordered was delicious! You can never go wrong with a Greek dinner. I would really love to see what night life looks like, after the city has recovered from the pandemic.

Getting on the ferry.

I wasn’t sure about what to expect from “island hopping”, as that topic always came up when talking about Greece. As there are plenties of islands to discover further away from the mainland of Greece, the choice is yours. We decided to do two of the most popular islands: Mykonos and Santorini. Obviously we knew both islands because of the beautiful photos of those white houses that regularly pop up on social media platforms.

From the city center of Athens, we made it to the Piraeus Port in less than 20 minutes by taxi in the early morning, thanks to Dimitris. There are two ports in Athens, which offer a slightly different time schedule for your ferries to the Islands. The travel-time of the ferries, as well the price, might differ from port to port. (The second one is called Rafina and is located further away from the city center, but closer to the airport).

The prices of one-way tickets vary from 30-70€ per ticket, per person.

There are slower ferries and faster ferries. For example, we booked the “Seajets” ferry to get from Santorini back to Athens. The ride took around 5 hours. With the slower ferry (Blue Star Ferry) it would have lasted over 7 hours. Sometimes it’s worth spending the extra bucks, to make the trip more pleasant.

Mykonos.

As we really didn’t know much about Greece and its many islands, we opted for the two most popular ones: Mykonos & Santorini. As we heard many negative echoes about Mykonos: the jet-setter island, party town for rich kids, the expensive island… all these criterias which actually don’t match with our lifestyle, turned out to be less disturbing, as we really enjoyed our time out there.

What did I like most about Mykonos? It’s clean, it’s less posh than Santorini, distances are shorter, and like we always whispered while walking through the tiny alleys of Mykonos Town: “do you feel the joie de vivre” (joy of life). The scenic view of Little Venice, while having lunch or breakfast is priceless. The tiny Greek houses, a mix of white and pastel colors, the windmills, the waves hitting the shore just two meters away from your dining table. The hospitality of the Greek people is flawless. You just wanna lay back, enjoy the view, and being grateful to have it made to that beautiful island. There aren’t too many attractions. As it was our first trip with a baby, we decided to move on step by step, to get the feel of traveling as a family. And I think it was just the perfect destination to experience it for the first time together. We didn’t care about sightseeing or tourist spots… the white alleys, with detailed pastel colors on the houses, colorful red flowers… it just looked very photogenic, it was such a pleasure to discover the tiny corners of the old town. We spent 3 days in Mykonos, and every day we discovered a new hidden gem, even though the old-town looks pretty much the same.

The first food experience happened in Athens, however the magic just went on in Mykonos. We didn’t have one single bad dish. We kinda fell in love with the Greek cuisine, as we barely ever had real greek food at home.

Prior our adventure, we were told that Mykonos would be super expensive. To be honest, it isn’t more expensive than the country of Luxembourg, where we live. We spent 3 nights at the “Hermes Hotel”. The pick-up and drop at the harbor was for free. The room was quite beautiful, with a big window facing the ocean, which allowed us to witness the daily sunset from our room. Our stay cost 70 euro a night per person (140€ / room). I remember paying 50€ a day in a Hostel in Hamburg. Therefor don’t let the prices of Mykons or Santorini intimidate you. While browsing for hotels in Mykonos, we found lovely apartments for 70€ a night, right in the heart of Mykono’s Old Town.

As we were traveling with our baby daughter, we skipped the beaches, because of the aggressive sunlight, that gave me a rough sunburn on our first days in Mykonos.

On our last day, we headed uphill to the 180° Sunset Bar, which wasn’t located too far away from our hotel. We missed the sunset by half an hour, however we were glad for discovering this gem of a bar which gave you the best view over the bay. The entrance, which came with a free drink, was quite pricey for 20€ per person. However it was all worth it. The design, the tables, the bars and the decoration on site had a feel of the Coachella Festival.

After having enjoyed our stay that much in Mykonos, Santorini had a tough time to top it.

Santorini.

The ferry to Santorini took about 3 hours. While stepping out of the ferry you could already feel that we reached a tourist spot, as the locals were waving with panels for shuttles, car rentals, the different buses. Everything happened with a rush, and it felt like “you gotta leave from here ASAP”. 10 Minutes later, we sat on a shuttle with a bunch of other tourists (50€ for the 3 of us).

Santorini’s two biggest cities are: Oia & its capital Fira.
Where to stay?

To make it short, Oia is nicer to walk around, Fira offers a more impressive view of the ocean surrounding the islands. Oia is posh and has a luxurious feel, Fira gathers the usual tourists. The typical “clichee” photos of Santorini were usually shot in Oia.

We had decided to book 3 nights in Finikia, which was right next to Oia, 15 minutes walking. Even though we were kinda disappointed about Santorini in our first day, as we expected something different, it turned out that Oia was a good starting point to discover the Island, and later on to enjoy the evening walks in the city center.

How could Oia be any kind of disappointment? When following the white shiny marble path to the end of the Island, where everybody’s is heading to see the sunset, you slowly get surrounded by luxurious boutiques of all sorts of expensive brands. Jewelry stores, fashion stores, watch stores… they had it all; Luxurious hotels with an endless amount of swimming pool.

