You don’t have to travel far to get away from it all. In Europe you will find an enormous variety of landscapes, cultures and cities. From ancient cities such as Florence, Paris and Athens to the mountain ranges in the Alps and from the beautiful beaches of the Mediterranean to the fjords in Scandinavia. Europe is an incredibly beautiful continent that has something to offer to every type of traveler. View all the destinations we have already been to here!
Destinations in Europe
Europe
mei 31, 2023Our yearly mother-daughter trip! My mum and I have been going on our little trips for a few years now! We already went to Copenhagen, Vienna, Budapest, Bologna and Prague. Unfortunately, due to covid we were not able to travel together in 2020 en 2021. So in the summer of 2022, we went to Bologna! We wanted something sunny and we were in the mood for some good food.
We stayed at a nice hotel near the city center, they had a wonderful breakfast with fresh cakes every morning. I love me some authentic Italian breakfast! On our first night, we went to this cute little Prosciutteria which I had found on Instagram. I booked us a table via Whatsapp as it’s a very popular place. It sure did not disappoint! The food was to die for and we ordered a lovely bottle of red. We were seated at this teeny tiny table and the charcuterie board was humongous, it barely fit!
On our second day we explored the city center, where at its heart you can find Piazza Maggiore. We also visited the finestrella di Via Piella. This is a window that offers a lovely peek at Bologna’s lost canals. Not as impressive as the canals in Venice, but still a pretty sight. We did a little shopping as well. We bought ourselves matching shoes. Super cute black sandals from Timberland!
Some other sights you must visit in Bologna:
Basilica of St. Petronius
St. Stephen Basilica
The leaning towers
Bologna’s Portici
For dinner we went to this amazing pasta restaurant I had found, where even my mum tried pasta! She is not a big fan of pasta, she usually chooses a nice pizza or a meat or fish dish. I had the delicious tortellini rosa con prosciutto e pinoli. After dinner, we wandered around Piazza Maggiore and got to enjoy some lovely music from street performers! I love how lively cities get at night. There was such a good ambiance.
The next day we decided to pay a visit to the Sanctuary and Portico of the Madonna di San Luca. Easy ways to get there are by bus, taxi or excursion train with audio tour. After returning to the city, we walked past a restaurant where I really wanted to eat. Unfortunately it was fully packed. We decided to have a little stroll and then return, hoping we would have better luck. And we did! The table was not cleared yet, but they told us that if we waited for a little bit that soon one would be available. We ordered a large charcuterie board and some delightful cocktails, of course!
We were to spent 5 days in Bologna, but we discovered that the city is not that big. So, we took a train to Modena, 30 minutes from Bologna. We had a little lunch and some drinks, and wandered around the city. As it was August, it was really damn hot so we took it rather slow.
Some nice sights you cannot miss in Modena:
Modena Cathedral
Torre Ghirlandina
Palazzo dei Musei
Piazza Roma
Palazzo Ducale
Piazza Grande
After a nice afternoon in Modena, we went back to Bologna. Where we got ourselves some tasty ice cream before enjoying our last night in Bologna. My mum was craving some pizza so we went to a marvelous pizza place! We had a wonderful last evening, which we ended with some cocktails and lots of chatter about my upcoming wedding next summer! All in all, we had a fantastic trip! On to the next! [...]
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september 14, 2022In the summer of 2021, we decided to take a little roadtrip! Destination: Italy!Our route was as follows: Pisa, Lucca, Cinque Terre, San Gimignano, Volterra, Siena, San Quirico D’Orcia, Montepulciano, Monticchiello, Perugia, Lago di Trasimeno, Pienza, Bagno Vignoni and Firenze. I know, those are a lot of names, I’ll introduce them all to you!
Let’s start at the beginning. When traveling in 2021 your covid passport was still a thing. I was not vaccinated yet so I had to get tested, which turned out to be horrendous! Not the test itself but the aftermath.. I planned my covid test 2 days before our trip as you have 48 hours. However, fastforward to the day of our departure: our plane got delayed! And not just by a little but we had to wait for hours! Which brings me to my problem: the validity of my covid test. So I was kinda shitting my pants the whole day as I was afraid I’d get in trouble in Italy. When we finally landed, I had 30 minutes before my test would surpass its 48 hours. So I told my boyfriend that when we got off the plane, I would run to the nearest person who could scan my QR code. I ran around the airport like a crazy person but no-one even batted an eye. No-one checked my QR code.. I was pissed and relieved at the same time! Relieved that everything turned out alright. Pissed because I had been so stressed for nothing! Well, we were in Italy. So I was a happy kid regardless.
