Guest Post: A Case for Fall Travel

September 20, 2013 by · 1 Comment

Sneaking off on an off-season break in Europe

Often during summer, school vacations mean that popular towns and resorts are jam-packed with families holidaying while they have the chance, which might mean that your summer break wasn’t quite what you were expecting. With a number of sunshine spots in Europe looking ever-more appealing now the kids have gone back to school, maybe it’s time to start thinking about a short-haul treat this fall.

The perks of fall travel

A fall break can be the perfect way to get away from it all and gear up for the impending festive season. Lots of European hotels slash their nightly rates when the summer rush has died down and you can find some really cheap all inclusive holidays and deals not just in Spain but everywhere from Scandinavia to the Baltics, since it’s off-season. Thanks to Spain’s multitude of holidays in the fall (October 12th is Día de la Hispanidad, November 1st is All Saint’s Day and there’s a double-whammy of a long weekend December 6th and 8th), there’s plenty of time to get away.

You’ll be able to enjoy all the main attractions of your chosen destination without any lines and you’ll have no problem finding the perfect bathing spot away from everyone else down on the beach. You can also enjoy the fact that midday temperatures have begun to recede, which means less sunblock-slathering, more time to explore your destination on foot without the impending doom of painful sunburn. So where should you jet off to this fall?

Top tips for a your break

Sardinia makes for an idyllic island escape in the fall. Temperatures generally don’t exceed a very respectable 27°C and you’ll be able to take advantage of Autunno in Barbagia, a series of mini festivals that take place between September and December across Barbagia, the mountainous area located in inland Sardinia.

Or, if you are still looking to top up your tan closer to home, how about Andalusia? With maximum temperatures averaging at 32°C, you’re sure to be able to soak up as much sun as you like on the beaches of Marbella and the plazas of Seville. However, we suggest you also head for the hills and do a spot of trekking – you’ll also find some refreshingly cool breezes along the Vías Pecuarias, or traditional farm trails that will take you into the heart of rural southern Spain.

At the other end of the Mediterranean, Kas is a lovely little fishing town in Turkey, where you can really get away from it all. Keen divers will be pleased to know that there’s a good culture for it here and locals say the best dives usually come just after the first rains of fall, with plenty of underwater activity to observe.

Wherever you end up, a little forward-planning can find you the perfect break for the transitional period, far from the noisy summer crowds. However, since it is past the peak weather season in most of Europe, be sure to pack a few warmer outfits in your suitcase for those beautiful but breezy fall nights!

Selena Box regularly writes for a number of travel sites, focusing most of her own wanderings in and around Western and Central Europe.

What are your Fall travel plans? I’ll be heading to Oktoberfest next weekend, and we’ve got plans for Morocco and Toulouse in the works. Which season do you prefer traveling in?

Filed Under: Andalusia Tourism, Europe, guest post, international travel, Spain Travel, Travel · Tagged: , ,

My Travel Round Up from the First Six Months of 2013

July 3, 2013 by · 32 Comments

My parents, upon my high school graduation (10 years ago…thank you, Atlantic Ocean, for existing and putting distance between me and my fellow Tigers just this once!) gave me a heartfelt speech about how I was always the child who never learned how to walk. I went from spitting up on myself to running, just like I went from college to globetrotter four years later.

There was no better way to start my year than ringing in 2013 with my familia and cousin Christyn in Puerta del Sol. The first six months of the year have been busy (but the good kind), fruitful and happy. I’ve been able to sneak in some travel, my 30th country and finish a master’s in the process.

January

After a trip to Barcelona with my parents and taking various day trips around Catalonia, I returned to work absolutely pooped and with zero ganas to move forward. The chilly weather and the extra responsibility of becoming a training Director of Studies was a lot of work, but the great people at Almohalla 51, Myles and David, allowed Hayley and I to come stay with them at their newly-opened boutique hotel in Archidona.