It didn’t feel like the “joie de vivre” we experienced in Mykonos, however rather a tourist trap. Nothing felt traditionally Greek. You can walk through Oia within two hours. As we were visiting during a pandemic year, there were less tourists, which made the city center still enjoyable. The shop keepers told us that during a normal summer, approximately 3000 people would come daily around 8pm to witness the sunset, and that you would have to stand in line 3 hours before sunset, to get a descent view. Thank god, the place was less loaded in 2021.

Oia is located on the very top of a hill. You can walk down to Ammoudi Bay, that looks like a charming fisher village, surrounded by cute little houses and lots of fisher boats. However on site, it turned out that Ammoudi Bay was a bay packed with restaurants to attract the tourists. We skipped it, nevertheless the bay was worth a photo.

We rented a car (35€ a day) and visited a couple of places, spread across the island: Red Rock Beach, Fira, White Beach, Pyrgos and the Akrotiri Lighthouse. Besides Oia and Fira, no other spot was a must-see.

As we were glad having it made two both islands on the same trip, we clearly prefered our stay in Mykonos. While getting back to Athens with the ferry, we passed Ios, Naxos, and a couple of other beauties. All these looked cosier and more enjoyable than Santorini.

Spending another day in Athens and we didn’t get bored. We managed to discover a bunch of entertaining night-life streets and a couple of shops. Athens wouldn’t be the place we could recommend for a city-trip, however it’s the perfect starting poing to visit Greece. Every night in Athens we enjoyed the evening walks to the restaurant, through the very lively alleys, while having a view onto the Acropolis.


To me, Greece fullfilled all the expecations I could have on a trip:

  • great food & drinks (sometimes pretty cheap as well!)

  • if I can post more than 2 photos a day on instagram, and I get enough footage for a travel video, you can consider Greece to be quite photogenic. The pastel colors of the architecture, and the scenic blue & greenish landscapes makes the country very attractive for photographers and videographers.

  • the hospitality of the greek people was out of this world. thank you!

  • getting around with the ferries was very convenient, and made traveling easy, even with a baby.

If Asia or America won’t open any time soon, we would definitely come back to Greece in 2021.

The Swiss Alps: 4 days in Grindelwald

Traveling during pandemic times isn’t the easiest or the most joyful experience. The countries, that still show up on your to-do-list, for the past 12 months, have remained closed for tourism. There isn’t much of a choice available.

Since my childhood, I have tried to avoid the Belgium coast or Switzerland, as a travel destination. Most of the people that I knew back then, who were vivid fans of Belgium or swiss holidays, were people I never wanted to have dinner with. Boring people with a lack of taste.

Well.. 25 years later, we made it to Switzerland for four days. Was it that bad? Actually not. Surprisingly we enjoyed many beautiful views of the swiss alp: the mountains, lakes, cabins… Due to covid everything else, except supermarkets were closed, but we managed to make the best out of it, as you can witness in our little video.

 

Wilderswil - Our starting point.

We started our first 2 nights in a small-town-village called Wilderswil. Grindelwald itself, is a skiing destination, therefor the hotel rates are kind of higher than, the ones in the neighboring villages. As we didn’t plan to spend time on sports activities, as my girlfriend was pregnant, we decided to save some money on the hotel. The good point about it, Wilderswils is located pretty centrally around the following cities: Interlaken, Grindelwald, Kandersteg, Gstaad, Lauterbrunnen.

Grindelwald, Interlaken, and Lauterbrunnen are just around the corner. It takes between 10-15 minutes to get there by car. Kandersteg, Gestaad, are reachable in less than an hour.

We should mention, that absolutely every kind of business was closed except hotels and supermarkets. The only food you would get was from a food-store, the hotel you were staying at, or take-away from restaurants. Even though the skiing hills were pretty busy despite the restrictions, the daily life in the city center was very calm, or even not existing at all. After dinner, we occasionally went for a late-night walk, through deserted streets.

Was it still worth it, spending days abroad? Absolutely! We got the chance, to avoid the daily “corona” news and being away from home, also gave us the chance to clear our head and enjoy the natural beauty around us.

Grindelwald and its “Top of Europe”

The good thing about Wilderswil as well, it leaves you the “wow” effect for the upcoming visits. Wilderwills isn’t spectacular at all, however being less crowded, we felt kind of safer during pandemic times, and it gave us the chance to get free parking all day long right outside the hotel. Parking usually comes with a daily rate of 15-25 euro.

As soon as we got closer to Grindelwald, we noticed the mountains coming closer, and rising in front of us. The views were beautiful! Especially during sunrise in the morning. There was much more snow up there than down in the valley. We were recommended to park our car next to the main cable car terminal. Parking was 10 SFR (9 euro) a day. The parking lot got crowded super fast in the morning. Leaving again after 18:00h, we ended up in a traffic jam, and the 10-minute drive back to our hotel became a one-hour-long trip.

It seemed weird, that the restaurants were completely shut down, however, the cable car station was completely packed with skiing-people, snowboarders, and visitors who wanted to get on top of the “Jungfraujoch” the highest reachable point of Europe, reachable by train.

