The best thing about a vacation is the quality Wine you will find on every corner. When I think about any part of France, the first that comes to my mind is the combination of a piece of appetising cheese and a tasteful glass of Wine.
and this time (August 2013) I tried a new one that I did not drink before which became one of my favourites. It is called "M Rose - Chateau Minuty". and it is a magnificent wine of pleasure. It bewitched me with its first drop and accompanied me in every restaurant I went.
The first sip of it will make you feel the beauty of the French Riviera and you will appreciate the gorgeous streets of Cannes that are spiced up with Marilyn Monroe paintings better.
People who visit the city of Cannes are very motivated to show off their deluxe possessions like these über-luxurious cars parked in front of the dashing styled hotels on the picture.. Taking pictures of roughly 10 of those made me feel dizzy a bit since it was like an overwhelming auto-gallery show.
I started my vacation in Nice and drove down to St. Tropez. Renting a car was a great idea, if you like driving you will have fun on the full-of-turns winding roads of French Riviera.
If you want to enjoy the sea, I would not recommend the beaches in Nice, they are stony and the water was very wavy and muddy during my stay over there. Between Nice and St. Maxime I observed shiny sand beaches where the water was more clearer and brighter. So take a rental car and enjoy the coast side!
Cannes streets
Cannes streets
Here are some of my pictures from the sunny coast side of South France. Enjoy!
Alacati is one of the most popular vacation places in Turkey. Even many celebrities hit this lovely town once the sun is hot enough to warm up the Aegean Sea...I had never understood what all the fuss was about before I got the chance to travel there 2 months ago (as a person who grew up in Istanbul, shame on me! I should have done this waaaayy long ago...). It is famous for its boutique hotels and kite&windsurfing. This authentic town fascinated me with its historical stone houses and organic food. Even the colours of the vegetables are different and so vivid. The local people seem to be happier, I guess due to the constant Vitamine D throughout almost the whole year and the healthy food. Mostly fresh vegetables, seafood and fruit.
delicious stuffed mussels with lemon
However, for me, the biggest highlight of this trip was the one and only famous stuffed mussels (picture below), I had eaten of them many times but I feel like I met its true taste in Alacati. With a little drop of lemon it tastes heavenly. The only problem is once I start, I can not stop anymore...I could probably swallow down 100 of those little babies in one sitting... (Help!!)
I finally understand what all people had been talking about..The sea is so crystal clear that you do not want to get out for hours, the sun is shining, the food is fresh & über-delicious and I would lie if I say I did not enjoy looking at those sunny surfer boys...(Hey, what else can a girl want? :))
Italy is by far my favourite country to visit on earth! (among those I have seen so far of course!:)
I will only talk about one village; Portofino for now because I might not shut up once I start talking about my obsessional feelings on Italy :)
potpourri coloured houses in Portofino
I have been only once in Portofino but I am sure I will visit this little fishing village many times in the future. This village is a celebrity magnet and because of that you can bump into paparazzi trying to catch some flashy pictures of them (and maybe some nude pictures to make the headlines, ha? who knows!). Heavily luxurious yachts can be seen from the bay which displays what kind of audience the village attracts.
So if you can, just ignore all those photoflashes and soak up the sun into your body, focus your energy on the mesmerising side of Portofino.
the view of the bay in Portofino
Since it was all last-minute, we could not find any affordable place to spend the night in Portofino. So we ended up staying in an hotel in the neighbour village called "Rapallo" and took the ferry to Portofino from there.
When you are in Portofino, make sure you are ready for a day full of long long walkings. You can only appreciate the real allure of the bay if you see the pathways between Portofino and its surrounding villages. What amazed me the most was its calming energy that made me stare at the bay for hours and of course I could not stop taking pictures of the potpourri coloured-houses.
"Life is just a series of peaks and troughs. And you don't know whether you're in a trough until you're climbing out, or on a peak until you're coming down. And that's it you know, you never know what's round the corner. But it's all good. " Ricky Gervais, Office, the scripts
I have no idea why but I was never interested in visiting the city of London up until 7-8 years ago. Strangely enough I had the feeling that I would not like that city. Well I could tell you one thing now: I could not have been more wrong.
My first visit was for business purposes and scheduled for 2 weeks which was great because it had given me enough time to get to know this amazingly multi-culti city.
I was astonished by the energy and the diversity of cultures.
giving a kiss to the famous Big Ben in London
Every time I went there, I discovered a different part of it and could not stop talking about its spicy indian foods (became one of my favourite cuisines in London), awe-inspiring architecture for hours (within European countries such as Germany, Austria and France you could easily observe some similarities in structure of the buildings but UK is not one of them. On the contrary, it lets you know that you are in a royal place and it is not copying anybody else.). I had fallen in love with UK at first sight.
It was the first time that I was enjoying watching TV in a foreign country. It was the UK effect, so I called it. Sometimes the documentaries were so engrossing I could not turn off the TV before 3am (I was arriving to the meetings very late on the next day as you can imagine). It drew my attention so much that I became very interested in its history and people and I started researching it. In no time, I was buying the books and watching the interviews / debates of the brilliant scientist Richard Dawkins, enjoying the sarcastic British humour of Ricky Gervais, going to the standup shows of Russell Brand and most importantly trying to understand the Scottish accent (!).
One of the greatest UK movies of all time for me is "In Bruges" directed by Martin Mcdonagh and the main actor is the charming casanova Mr. Colin Farrell. In my opinion, the whole movie was underrated and I enjoyed watching its dramatic humour and brilliant scenario over and over again.
a lovely lightened up restaurant in Shoreditch East London
So If you wanna appreciate the royal beauty, go ahead and start with a trip to the incredible city of London, I am sure it will make you feel you will need to see more of the UK soon!
I am sure that the producers, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, did not see it coming back then that some lunatic chica would watch their show (literally every episode) over and over again 25 years later without getting bored and most pitifully relating her life to it.
In my defence, if you get the humour of Seinfeld, you will definitely have a different viewpoint of life.
I will take you to a restaurant that is famous for its appearance on almost every episode of Seinfeld. My second time in gorgeous city of New York, I had the chance to visit that famous restaurant (and even dragged my poor friends there)
Tom's Restaurant in Manhattan
It is called Tom's restaurant and is in the upper West side of Manhattan. The interior is decorated with the pictures of Seinfeld characters, Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer but do not expect the layout to be the same. It is completely different but it does give you the feeling of living in one of the episodes.
hmmm...what? Why did I not mention the food? mmmhhh...It was literally the worst food that I ever had, but was it still worth the visit? Yes, a big YES...
"You can't even begin to understand biology, you can't understand life, unless you understand what it's all there for, how it arose - and that means evolution." Richard Dawkins
The old town square from the vista point in Prague
It was very easy to fall in love with this mystical city among its gracious castles, the magnificent Charles Bridge and the old town square.
While the untouched historical side takes you back to the Holy Roman Empire, its view from the top showing the typical red-bricks-roofs will leave you breathless.
I never thought that Prague would become one of my favourites within the European cities, but I guess the fact that I visited it 3 times already is explaining my admiration for this gothic city.
the famous soup-bread
In winter time, this soup-in-bread (yes your eyes are fine, it is emptied bread and filled-with-soup) will fill up your stomach deliciously.