I also looked forward to having the Novio home from his duty abroad. As a late anniversary present, I took him to eat our way through Florence and Bologna. In between bites, we checked out the sites along the Arno, drank copious amounts of espresso and Moretti beer and befriended a Venetian named Peppino. Buona manggia, sí señor!

February

February was quiet, though Angela and Ryan of Jets Like Taxis joined me on a colorful trip to Cordoba. I chalk it up to being a short month.

March

As the trimester wound down, I began to get geared up for my Semana Santa trip to Dubrovnik and Montenegro. Hayley, my Spanish media naranja, and I walked the impressive city walls in Dubrovnik while refueling on cevapi, a spiced sausage sandwich and drinking in the views and local beers at Buza Bar (despite its obnoxious advertising).

After a few days in the Pearl of the Adriatic, we took a bus across the border to Montenegro, which was my 30th country. While  the weather wasn’t stellar, we were charmed by Europe’s youngest country. The friendly people, the free wi-fi and the views of our roadtrip around the Bay of Kotor made for a rejuvenating week.

April

April showers seemed to have brought Feria heat – we sweated right through our flamenco dresses, and I think my right bicep is now twice as large as its twin from all of that fan flicking. I even broke some of my own rules when it came to stalking around the Real!

Just the week before, I had gone up to Madrid (if only I had a euro for every maldito trip I’ve made to la Capital…) to visit my sister-in-law, Nathàlia, and pick up my new car, Pequeño Monty. Nath is Brasilian but did her degree in Alcalá de Henares, city of Miguel de Cervantes fame, so she showed me around her town known for its university and free tapas.

May

Luckily for this guiri, the usual May weather was nowhere to be found, so we got some respite from the heat. Meg and I drank rebujito at the Feria de Jerez, a lite version of Sevile’s famous fête where you don’t get trampled by horses, and we bounced between a Mexican-themed caseta and a biker bar. Toto, We’re not in Sevilla anymore. The following day, I continued the fiesta in the Novio’s village at their Romeria de San Diego, a booze-soaked picnic in the middle of the dehesa.

A week later, I attended my first blog trip to Calpe, a small fishing village that has capitalized on the tourism boom from nearby Benidorm. Despite the hotels popping up along the beach, Calpe is laid-back yet bursting with energy. We were treated to tons of water-related activities, including paddle surfing and betting on our lunch at the Lonja de Pescado.

June

During the first weekend of June, I had to make a trip to Madrid for mandatory camp meetings and Camino dealings. I met with Pablo, Fernando and Alex of Caser Expat Insurance, who are helping me make my Camino For the Kids a reality. I even got my feet checked out by the team at Podoactiva, the same people who outfit professional athletes with their shoes.

The Novio and I snuck in a day at the beach, and my mom came to stay for a week in the last sweltering week of June. I was extremely busy with my master’s and preparing for summer camp. Apart from showing her my favorite restaurants and rincones of Seville, we also made it to Jerez to see the horse show, to Doñana for a horse ride through Mazagón, and San Nicolás del Puerto, where she got to meet the Novio’s mother and ride their prized mare, Orgiva.

I am happy to say that I have very few travel plans at the moment for the second half of the year, save slinging tomatoes at the Tomatina with Kelly in August and Oktoberfest with my cousins in late September – I need a break after a year of turning my blog into a business, completing a master’s in a second language and starting a new job. Sunshine? Yes. Siesta? POR FAVOR. 

Don’t forget that I’ll be back at camp in July, and then walking close to 320km to raise money and awareness for pediatric cancer patients back home on the Camino de Santiago. Please follow #CaminoFTK on twitter or instagram for more information. Sunshine and Siestas is also accepting guest posts during this time, so please send your stories and photos from Spain!

What were your travel highlights of the first six months of the year?