To make it on top of Jungfraujoch, took 25 minutes by cable car, and another 25 minutes by train. The whole experience would cost us 90 euros per person (100 us$). One single return ticket was exactly the previously mentioned price! The hotel informed us about a much higher rate, for the same ride, so I still wasn’t sure if we should cheer up by paying “only” 180 euro in total for two people (and the baby still in the belly) or pitty ourselves for paying that much for a short train ride.

After experiencing the top of Europe, I can honestly tell you, that the experience is worth the sum you’d have to pay. The tour will bring you to 2-3 different scenic viewpoints, where you can witness the neverending white landscapes. The platform is at 3454 meters above sea level, which is also the highest train station in Europe. During the tour, you will walk through an ice tunnel (handrails are available) which leads you to an ice-statue exhibition. At the end of the tour, you could have lunch or dinner with a magnificent view of the mountains, however during these times it was closed. We were happy to have witnessed so much beauty during the tour, also the views from the cable car are not disappointing. We would recommend the tour to anyone who can afford it.


The blue Lake.

A popular destination among tourists and bloggers. A lake that actually shines blue, if the sun is out. The entrance fee is 10 SFR (9 Euro). From the parking lot, it takes a short 3-4 minutes walk to make it to the lake. There isn’t that much to experience, walking around the sea was all we could do during the winter season. The lake is quite beautiful. Worth visiting? Depends on what you expect to see.

We enjoyed the short stroll, as it was the first location we managed to discover on our first day after arrival.

Mirage - Mirror House in Gstaat.

Thanks to Instagram, we discovered a pretty cool art installation in the tiny village called Gstaat. The installation is a small open house built of mirrors on the inside and the outside. Which means… it reflects the surrounding mountains during wintertime or the beautiful greens around the house garnished with thousands of flower during the summer season. Most of the photos I watched online, made the art-house look like a hidden gem, in the middle of nowhere, with nobody around. We were wrong. There were around 20-40 tourists at the house when we reached it, and actually, it almost seemed impossible to get a decent shot with nobody around. Definitely worth checking out if you’re in town.


Interlaken.

I can’t tell you much about Interlaken, as we actually just went close to the lake’s border to take a couple of shots. While we were already driving back home towards Luxembourg, we checked something on Google Maps, and noticed that we didn’t make it to Interlaken, even though it was located nearby. Having a couple of hours left, we decided to head back, and hoped for something worth the drive, so we wouldn’t regret it.

The view over the shimmering lake towards the mountains covered with snow didn’t disappoint.

Did I actually enjoy Switzerland? Would I ever turn back?

I have to admit, that I was positively surprised about that expensive country I always tried to avoid. The locals were most of the time superfriendly and showed manners and respect for the tourists. Even though food and drinks were relatively expensive, the food at the supermarket was equally priced, like we are used to back home.

The snowy landscapes you can witness in Switzerland are quite impressive. For the skiing part and other winter games, I can imagine that they offer magnificent skiing tracks, as everything we discovered was well maintained, clean and organized.

I could imagine, that for my own taste, it looks less attractive in summer time, as we could see a difference in landscapes between the snowy mountains and the greenish plains in the valley. The white landscapes were definitely prettier.

However … ! We missed two popular lakes the “Bachalpsee” on the First Mountain, and the Oeschinensee in Kandersteg. One day we took the cablecar to get on top of the First Mountain. The return ticket was 60 CHF (56 euro!). We decided to start with the skywalk and move on to the Bachalpsee afterward. Online we read that the easy hike would take 35-45 minutes (one way). While walking, we figured out, that the reviewer was talking about a path without snow under your feet. The steep hills really slowed down our hike, and kudos to my pregnant girlfriend for managing the hike, despite the thin air and exhausting hills.

Seconds away from the lake, we noticed that the whole frozen lake was covered with snow. No drop of water, not even the shape of the lake. Just snow! The next days, we informed ourselves, and we were told that the Oeschinensee would also be completely covered in white. Therefore we decided to save the effort and the money.

Those two lakes would be another reason to turn back for a weekend in summer, as Switzerland is “only” a 6-hour-drive away.

If the rest of Europe is shit down because of the pandemic, Switzerland is definitely the place to visit! :)

 
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Last days of summer in Portugal... again

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This would have been my first “boys trip” within the two years of my actual relationship. As the covid restrictions were still available across the whole summer, there weren’t many options left, to find a destination that was “liberal” enough, to give you the feel of a “boys-night-out”, fabulous dinners, good wine and still enough sightseeing. As I just finished another Portugal roadtrip in August, I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to head back, as I already knew the places and directions, so we could get the best out of 7 nights, without losing much time.

Lagos & the rest of the Algarve.

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As we had spent our couple of days in Lagos (Algarve) in August, and following our daytrips to other villages and cities in the Algarve, we decided to spend 3 days at the wonderful “Villa Dinis Hotel”. Nothing would beat its perfect location, close to two neighbouring beaches, the light-house with a wonderful sunset spot, and it was only a 10-minute walk afar from the center.

It just felt wonderful enjoy summerish weather during the last days of september.

As I was traveling with 2 indian friends who haven’t been in the south of Portugal yet, we tried to make it as diverse as possible: shopping, food & booze, beach time and sightseeing. All this, without any hassle.

