Northern Ireland [feat. Loz & Julz]

Giant's Causeway

After our Summer travels it was back to work and back to reality. Having said that, I was lucky enough to have some good friends of mine from back home over in the UK and traveling around, this provided me with an excellent excuse for some weekend getaways! After only one week back at work I was headed off for a weekend in Northern Ireland!

Loz and Julz were kind enough to pick me up from the airport, after a bright and early flight into Belfast airport! They had a hire car and I just got to join in on their plans, the first stop being The Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. 

The Giant's Causeway is a coastal area of Northern Ireland and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The day we visited it was cold, windy and also slightly rainy - just the kind of amazing weather we have grown accustomed to in the UK :-P

The Giant's Causeway is a really strange natural phenomenon and is composed of rocks in the shape of columns that are arranged really closely together, I actually don't know how to explain it, it's a really strange site. 

While we were at Giant's Causeway we went along on a free guided tour, which turned out to be one of the strangest tours I have ever been on. The tour guide told us all sorts of Irish Folklore stories about a Giant called Fin McCool who lived at Giant's Causeway and was always waging wars against Scottish Giants.

Supposedly, Fin McCool created the Isle of Man by pulling a lump of earth from the group and throwing it towards a Scottish Giant... sounds believable.. There were all sorts of strange mythical stories about Fin McCool and his supposed escapades. 

Behind Loz and myself you can see all the rock columns. 

As you can tell from these photos, it was a super windy day and Loz and my hair was pretty much out of control!

We spent a few hours exploring on the guided tour and exploring Giant's Causeway before heading back to the car to drive to our next Northern Ireland destination. 

Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge

Our next destination was a short drive away and another really random destination!

Below is a really nice photo of Loz and Julz on the Northern Ireland coast, the cliffs created such a dramatic backdrop and the water was actually a beautiful colour but most likely too freezing for anyone to ever set foot in!

The Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge creates a link between the mainland of Northern Ireland and a really tiny island called Carrick-A-Rede. The rope bridge was built by Salmon fishermen who used to come to this tiny island to do their fishing. I cannot imagine the weather was often pleasant for those poor fishermen!

The rope bridge is about 20m long and is about 30m above the water. There was an 8 people limit, so not many people could walk over the bridge at once! I am not a huge fan of heights or the thought of falling from any kind of height so the bridge made me a little anxious!

Fortunately the scenery on the other side of the bridge was pretty beautiful!

The coastline of Northern Ireland is actually really beautiful, too bad it is cold and windy pretty much all year around!

The photo above is actually slightly misleading because there were certainly plenty of tourists at the bridge on the same day as us but somehow I timed this photo perfectly and the masses of people seemed to part for a second!

Belfast

After a big morning of exploring Northern Ireland we headed back to Belfast, where we were staying for the weekend. We checked into our AirBnB accommodation and then it was time for the essentials: drinks in an Irish Pub!

We had a pub dinner and then ended up going out to a craft beer bar, which was really cool, Loz and I had some interesting ciders and Julz got a little sampler of Irish craft beers. We had a pretty chilled night, lots of drinks and lots of catching up on the past year and a half!

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The following day Loz had organised a Black Cabs tour for us.

The photo below is of Loz and I outside the City Hall, this was our meeting place for the tour but it was actually just a really beautiful building and there was even a little bit of sun out on this day!

We jumped in our Black Cab tour for, what turned out to be, a tour of Belfast that explained the violent history between the Catholic and Protestants in Northern Ireland. This is a feud that has been in effect for hundreds of years but culminated in "the Troubles" which was pretty much a civil war that occurred between both of these religious groups between 1969-1998.

In the above photos is a big wall that was built to separate the Catholic and Protestants communities, who were unable to leave in peace. Unfortunately, this is still here and it seems like it is still needed as these two groups both have very extreme beliefs and are unable to co-exist peacefully. 

Lots of famous people have signed the wall so our friendly tour guide told us that we all had to sign the wall!

After a pretty intense morning learning about the history of Northern Ireland we decided to relax and unwind a little before I had to get my flight back to London. 

We decided that Irish Coffees were the way to do this!

The Irish coffees not only looked amazing but were actually really delicious as well!

After a really fun and very different weekend spent in Northern Ireland it was unfortunately time to head back to London and back to work, again!

I had a fantastic weekend with Loz and Julz and now all I need is for some more of my friends to come and visit the UK so I have some more excuses for some weekend escapes!