Filed Under: Alicante, Andalucia, Andalusia Tourism, Balkans Trip, Barcelona, Calpe, Catalonia, Cataluña, Cordoba, Croatia, Dubrovnik, Featured, international travel, Montenegro, Rural Tourism, San Nicolás del Puerto, Seville, Spain Travel, Spanish Traditions, Travel, UNESCO World Heritage · Tagged: , ,

Bar Buza, Dubrovnik: COLD DRINKS WITH THE MOST BEAUTIFUL VIEWS!

June 26, 2013 by · 33 Comments

It’s not everyday that the book you’re reading mentions that bar/coffeehouse/pub where you’re reading it at. The words screamed off the page: COLD DRINKS WITH THE MOST BEAUTIFUL VIEWS! My bottle of Ožujsko wasn’t that cold, but glancing out over the pristine Adriatic coastline and the plush electric green island of Lokrum and could coincide with at least one of those statements.

The word buza in local tongue quite literally means hole, and the place was advertised in our hostel as literally being a hole in the wall – a hole in the famous city walls, that is. The city center is extremely small – you can see everything in a day or so – so we figured a leisurely walk around the city center with cameras in tow would eventually lead us to one of the only bars that’s open in the off-season. Traipsing around the beautifullly restored fortifications, we quite literally ran into a wall – we could see the bar, but we couldn’t actually access it.

Wanting to check out the COLD DRINKS after walking around all afternoon and enjoy them with THE MOST BEAUTIFUL VIEWS, we wound our way up the streep staircases on the western side of the city. The bar was sparse, just some chipping and rusted handrails and some plastic chairs with rickety tables. Our beer came with plastic cups and cost a whopping 35 kuna, or about 5€, each.

The day was clear but beautiful for a late March day, so we pulled out our e-books and sipped our Ožujsko as slowly as possible. When the words of Beer in the Balkans, a tongue-in-cheek quest for cheap beer throughout the Ex-Yu, jumped out at me, I signaled the waitress for another round. Who can say no to a Croatian sunset and a warm beer?

Have you ever been to Buza Bar? Do you think it’s got the MOST BEAUTIFUL VIEWS IN THE WORLD? For more information and seasonal opening hours, check out the bar’s website. 

Filed Under: Balkans Trip, Beer, Books, Croatia, Dubrovnik, Europe, Featured, international travel, photo post, Places with Encanto, travel photography · Tagged: , ,

Montenegro! Very nice! Weather, very bad! But People, so nice!

May 16, 2013 by · 17 Comments

The bus driver slammed on the brakes, causing me to crash into the handrail I was using to steady myself. “Thank you! Bus Station!”

We were regurgitated from the Dubrovnik city bus and into the dreary station, where ruddy-faced city folk roamed like the stray cats we’d seen all over the city. Taxi? a few whispered as we passed by with our suitcases. Hotel? I approached the dirty ticket window and asked for two one-ways to Herceg Novi, Montenegro, an hour south of the Pearl of the Adriatic. After two glowing days in the city and a big life decision, I would be stepping foot in my thirtieth country.

Hayley and I settled into the plastic benches inside the station, watching the rain come down. Fifteen minutes ticked by past our sheduled departure time. Then another fifteen. Buses headed to Zagreb or Mostar rumbled in and out, but nothing marked HERCEG NOVI or any other destination rolled by.

Ninety minutes after we expected to, we had passed two border controls and entered Crna Gora. The highway snakes between a series of mountains, finally dumping us out in the seaside village of Igalo on the Bay of Kotor. Low, dark clouds rolled in over the wide mouth of the famous bay, which looks like two butterfly bandages stuck together.

It was odd to remember that Montenegro was born in the same year as kiddies I taught in first grade last year, that’s it’s been centuries since they’ve had their own money, that for years they were the little sister to Serbia after the Yugoslav conflict. I braced myself for bullet holes in buildings, or war cries painted on cracked and crumbling drywall. Montenegro looked the same as Dubrovnik, just with half of the signs written in Cyrillic, a homage to the city’s tumultuous past.