The largest beach “Praia de Dona Ana” was only a short walk away from out hotel. We decided to spend there an hour or two every morning, as we knew, as soon as we would head back home, summertime would be over.

 

What could we do within two days in the Algarve ?

  • Lagos sunset

  • visiting the Benagil cave by kayak

  • witness the beauty of the “Praia da Bordeira”

  • Tapas dinner

  • devine sea-food experience

The kayak-tour definitely was the highlight of our two days in the Algarve. I had the chance to visit the Benagil cave a couple of years ago, however that time we did it by boat-tour. This time we were lucky enough, to rent a kayak for 15€ (1 kayak for 2 people, 60 minutes). A free life-vest was available with a deposit of 20€. The best part was that we could do it by ourselves without any guide or tour. Once you arrive at the “Benagil Parking”, walk down to the beach “Praia Benagil”, by following th road, as many people were misleaded to the top of the cave which is on the same level as the parking. To make it to the cave, you gotta get down the street to the sea-level. On the way down, you will find several rental-booths.

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A sunset, just another sunset… you’re right. But it’s for free, and it’s definitely very pretty.

After you’ve been to a couple of beaches in the Algarve, they all kind look alike. In Lagos you can enjoy one of the pretty & cosy ones “Praia do Camilo” which is nice to visit during sunrise. The “Praia da Bordeira” is the opposite, a broad scenic beach packed with countless waves and surfers.

For the sea-food part, and after having tried two hand fulls of restaurants, there’s no better seafood restaurant than the Cantinho Algarvio (R. Afonso de Almeida nº21, 8600-674 Lagos, Portugal). All the dishes we tried were flawless, high quality food with fair prices.

Lisbon.

My 11th stay in Lisobn, and guess what? I still managed to explore unknown territory.

Covid restrictions didn’t make it easier in Lisbon. The bars weren’t allowed to serve drinks after 20:00 (8pm) without food. Most places had to shut their doors at 23:00 (11pm). We spent 4 nights in Lisbon, at the legendary Yes Hostel. The hostel was still kinda busy during a period where you didn’t expect people traveling. Lagos for examples was pretty dead, compared the previous high-season month. In August the city center of Lagos was super busy (despite covid times), at the end of september barely 10% of its visitors remained.

Lisbon was different, but still lively enough to make the best out of the trip.

The popular “Park” rooftop bar was a quite different experience. Usually it’s so packed that you rarely get a seated place. This time there were only seated places available. It was much more enjoyable, less people, no noisy music… just the right vibe to enjoy the sunset with a splendid view over the rooftops of Lisbon.

In Belem, there was no waiting line in front of the famous Belem pastery-bakery. We just walked in, got seated and enjoyed the some delicious pastel de natas. Everything seamed more easygoing during Covid.

It was my first trop to the “Cristo Rei”, the big statue of the Christ (which reminds us of the one in Brasil), located in Almada, just across the sea. I wouldn’t consider it as a must see. However the whole experience is worth it: taking a ferry at “Cais do Sodre” terminal, making it to Almada across the canal for 2,5 €, walking up to the Christ, and experience the scenic view of the “Golden Gate Bridge” (bridge “Ponte 25 de Abril”, which looks almost identicak to Golden Gate in San Francisco). The viewpoint is definitely the best one to enjoy the architecture of the bridge.

Getting on top of the Christ by elevator isn’t really necessary, as the view doesn’t get that much better.

As we were traveling with two indian friends, they really felt the urge to have an indian dinner all together. Funnily we met two portugese gentlemen at the “Park” rooftop bar, due to Vinoy who started joking with them. They decided to bring us to the best indian restaurant I’ve ever been to. After several trips to India and endless indian food i tried in my life, this restaurant called “Zafran” was certainly a completely different experience. Dishoom in London was already hard to beat, however following this culinary experience, I’d say “Zafran” is the place to eat.

Last but not least. It was the first time I made it on the “Tram 28”. The one tram line that is always fully packed with tourists fighting to get the last seat or standing place on it.

What can I see, Lisbon never disappoints!

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Portugal Roadtrip: Algarve to Lisbon

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This post will be about our 3rd part of our “covid” summer holidays. After having visited Mallorca in July, and Turkey end of July, it was about time to start our 10-day-roadtrip in Portugal.

We both had already been to the Algarve and Lisbon before, however we thought it would be the best option to travel hasslefree, as Portugal didn’t have any restrictions to enter their country.

Our main purpose of the trip, was to enjoy delicious food, enjoy the shores of the Algarve, maybe doing our best on a surfboard for several days, and making it to Lisbon where I wanted to get tattooed.

We didn’t have any big expectations, as we’ve already seen it before.

Algarve.

After landing in Lisbon, we got our rental car at “Sixth”, and opted for a Fiat 500, as we thought it would be fun cruising around in that small, but classic, italian car.

Driving down to the Algarve, was flawless. It was the first time that we drove over the “Vasco da Gama” bridge, which felt like and endless bridge, because of its unusual length of 17km (10 miles). “Vasco da Gama” wasn’t unheard to my ears, I was pretty sure that it had something to do with Goa. After looking it up, Google informed us, that there’s a whole city called “Vasco de Gama” in Goa, named after the portuguese explorer.