PisaOur first stop was Pisa. I had been to Pisa many years before with my parents and my boyfriend. I didn’t like it back then as it was way too hot and way too crowded. So, I didn’t really have any expectations of Pisa. However, Pisa really surprised me! It wasn’t crowded at all, which was probably due to covid. But it was wonderful! I loved wandering around its streets and of course we visited the leaning tower of Pisa. We didn’t make a cliché photo though, haha! We also enjoyed some good food here! Two of my favorite restaurants were: Vasari, where I had a wonderful truffle pasta and Antica Bottega di Pisa, where I had an amazing pizza! We also stayed at a great hotel near the train station, so very central. The rooms were nice and spacious and you could enjoy a good breakfast on their terrace.
LuccaWe did a day trip to Lucca, a smaller town near Pisa. We went here by train as it was easy and closeby. It was really hot in Lucca so we took it slow. Unlike some other tourists.. We saw an arguing family plodding up a hill on a family bike. The dad was sweating like crazy and the children were not pedaling at all. Didn’t look like they had any fun. When you walk into the city center of Lucca, you pass its old walls that surround the whole city. We wandered around the city and enjoyed a very tasty lunch at Caffè Manon Lescaut. Furthermore, we visited the Palazzo Pfanner and Duomo di Lucca. We finished our afternoon with some nice cocktails at the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro.
Cinque terre
A bit off route, but I really wanted to visit Cinque terre and I think there wouldn’t be a better opportunity than now as it would be a little less crowded due to covid. I must say, it was still pretty crowded. Don’t even want to imagine what it normally would be like. Traveling from Pisa to Cinque terre was quite easy. We took a train to La Spezia and from there you can take the the Cinque Terre Express train. You can also walk between the 5 villages. There is a path connecting them all. It is a total of 12 kilometers long. It is definitely recommended to walk parts of this path. You walk along the coastline and you can enjoy a beautiful view of the villages, the mountains and the sea. It’ll cost you 7,50 per person. We walked a bit of the path between Manarola and Vernazza. It was so gorgeous! If you want to see the breathtaking viewpoints you see on Pinterest and Instagram, you can find them on the trail! And you don’t even have to walk too far to get there!
San Gimignano
was time to pick up our rental car and drive to the smaller villages in Tuscany. We rented our car through Centauro. Great service and you can take an all risk insurance so you won’t get charged for any damages at all. We drove to San Gimignano where stayed in an amazing bed and breakfast. If you are staying in San Gimignano, stay here! I promise you, you’ll have one of the best views ever! The doors of your room open directly on their terrace and the breakfast is simply divine! We loved our stay here. San Gimignano was a cute little village. If you like raw meat, we had a sublime dinner at Risto Macelleria I Piaceri Della Carne. My boyfriend found this restaurant and it was exquisite! On our second day we booked a wine tasting at Tenuta Torciano. This was probably the best day of our roadtrip, haha! We tasted 8 wines and had a 3 course lunch. They give you a tour of their property and will tell you all about their wines while you are tasting them. The location was gorgeous, the wine delicious and the food amazing! However, you do have to think about how to get there.. We traveled by car, fortunately it was a 10 minute drive from our B&B but my boyfriend did drink a whole bottle of water before we left.
Volterra
We made a little stop at Volterra, where we stayed at an amazing hotel in the city center. The rooms were gorgeous and their staff was super kind and helpful! Only thing we had to be careful about was not driving into the ZTL, as you get a big ass fine if you do! ZTL means “Zona a Traffico Limitato”. Most city center areas in cities like Volterra are ZTL so no cars will enter. We wandered around the city, visited the museo Etrusco Guarnacci, where you will find all kinds of Etruscan objects and sarcophagi. Pretty cool if you like history! Volterra is a village on a hill so you’ll have a number of places on the outskirts of the city where you can admire the typical Tuscan hills, the views are sublime! There are many more impressive sights te visit, like: the Roman theatre, the Acropoli Etrusca and the Cisterna Romana. All worth a visit if you are a little history nerd like I am! In the evening we ate some very tasty pasta at il Sacco Fiorentino.
Siena
We continued our trip to Siena, where our hotel was a little out of the city center. This would not have been a problem, were it not that our room was not ready yet at 14:00 when we should’ve been able to check in. It was super hot and we just wanted to rest for a bit. They told us our room would be ready in around an hour or so. So we decided to wait as the hotel had a nice and large garden. After an hour it became apparent that our room was far from ready. They told us to “just go into town”, which was a 30 minute walk and it was 36 degrees. So we did as we got sick of waiting around. We were pretty annoyed that we had to wait so long to check in, when check in was actually at 14:00. The garden and pool were nice though.
We really enjoyed Siena! We decided to go for a nice lunch at il Vinaio, we enjoyed some cold cuts and a good white wine. Siena is a gorgeous city with in its centre the Piazza del Campo, which is the beautiful main square. In the evening it was very lively here, with many people sitting on the square, drinking, eating and having fun with friends. When in Siena you must also visit the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta! This church is really breathtakingly pretty. We accidentally chose a bit more expensive restaurant but boy, that did not disappoint! The food was so good and the service was impeccable. We were offered a free aperitif to start with. That was followed by some little appetizer, which was also super tasty. And we topped it of with some delicious pasta! I think the photos speak for themselves.