Dovar met us across the street from the bus station. It’s apparently really easy to spot two bewildered American girls in a country that a cell phone claims is Serbia and things are written in cyrillic and the Roman alphabet. Our car was upgraded to an automatic, snow chains came included and we were a mere 200 meters from our rental apartment. Stana great us with open arms, enveloping us into a big hug.

“Montenegro! Very nice! Weather, very bad. Ok. We come, girls.”

She made us hot drinks, showing us around the apartment and a few scattered and torn maps of the area. Once we’d satisfied our internet vice, we set out in hopes of finding a place to eat. Stana didn’t understand our requests for food, instead offering us up a few wrinkled oranges she’d cultivated from her garden.

The rain started pouring the moment we got into the car. Unaware of how to get to the historic part of town, we drove away from the apartment and followed the narrow, winding roads until Hayley spotted a red, white and green awning. “Ah! Italian! Stop the car!”

We stopped and I immediately regretted putting my umbrella in the trunk, especially after our two gorgeous days walking the walls in Dubrovnik and drinking beers at cliffside bars. The street had turned into a landslide, a waterfall, and the Italian restaurant was actually a shoe store. Montenegro has become a popular getaway for the jet set, but we were at the end of March.

The historic center, which spills down a hill right into the Bay of Kotor, was a ghost town. The only open establishment was Portofino, easily the priciest restaurant in town during the low season. As it turned out, the hail had shut off the power in the entire historic center, and we were offered  a limited menu: Caesar Salad or Caesar Salad, to be eaten by candlelight.

At least the beer was still cold.

As we asked for the bill, the waitress told us in broken English that we’d been invited to a drink by the group of men sitting near the door. We’d observed the four townies throwing back shots of the national spirit, Rakia. They raised our glasses to us, and we did the same to them.

I think I’m going to like Montenegro, I thought to myself, crap weather or not.

Have you ever been to Montenegro? What did you like about the country, or not?

Filed Under: Balkans Trip, Europe, Featured, Holy Week, international travel, Montenegro, Rural Tourism, Travel, UNESCO World Heritage · Tagged: , ,

HELP! An Essential Guide to The Beatles Story in Liverpool

April 25, 2013 by · 9 Comments

My father only let us listen to Top 40 once a week – on our way to mass on Sunday mornings. Kasey Kasem would count down tunes as my poor father shook his head, resisting the urge to turn the dial back to the Oldies station. I grew up listening to CCR, John Denver and the Beatles, and often wondered what I’d subject my own children to when I was at the wheel. Probably Ace of Base.

My previous trips to England have always been about visiting the big cities and seeing the famous sites, but having seen just about all the major cities comes with a price. Last year’s travel goals took me to regional festivals, sporting events and even another continent, but my recent Beatles revival has me researching music destinations.

The Beatles Story during a trip to Liverpool is at the top of my list. The Fab Four may have put Liverpool on the list and be haunted by John, Paul, Ringo and George, but there’s a wealth of things to do in the city. 

Since the Beatles’ inception and small-time gigs at The Cavern Club to worldwide fame and fans screaming at their feet, their career as a group and the subsequent solo careers are some of the most famous music stories ever known – Liverpool is witness to Beatlemania and all that came after.

The award-winning The Beatles Story museum can be found in the Albert Dock – a region, in itself, worth exploring. The interactive journey provides a comprehensive look at the career of The Beatles, from their first gigs as The Quarrymen right through to taking the world by storm. The sprawling museum is a testament to one of Rock’s greatest stories and home to countless cool exhibits.

Don’t miss Woolton Village Fete, where Paul met John for the first time. Imagine the conversations that would have helped cement their future and see the instruments that John used with his skiffle band before making the biggest career move of his life.