After driving straight ahead for 3 hours, we made it to Lagos. There are barely any bends or crossings, you just drive straight for a couple of hours until you get to the southern state of Portugal.

Lagos, wasn’t something, that we hadn’t seen before, however the location was just perfect, to do some daytrips around the coasts, and our hotel was located only 5-10 minutes walking from wonderful beaches, and the sunset point in Lagos.

After having visited, Luz, Faro, Albufeira, Lagos, I guess I’d recommend Lagos for your point of departure in the Algarve. The city center was cosy, lively enough to enjoy the evenings, and the fish restaurants were the best I experienced in Portugal.

We did our first surf session at Praia de Amado. The water was super cold, even though it was summer with 33°C outside of the water. That’s why we decided to buy our own wetsuit, which we could use along the years, if we decided to go on with surfing. The wetsuit felt like a wonder and made it really enjoyable to dive into freezing water. The beach was packed, and the waves were pretty rough for beginners… Two years following my first surf classes, I felt like a complete noob, getting on the board, felt like an impossible thing again. Bummer! However it felt good being in the salty water, and being active.

Two hours later, we were kinda exausted. But happy that we made it into the water with our own wetsuits.

We visited Sagres (the city’s name which is well known because of the popular beer brand in Portugal). There’s absolutely nothing worth visiting, except for a couple of surfshops.

My favorite beaches in the Algarve were the following ones:

  • Praia da Bordeira

  • Praia do Camilo in Lagos

  • and the cliffs of the Esteveira beach, that we visited during sunset.

The ones in Porto Covo were wonderful as well. After a couple of days, the beaches started all looking alike, as it’s always cliffs and the sea. We decided to move on northbound towards Ericeira, passing along the Comporta coast. We spent a night in Rogil and another one in Setubal.


Ericeira.

Ericeira, Peniche and Nazaré are the popular hotspots among the surfer crowds. Ericeira which is located a 40-minute drive up north from Lisbon, seemed like a good location to spend a couple of days, as we were told, that it would have that laid-back surfer vibe, and the city center, would look more beautiful than Peniche.

What can I say. Ericeira seemed cute at first sight.

Parking during our stay was a pain in the ass, as the streets along the city center were super packed with cars, and finding a free parking spot wasn’t an easy thing.

The colors and traditional houses looked even cuter than in Lisbon. There were many options for having lunch & dinner. Surfer shops were spread all over the city. That was mainly it. It was lively for sure, however it did felt more touristic than Lisbon, kind of. Heaps of young surfer crowds, enjoying the food at some hip restaurants. After the sun had set, the temperatures dropped and the streets felt less appealing as during the day.

The super friendly lady who did our check-in at the “Casa das Aguarelas”, explained us that the mornings are mostly foggy in Ericeira. If the sky doesn’t clear up by mid-day, it will remain cloudy for the rest of the day. If the sky however clears up by noon, it will remain sunny for the rest of the day. Weird but true, the lady was right.

In the Algarve, we had the best summer-ish weather, things changed after making it to Ericeira. That’s why we were a little bit disappointed, as we had to put on our jackets again.

We headed to the Foz do Lizandro beach twice, to get back on the surfboards. The water again, freezing cold, but it was the best thing we could do during foggy mornings.

One evening, we made it to Sintra, which was a disappointment, as we wanted to see the underground tower at the “Quinta da Regaleira”. Too many tourists, due to covid-restrictions. We had to wait in line for more than 40 minutes, as they let people in, drop by drop. The “Quinta” was super beautiful and surprised my expectations. I would get back any time again.

My favorite spot in Ericeira was the wine-bar “Mar das Latas”, a wonderful small but cozy bar, which gave you a view over the cove of the “Praia dos Pescadores” (Fishermen’s beach). The perfect spot to enjoy the sunset, with delicious tapas (fish, meat, vegan), and a glass of wine or two…. The soul music on the first day, was the cherry on top. All I could expect from a wonderful summerday: music, booze, sunset and my girlfriend next to me.


Lisbon.

It was supposed to become my 10th stay in the beautiful capital of Portugal. Again, we’ve seen it all, we thought so… and even after having been that many times in Lisbon, there were still undiscovered corners, that convinced us about its beauty.

The botanical garden “Estufa Fria”, is located right in the city-center. Luckily only a couple of months ago, I saw a post on Instagram, of the greens that make the Estufa a surreal place. The entrance fee is about 3,50 euro, totally worth it. We were lucky, that we were almost the only visitors for half an hour, which allowed us to take some lovely photographs. Definitely a place that I plan on visiting everytime i make it back to Lisbon.

Another instagramable spot would be the “Amelia” bar/restaurant. The location isn’t the most convenient in the city, as there’s nothing appealing in the neighborhood beside the restaurant. The 15 minutes waiting, were worth it. The bar is packed with colors, lights and … flavors. The food we ordere was very good (red beet avocado toast). This would be a charming place to surprise your friends or just to enjoy a drink in a cosy place.

As we merely spent two days in Lisbon, besides getting tattooed and spending a night out with friends, there wasn’t too much time left to discover something new. However it’s always a pleasure to be back.