Sixteen Hours in Prague

On our way home from Greece to London we made a quick 16 hour stop via Prague! Well, we had a 16 hour stop over and decided to make use of this time to quickly explore some of Prague haha!

We arrived late at night and were very much ready to get some sleep, as it turned out the hostel we had booked (Miss Sophie's Prague - in case anyone is interested) was absolutely amazing, better than most hostels! Jackpot!

The hostel room came with plenty of coat hangers (random) and a big blue armchair, which Michael immediately claimed!

We had a full nights sleep in our amazingly comfortable hostel room and the next day set off to explore a bit of Prague. 

We walked along the main river that runs through Prague, the Vltava river, and one of the first things we noticed was how beautiful the city of Prague actually is. We have seen a lot of different cities, buildings and churches in Europe but some of the buildings and monuments in Prague were among the most beautiful we have seen. Behind Michael is a monument called the Kranner fountain (yep, after thing long I most definitely had to look that up), which is a good example of one of the many monuments of Prague. 

In the background behind both of us is the Charles Bridge, the most well known bridge in Prague and featured in lots of advertisements, postcards etc. 

It was super hot - a feeling I can't really remember at the moment, so we had been sticking to the shade but to walk over the Charles Bridge meant a long hot walk in the sun! I kept telling Michael that we should enjoy our last moments of summer. Now that I am back in the chilly UK I would happily re-live this hot moment!

Walking along the Charles Bridge provided us with a pretty decent view of the Prague Castle on top of a hill which overlooks the old city centre. 

Some more photos of the beautiful buildings and architecture in Prague, in the photos below the Prague castle is in the background from two different angles. 

Above is a photo of Michael in front of the Prague Castle, which after a good many steps in 35 degree weather was actually a bit of a let down. There were definitely lots of other people in this square taking photos who, like us, had decided that they didn't want to fork out the money to actually go inside the castle.

Fortunately, there are some pretty nice views of the city of Prague in the immediate area surrounding the castle! Apologies for the sweaty/unkempt look that I was sporting post-stair-climb!

From the Prague Castle we headed back over the Charles Bridge (Michael was thrilled with the direct sunlight) and into the centre of the Prague Old Town. We have seen our fair share of 'old towns' and they are always fun but this was one of my favourites and made me feel a bit disappointed about the limited time we had to look around. 

Any wonder they call it a fairytale city! On every corner was another beautiful church or even just another building that looked like a castle from a fairytale! The above photo of Michael and photo of myself below both include the Church of our Lady Before Tyn in the background and it's absolutely amazing! Certainly one of the best churches I have seen in Europe and I feel like I have seen plenty!

The pictures above are of a monument called the Prague Astronomical Clock, this was build as a part of the City Hall of Prague and as this absolutely incredible clock feature. I wish Fossil would make a watch with this design on the face because it's absolutely stunning! I definitely cannot explain this clearly, especially given that I saw this two months ago, but I am fairly certain that each number on the clock represents one of the twelve apostles?! Either way the design is intricately beautiful!

A really good shot, thanks Michael, of me in the Old Town Square of Prague with the beautiful Church of our Lady Before Tyn in the background - I don't know much of the history surrounding this city centre or of the church itself but I do know that both were stunning and Michael and I spent a good deal of time just standing still and taking it all in.

Our last fairytale church or Europe for a while. Sigh..

We didn't have much time leftover at this point and decided that a true Czech lunch (complete with Czech beer for Michael) was a must!

We used the Hostel's recommendation (as we have discovered hostels always recommend the best, cheapest and most local restaurants on offer) and went to a traditional Czech restaurant for lunch, called U Medvidku. I have absolutely no clue how you are supposed to pronounce that! I have completely forgotten what we ordered now but I do remember finding that Czech meals were similar, in a way, to German meals - hearty and involving a lot of meat. I have absolutely no objections to this style of dining because you never find yourself full! haha!

We didn't have time for too much else during our short visit to Prague but one thing I definitely have to point out is this insanely weird kind of vodka that seems to be super popular (and sold almost everywhere) in Prague: cannabis vodka. Yep. That's right! It must be legal here because it's on display almost everywhere, which I found super weird!

And just to provide a bit of a contrast, I have put a lovely photo of some delicious, nutritious fruit from a local market next to the cannabis vodka and absinthe also being sold. Hehe!