Stop by Casbah Coffee Club, where The Quarrymen played some of their live sets. The actual club used to be a rock and roll venue in the cellar of a home in West Derby, Liverpool and was helped to be painted and finished by the lads before heading on to larger venues. The cellar has been idolised in their memory and can still be visited to this day.

You will also find a recreated Cavern Club within the experience; the live venue that used to have a jazz-only policy but progressed to allow other genres on its stage. The actual club can still be found in Mathew Street and still has a great atmosphere.

Once the lads left Liverpool and took the world by storm, their split, solo careers and even the notorious murder of John Lennon outside The Dakota Building, are explained and explored in the museum. Following the tour, head over to the Mersey Ferries terminal, where The Beatles Story Pier Head can be found.

For someone who loves music and grew up with “Twist and Shout” as one of her favorite songs, it seems only fitting that a pilgrimage to the place where John and Paul made history is a must! The museum is located near the Liverpool docks and cost 16£ for adults and 12£ for students.

Have you ever been to Liverpool? What other sites would you recommend?

 

Filed Under: Europe, international travel, music, Tough Mudder UK ·

Italian Holiday: First Rate Without the Luxury Price Tag

April 19, 2013 by · 7 Comments

Ah, Bella Italia. Conjures up images of designer boutiques, smart pavement cafes with eye-wateringly expensive menus, and beautifully dressed people sipping frothy cappuccinos in the sunshine, doesn’t it? Or perhaps Italy means flying down snow-packed pistes with the wind whipping your cheeks, or maybe it even touring the lakes, vineyards and rolling hills of rural Italy. My mother grew up telling us about Italy, of the fabric shops and the endless amount of gelato, despite not having an ounce of mediterranean blood in us.

Italy was the second foreign country I visited, and it was hot, sticky and crowded. After Nancy touted it as her favorite place in the world, I was disappointed with Rome and Naples, but loved Sorrento’s sea views. As it turns out, there is a seemingly endless list of different holiday experiences on offer in this glorious part of the world, and we went during the height of tourist season. What they often have in common is a certain luxury factor that many might associate with top of the range holidays and a price to match, though you might be surprised to learn that a trip to Italy doesn’t have to cost una pasta (haha, get it?).

Take my solo trip to Pisa. I flew on a budget airline, stayed with local hosts on couchsurfing and searched out the cheap eats, spending a mere 120€ between the flight, food and transportation . In trips to Rome, Sorrento, Capri, Florence, Pisa and Bologna, I’ve picked up a few tips for keeping costs down in the Boot.

Teaming a low-cost flight with your own choice of hotel is often a great way to enjoy a city break or a stay in one of Italy’s famous locations. Book your flight as early as possible, as scheduled flights rarely stay cheap for long – particularly over weekends or public holidays. Look for hotels with good reviews and try to find those that are close to public transport networks, or be prepared to walk a little distance to get to the main sights. Unless you hit on a great deal, those hotels within the city centre or close to the major sights are typically more expensive. Do your best to shop around – you’ll often find great deals where you least expect them.

Check out local markets for a quick lunch, and never eat at a place right near the sites. Take a look around, and you’ll see that there are zero locals around, and this for a reason! In Florence a few years back, I caved and devoured a plate of tagliatelle near the Medici Palace, and 250g costs me nearly 10€! When I travel, I often tweet locals or ask friends for recommendations.

If you’re after a package break, you’ll find plenty of Italy holiday deals through tour operators like Thomas Cook. The best discounts are often advertised on last-minute holidays, but you’ll frequently find some great deals on next year’s or next season’s breaks too.

And splurge when it’s necessary! I took a boat ride in Capri to the Blue Grotto and the Novio and I stuffed ourselves at a dinner theatre in Bologna. Italy doesn’t have to be expensive, but when in Rome…

Have you been to Rome? What are your top destinations and top tips for saving money while on a city break?

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Filed Under: Europe, gastronomy, international travel, Italy, Travel, Travel Tips · Tagged: ,
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