Funny thing happened in Lisbon though. When we dropped our rental-car at the airport on the 3rd last day. I didn’t feel like waiting for an Über to arrive, and told my girlfriend to jump on the first taxi standing in line. The usual price to get to the “Yes Hostel” is around 12-13 euro, by Über. Once or twice I took a taxi to get myself to the airport, and as far as I could remember it wasn’t more expensive than 15 euro.

The old driver who was driving the car, seamed gentle at first sight. While having my eyes on the taxi-meter I noticed that the price went up rapidly. When we almost arrived at the hostel, in the area of the Praca do Commercio, the taxi driver, missed the street, and drove around to drop us 100 meters away from the entrance of the hostel. It was on a mainroad. As soon as he dropped us, the police showed up. One officer stopped the car, the second one joined both of us. Initially we thought they would give the driver a ticket, as he was bothering the traffic while dropping us.

The gentle policemen, told us in portuguese, that they were investigating the taxi fairs. So we told them that we had paid 35 euros (plus 2€ tip) from the airport to the city center. The cops wouldn’t believe what I just told them. We were informed that the highest price wouldn’t pass 17 euros and that’s why they were investigating to avoid rip offs with tourists. I already knew that we paid too much, compared to the previous times, however why should you argue about the price listed on a taxi meter.

The old driver, who felt ashamed, gave us back the 25 euros. The cops took him to the station and towed away his car.

Keep in mind, never pay more than 15-17 euros from the airport to the city center.











































New Instagram account.

A couple of days ago, I decided to create a seperate Instagram account connected to this blog. This way I could release more photos while traveling. As I used to post all my photos on my private account, at some point I didn’t feel like spamming my followers with repeating posts all at once.

Once in a while, you find a hidden gem among your shots, and feel kinda disappointed that you haven’t posted it back then. I never enjoyed posting photos that weren’t shot on the same day. My philosophy of the social media network INSTAGRAM, was to show off my daily, sometimes boring, sometimes interesting life, as it happens.

 
 

This seperate account will make it easier to connect with travelbloggers, fellower photographers and videographers, without letting them know what my homemade dish looked like the day before. It will be strictly based on photography and traveling posts.

I would be glad if you’d follow me, and tell me if you need any recommendations about your upcoming trips. Thanks for looking.

Frank.


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Turkey: Istanbul & Cappadocia

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When I visited Istanbul for the first time 5 years ago, I was so positively surprised about the beauty and vibe of the city, that I already knew it wouldn’t be my last trip to the most popular city of Turkey.

During these last covid-months, there weren’t many destinations left to pick, as many european countries put on restrictions to cross their borders. Leaving Europe wasn’t an option, as it was impossible to visit Asia or the US. However we looking for a more exotic destination to get the feel of being far away from home. Istanbul was just the right choice. While being Turkey, why shouldn’t we fly over to Cappadocia, to wonder the beauty of the big-balloons-sunrise ? It sounded like the perfect trip.

After I had booked our bargain hotel right in the center of the city, next to the Galata tower, I got a message through booking.com, where the Hotel informed us about their one-way aiport-pickup, with a set price of 40$. I checked the prices on google, and it seemed like a the price-range of a taxi would vary from 30-40 euros, which sounded pretty expensive, compared to our usual taxi rides in Asia or Portugal.

After our first taxi-ride, which takes easily 40 minutes to make it to the city center, we felt some kind of relief, noticing that a one-way route only cost 140-160 lira (16-18 euro). This was easily half of the suggested price by the hotel.

Our hotel right in the hear of the city was 55€ for 2 nights. BARGAIN!

Sadly, our schedule of the trip was shortened a couple of weeks before, as our initial flight from Istanbul to our country was canceled, so we had to prepone it by almost 36 hours. Instead of spending almost 4 days in Istanbul, it got cut short to 1 single whole day. As we had to a make decision, to chose between a stressful but interesting trip, or spending a week at home, we went all in. And in the end we didn’t regret it, as we had spent some wonderful days in Turkey.

Istanbul.

What a gem of a city. It offers everything I expect to get from a city: a cultural difference, ancient buildings that makes a city unique, great food, hip spots.. the right mix of old and modern.

Istanbul has got it all!

To start our morning right, we stepped out of the entrance of our bargain hotel “Royal Galata Hotel”, and walked steep uphill for 3 minutes, and sat down at a table of the cosy "Guney Restaurant". Choose a granola-bowl, turkish brekfast (the traditional dish Menemen) and enjoy the sun shining over the the beautiful Galata tower.

As we only had one whole day to witness the main spots of Istanbul, I decided to visit the 3 most popular mosques, which are shining over the city’s landscape with their beautiful architecture. Obviously these would be: the Blue Mosque (Sultan-Ahmed mosque), Hagia Sophia, and Süleymaniye Mosque.

Just before making it to Istanbul, a friend told me the story of Hagia Sophia. The building was initially a christian church when it was build in the year 532 a.c.. From the year 1453 to 1935, it became a mosque for the muslims. Following 1935 Hagia Sophia was considered as a museum. Day prior our arrival, on july 24th 2020, Hagia Sophia became a mosque again. I could imagine that this could cause severe tensions in the religious world. The squares around Hagia Sophia were guarded by hundreds of police men.