We strolled back to our hostel to pick up all of our stuff before heading to the airport and back to cold London - I couldn't resist one last photo of Michael enjoying the hot weather before our summer holidays were officially over!

I am well aware that it has been several months since this trip happened and with work being full on, I have completely fallen behind in my blog posts. Fortunately I now have a week off (mid term break - woo!) and am planning on doing some catch up!

Hopefully my next post will be soon to follow!

xxx

Getting Reacquainted with the Greek Islands: Corfu

We LOVED the Greek Islands last time we visited! Beautiful beaches, delicious food, hospitable locals and sunny days - what more could you ask for!?

We caught a ferry from Sarande to Corfu with very high expectations! We were picked up by a friendly man from the hostel, who stopped to grab us some bottles of cold water - ahhh friendly locals, just as we had remembered! We were VERY happy already!

When we arrived at our hostel on the west coast of Corfu this was our view of Pelekas Beach! Another incredible beach = winning!

The following day we decided to hire a scooter, well we originally wanted a quad bike but there were none left, to explore the island of Corfu. 

Michael, despite his expired license, was given the role of designated driver because I trust him a whole lot more than I trust myself! To begin with driving on the scooter was absolutely terrifying! They aren't exactly the most stable of motor vehicles!

Michael got the hang of it pretty quickly, thank god, and it soon became less of a horrifying experience! First, we headed into Corfu town to check out the 'city' centre and old town of Corfu. 

A photo of one of the typical streets of the Corfu old town, this actually was really similar to the old town we visited in Rhodes (also in Greece) last year. 

Top left: they were selling boomerangs? Whhhhattt?? Also, plenty of liquers and alcohol being sold - just one of the reasons is one of our favourite countries. Michael also managed to get himself a slushy, the first of the trip, which made him a very happy man!

After grabbing a delicious Greek lunch in Corfu town and discovering once again that Greek food is the best food in the world, we headed off to have a look around a few other places on the island of Corfu. I am not sure what the name of the beach I am on in the above photo is called but behind me is a small island that lies off the coast of Corfu called Mouse Island. 

Michael with our scary scooter and Mouse Island in the background. 

I also managed to score myself a cocktail, also the first of the trip!

I was pretty pleased!

Unfortunately I didn't get to take many photos cos I was too busy trying to hold onto Michael and not fall off scooter! This didn't leave much opportunity for casual photo taking!

We were lucky enough to be staying at another location with an amazing balcony and beautiful sunset views - this never grows old, well not for me anyway!

I didn't take too many photos during our time in Corfu as most of it was spend at the beach, swimming and basically lounging around and relaxing - not to many photo worthy moments but definitely enjoyable for us!

One day we did head down to Pelekas beach and rented ourselves lounge chairs (they were only 1 euro each here, super cheap) and spent the entire day lying on the beach, going for a swim and reading a good book (I FINALLY finished the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series so I was very happy!).

I guess my final message would be that Greece is an amazing country and I would highly recommend a visit!

xxx

The Unexplored Albanian Coast

Himare

Albania. Definitely one of the strangest countries we have ever visited! Admittedly, we only spent time on the Albanian cost and we did not have the time to visit any of the major inland cities. Our fist impression of Albania was the most terrifying and painfully long bus journey I have ever experienced. We boarded a bus from Ohrid and after only an hour the driver stopped (for almost an hour) to chat with his other mini-bus driving buddies. Here it was discovered that we were the only ones on our bus heading to Vlore (on our way to Himare), so out of laziness our driver cooked up a scheme to stick us in another bus so that he did not have to make this detour. We were shoved in a bus that was already full and had to sit in this horribly cramped space on top of other people's luggage for the best part of 2 hours. 

Since we arrived late after our one hour break (for no apparent reason) we missed our connecting bus and had to wait two hours for the next bus. The bus we got on spent almost an hour stopping and starting and we only made it 4km in an hour - I could have run there and back in that time! Finally we got going BUT then we had another break! Ah! They love their senseless breaks! Once we got on our way again we were at a section of the Albanian coast on which the roads are located at the top of a massive mountain, this means incredible views of the beaches below but I was too busy fearing for my life to actually take in any of the views, why? The bus driver was not only smoking but he was talking on the phone and drinking a beer simultaneously! This meant he only had his hands on the steering wheel SOME of the time while he was navigating narrow, windy roads on a clifftop...... it was actually the scariest journey of my life and I was sooooo glad to get off that bus (after several more stops and the driver taking off down the street while everyone sat on the bus with no clue as to what was happening!)