As my personal opinion, the Hagia Sophia as a mosque, didn’t feel as nice than the first time I visited it in 2015. The old floors were covered by a plain blue carpet, which gave the inside of the building a weird look. The beautiful park, on the outside square, had lost its beauty, because of all the security barriers that were built up, with political slogans on it. And of course, all the visitors had to wear a mask. So much beauty was lost.

The main court on the ouside of the Blue Mosque was closed for renovation works. Bummer! As I wanted to show my girlfriend the beauty of its architecture. At least, we managed to enjoy the view at the 3rd mosque (Süleymaniye) all over Istanbul and the court of the mosque (that you can witness in the our video).

The Old Bazar, was a must as well, as we intended to buy those traditional turkish hanging lamps and some fresh spices. We were surprised that a lamp would just cost 65lira (7 euros). Of course some shops asked double the price. On our next trip to Istanbul, we would definitely opt for a bigger suitcase, as they take quite a lot of space in your luggage.

In the later afternoon, we wanted to take one of these jawdropping shots, with a panoramic view over the city, and a bunch of seagulls flying over our head. We saw those cinematic shots on Instagram, and wanted to get one of those as well. Knowing that the whole scene is orchestrated, to attract the seagulls, we knew it would come for free.

The coffee/bar “Kubbe-I Ask” used to be the place where they would over a photogenic corner to take this kind of photos. With high hopes we made it to the rooftop of the bar, and satdown for a drink. However no photo-spot in sight. The roof-top was packed with customers. We had two mocktails, as they didn’t serve any alcoholic beverages and still enjoyed the view over the blue colored Bosporus river and the Galata Bridge. The staff of the bar, told us, that there was a building right next door, which would offer the photoshooting for 25 euro (12.5 euro each person). Considering that you pay a mocktail 2 euros, and a wonderful dinner 10 euros.. paying 25 euros for a couple of photos on a rooftop wasn’t considered cheap for turkish standards. However it was worth the price. The shop/service runs under the name “tahtistanbul” on Facebook or @taht.istanbul on Instagram. Still during covid-times, with barely any tourists in the city, we had to wait 30 minutes. While waiting you can relax in a bunch of hammoks and they offer you a turkish tea or coffee.

The two guys on the rooftop, will take your camera or phone and take a bunch of photos (around 30-40 in total) from different angles & positions. Solo and as a couple. Seeing the result, and the effort of the so-called “photographer”, it was definitely worth it.

To end our first sightseeing tour, we headed over to Balat, a hip & colorful neighbourhood in the center of Istanbul. From the mainroad, a taxi will bring you to Balat for 1-2$. The neighbourhood Balat is packed with cosy bars, tiny artistic shops, and endless coffee places. Kids are playing on the streets, and the colored houses around you, make you feel like being in a not-religious place. It’s definitely worth spending 1 or 2 hours there, just relaxing and enjoying the quietness.

We made it back to the hotel around 19h, as we managed to organise a meet-up with a friend i met years ago in Lisbon at my favorite hostel. Medhi who used to live in Algeria, happened to move to Istanbul, and it felt like a good idea, to have dinner together. He brought us to a local restaurant called “Bilice Kebap”. They served huge trays with several mezzes on tiny plates, skewers, some traditional flatbreads. The dinner was so delicious that we had to get up on our very last night.

What a day. So many sights in one single day.

What would a trip to Istanbul be, without savouring some Baklava at "Hafiz Mustafa". I was never a fan of turkish delights, as they were mostly too sweat for my taste. After having had the pistachio Baklavas at the famous “Hafiz Mustafa” bakery, it definitely changed my mind about the threats. So good!

 

Cappadocia.

Cappadocia, is one of those regions, that everybody knows from Instagram photos. So far I know two destinations which are well known for their amazingly beautiful sunrise/sets, as the skies are filled with endless hot balloons: the first one i got to know was Bagan (Myanmar) and the second one would be Cappadocia (Turkey). Look it up on Google, and you will be amazed how lovely those balloon rides are (as I don’t wanna use, photos or videos that are not mine, on this blog).

Cappadocia looks like straight out of a fairey tale: big rocks surrounding the villages of Cappadoccia, rocks in any colors or shapes. Some hotels offer cave rooms, which are carved in the plain walls of these rocks. It’s mesmerizing. The good part about it, they’re pretty cheap as well! Expect to pay 120-150 euro for 3 nights (double room) in a magnificent hotel! BARGAIN!

To make it to Cappadocia, you have to fly into Kayseri Airport, which is a one hour flight from Istanbul (we paid our flight 30euros). After jumping into our shady rental-car, which was already hitting the 200.000 km mark, we drove almost an hour to reach Göreme.

You can choose one of the 3 cities, where you wanna stay to watch the balloons rising up to the sky:

  • Göreme, the more laid back village

  • Ürgüp, the not so laid back village

  • Uchisar, the fortress-shaped village.

How to know which one of these 3 above to pick?

We informed ourselves online, and decided to book our nights at the “HENNA HOTEL” in Göreme. Göreme sounded like a cool easygoing village, where you can walk around in flip-flops and where it instantly feels like being at home. On the first day, while checking-in, we got a super friendly welcome by the manager, who showed us the amities of the resort, before leading us to our beautiful room.