Fortunately when we arrived we were greeted by our Air BnB host and he took us to his apartments and one of the first things he showed us was his balcony with this incredible view!!!

The beaches and coastline of Albania were definitely a redeeming factor in this instance! Our Air BnB host then sat down with us for a bit of a chat before giving us some of his home made raki (this is supposed to be a liqueur made from grapes but wow, this was strong), he was absolutely lovely and our day was looking up!

We absolutely loved the balcony and the amazing view of the beaches below!

The colour of the ocean in this part of the world is absolutely incredible and so clear that you could almost see the ocean floor from the balcony! Unfortunately this photo unveils my horrible tan lines - it will only take a week or two in London for any colour I have accumulated to disappear!

From here we had one thing on our to do list: head to the beach!

The town of Himare is really small and a true beach town. There is one main street and you can walk through it in about 5-10 minutes and that's if your having a leisurely stroll.  The main esplanade along the beach was really pretty (Michael and I are standing on it in these photos) and they have stalls further along and even a small concert the night we were there. 

Finally we had found an amazing and SANDY beach! It was such a shame we only had one afternoon to spend here!

Beach selfies and Michael (that little head) taking a dip - the water was amazingly clear!

For dinner we headed to a local restaurant that served traditional Albanian food. Michael got himself a big glass of ouzo and I got a bottle of wine. We also ordered a huge salad and two main meals (including a seafood platter) and the total price was less than £10 - AMAZING value! Suddenly Albania had some genuine perks! Haha!

Our Air BnB host put on a lovely breakfast with home made jam and fresh eggs, the place we stayed at had turned out to be a total gem! Unfortunately we did not get to spend much time in Himare and I wish we had booked another night! This is Michael standing at the entrance to our lovely little apartment feeling really sad about having to leave!

Sarande

From Himare we headed to the bigger town of Sarande, which is further south down the Albanian coast. This time was bus ride was actually on time and not nearly as scary. Once again we had rented a private apartment (because they are so cheap in Albania) and once again we hit the jackpot!

We arrived in the later afternoon and were greeted by the Air BnB owner's mother, who was lovely but did not speak a whole lot of English. She pointed to the balcony and no words were needed!

This is the AMAZING balcony view of our private apartment in Sarande! Life was GREAT! As you can see was was extremely relaxed and totally content - all that was missing was a cold cider (which don't seem to exist in Albania, sad face). 

Some more shots of our amazing balcony, this time with Michael relaxing with a cold beer. 

We did not do a whole lot of anything in Sarande, aside from relax - isn't that what holidays are for? Unfortunately this means a lot of not so exciting scenery photos - apologies in advance!

This is the view from our balcony looking towards the centre and port of Sarande - an amazing view of the Albanian coastline! Once again the water is an absolutely stunning colour!

This time we stayed in an apartment with it's very own private beach! There was not a lot of actual beach but this was actually a really cool place for a swim!

As a bonus, our apartment also provided us with an absolutely breathtaking view of the sunset each evening! WOW! This is one of my favourite photos from our trip, I love the reflection of the sun on the water!

It's safe to say that, if nothing else, we definitely utlised the balcony well!

The next day it was time to hit up the private beach! This is Michael jumping from the not so small peir - we estimated that it was about 7m high. Throughout the day we saw lots of people chicken out but also some people diving and doing trick jumps.

I absolutely love this view from the pier, it looks like Michael is standing at the end of the world!

A shot of the little 'beach' belonging to our apartment block, it doesn't look like much but it was actually really awesome and the water was the perfect temperature!

Me; checking out the jump before chickening out. Heights are really not my thing...

... so I decided to take a seat and admire the view instead haha!

Finally, we decided that as difficult as it would be that it was time to get out of our apartment and have dinner out. We didn't go anywhere fancy, just a small restaurant right on the coast but we got another amazing view of the centre of Sarande as the sun set and got some very delicious and very reasonably priced food (I think I had a whole pizza for less than £2 - bargain!).

Looking back it seems like we did a whole not of nothing in Albania, aside from appreciate the views and swim at the beach but hey, it was relaxing and enjoyable so if you ask me that's a win!

From here we headed via ferry to Corfu in Greece, which we could actually see from our balcony in Sarande!

xxx