Actually, we had a fancy hotel room, in a laid back village. Hah! What we liked about the city center, everything is in walking distance. Going up to the main sunset point in Göreme, will take 10 minutes on foot. All the souvenir shops (which sell cute pottery and turkish glass-lanterns), the restaurants, the bars, are reachable within 5 minutes. The only downside of Göreme: it’s really small! You can visit the whole city center in an hour. BUT… you will love that, as the shopkeepers will recognize you on the following day, and greeting you with a big smile on their face.

As we just managed to get over the first wave of covid-infections these last months, the seasonal business was very low while we were visiting. The main attraction of Cappadocia, the hot balloons, weren’t flying due to Covid restrictions. Many people weren’t traveling, with the result, that Göreme looked quite empty. So we decided to tip almost every shopowner to support them financially. Almost everytime we tipped, the turks gave us something in return, a present, another free icecream cone, they invited us for a free tee or coffee… unbelievable how welcoming the turkish citizen are. This was the first time ever, that I witnessed this kind of grattitude and friendliness outside of Thailand or Japan.

From Göreme, you can easily visit, Ügrüp or Uchisar by car. It will take you less than 10 minutes driving. Uchisar is the closest city to Göreme, you can also visit it on foot, through “Piggeon Valley”.

Uchisar looks magnificent from afar, as you can clearly notice the conic shape of the city, which gives it the look of a fortress. The closer you get to Uchisar, the more it will look like one of the neighbouring old cities.

We also visited Ügrüp for a couple of hours. It offered kind of the same sights than Göreme or Uchisar. There were a lot more visitors in the city, and it just felt like another busy turkish city, that’s why we would recommend Göreme among those 3. Göreme is quiet, but still lively enough at night to have a good time with your friends and family. Despite the covid-restrictions, one or two bars were packed every night, while we were walking by. If we ever turn back to Cappadocia (as we haven’t watched the balloon-rise yet), we would definitely stay in Göreme.

Is there anything else to do in Cappadocia?

Well, there’s not that much to do, except hiking. As we didn’t have many options, besides a quad-ride, or horse-ride through the stoney valleys, we decided to walk from Göreme to Uchisar, through the Valley of Love.

Why Valley of Love? Because a bunch of stones, have a the shape of a penis, that’s why… period. We were told, that the name was made up by tourists.

We walked along the hot burning streets, almost an hour til we found to walkable path that leaded to the “Lover’s Viewpoint” (in Love Valley). As it was super hot outside, we already emptied our bottles. Close to the massive phallic rocks, there was a very vintage-looking tavern, where we could order water, juices or softdrinks. The prices were a little bit more expensive as usual, however we couldn’t care less, as we got super thirsty. The lovely gentleman at the bar, told us, to follow the dried riverbed, uphill towards Uchisar. It would be reachable within 40 minutes.

Old sport! We made it to the fortress in almost 2 hours. And it really felt like a bad joke. I got a heavy sunburn, because I was wearing a tanktop without sunscreen. Following the dried river bed, lead us through tunnels, spikey hedges that cut our skin, slippery rocky paths, we had to climb up big rocks without any spots to hold on. And after walking for almost 90 minutes, it still felt like being stuck in a desert. At some point it wasn’t funny at all. We were so happy when we saw a hidden path that lead us to the top of a hill, where we found out that we almost made it to Uchisar.

We ran to the first open restaurant to buy 2 bottles of water. The turkish people looked at us, like if we had jumped out of their tv-screen. It seemed like they’d never seen a dehydrated dude with a sunburn.

We still managed to walked down to Göreme, back home, through the “Piggeon Valley”, which was a much nicer path. Not as spectacular as the phallic rocks, however much more enjoyable.

Just before sunset, we drove up to the “Göreme Tarihi Milli Park”, to witness a beautiful sunset, above white sandstone mountains, which were supposed to reflect in red color, once the sun would set. This wasn’t the case though, when we were visiting. However the whole sunset-point felt like a coachella-themed party among turkish pepople. They offered coffee from a fancy food-truck. There was music, lots of people, a couple of instagramable swings. It felt like Covid was gone for an hour.

We lost a lot of time finding the spot at “Red Valley”, because Google-Maps didn’t bring up the right location. A car with 3 turkish guys was following us to find the same spot. We decided to park our car further away to avoid getting stuck in the sand dunes. As we reached the spot that was shown by google-maps, we and the 3 turkish gentlemen, found out, that it was the wrong location. We jumped in their car, drove around and asked people how to get to our destination. Pretty funny situation with a bunch of very friendly people, who couldn’t speak any english.

To find the right spot on google maps enter “Göreme Tarihi Milli Park” or “Kizilvadi” (restaurant/bar).

We aren’t fans of quad rides, however if we would have stayed another day, we might had done the tour, as the landscapes are truely beautiful and really not that easy to reach by car (except for a 4wheeldrive).

You can visit museums, pottery workshops… to kill the time. However if you only spend 2 whole days in Cappadocia, i’d enjoy the nature, the sunrises, and the food. And spend some relaxing moments at those beautiful hotels.

We were so happy having visited Turkey. It was a complete positive experience, with hundreds of super welcoming people. The food in Istanbul was a blast! The weather was perfect. We would turn back anytime soon.