Pienza, San Quirico D’Orcia, Montepulciano, Monticchiello and Bagno Vignoni
We visited all these places while staying at a wonderful agriturismo near Pienza! I definitely recommend this place as the breakfast is sublime, the garden is beautiful and very spacious and it has a little wellness! due to covid you could only use it one room at a time. I really liked that as it made me think we had a private wellness!
So from here, we visited Pienza, San Quirico D’Orcia, Montepulciano, Monticchiello and Bagno Vignoni. These are very pretty medieval little villages. If you want to get around in this area, you definitely need to rent a car, otherwise it is impossible to visit these places. We decided to visit Pienza during the sunrise for some really cool drone footage above this little town. Getting up that early was definitely worth it, it was gorgeous. We also went on the hunt for “cipressi”. These are those typical trees you see on all Tuscan photos. I really wanted a romantic photo of us with those trees! So my boyfriend was kind enough to try and find a nice street with cipressi for me. Glad to say: we succeeded! I’d like to mention that I really liked visiting Bagno Vignoni as it has these hot thermal baths in its centre! We had a nice romantic dinner at a lovely restaurant overlooking these natural thermal spring waters. A less nice experience was visiting Monticchiello, the town is absolutely beautiful and the views are to die for! However, the restaurant we had dinner at was just horrendous. The food was good not great, well, the food they had.. The service however, was horrible! They ran out of almost everything and it was only 21:00? What Italian restaurant runs out of mozzarella? They didn’t check that we had a reservation and nobody dared to serve us and actively avoided us because we spoke English. The waitress finally wanted to come talk to us when my boyfriend told her that I could speak Italian. We had to change our orders a few times, as they didn’t have anything. On top of that, they forgot my boyfriends order. So he got his food around 22:30. Not a great experience. Fortunately, on our last night in Pienza we did enjoy an amazing dinner with some good cocktails at Idyllium. They serve amazing small dishes, which you can share and they have really tasty cocktails. It’s a modern place with a beautiful view of the Tuscan landscape!
Perugia and Lago di Trasimeno
We went back to where it all began for me! In august 2015 I moved to Italy and I started this adventure in Perugia, where I did an intensive language course. My boyfriend never came to visit me here as I only stayed there for 4 weeks before moving to Milano. So I had a blast showing him around. Where I had lived, where I’d go for groceries, where we would go out, my university, etc. Perugia is a gorgeous town on a hill with some great views. The Piazza IV Novembre is Perugia’s main square and houses the Cattedrale di San Lorenzo. My old apartment used to be just behind the church! It was really nice to be back. After an afternoon in Perugia we decided we wanted to go for a swim so we drove to lago di Trasimeno, a lake close to Perugia. Definitely worth a visit if you want to relax for a bit.
Firenze
We finished our trip in Firenze, where we stayed at a b&b in the city center! This b&b was perfectly situated. It had a rooftop terrace (as the name implies) where you have the best view in town! You can see the Duomo up close. It was majestic! On the terrace you’ll find tables and chairs so that you can enjoy a drink or some food while being mesmerized by the view. We really loved Firenze. Walking along the Arno river and crossing the ponte vecchio. Another notable place to visit is the Piazza della Signoria. Here you can stroll around while you’ll be able to see the Palazzo Vecchio. Furthermore, this square is filled with gorgeous statues so there is plenty to see! Our first evening in Firenze, we made a little mistake while dining at culinaria de gustibus bistro. Don’t get me wrong, the food was impeccably good but we both ordered fish and we chose a white wine to go with it. When the waiter came back and told us that unfortantely the wine we chose was no longer available, we had to choose something else. Unaware of the fact that we ordered fish, we went with a red wine.. The waiter looked confused and said “that’s a red wine?”. We responded with “yes, we know!”. We only realised our mistake when we were already drinking the wine and the food arrived. We looked at each other and both laughed. Well, the wine and food were really good so wo cares! We found another amazing lunch spot the next day at le volpi e l’uva. We ordered some cold cuts, crostone and wine. What more could we have asked for?! Our last dinner in Firenze was wisely chosen, we were kinda sad that we had to sit inside as it had no terrace but the food totally made up for that! We had a wonderful last dinner at Coquinarius. We already reminisced about our trip and talked about future trips. I’m always a bit sad to go home again but that just means that I had a lot of fun. Onto the next adventure! [...]
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maart 4, 2022Every year my mum and I go on a little getaway together. Due to Covid-19 we weren’t able to travel together in 2020 and 2021. Our last trip was back in the summer of 2019. We went to Budapest together and we had such a marvelous time! We started our journey at the airport of Eindhoven where we met as we do not live close to each other at the moment.
We arrived in Budapest pretty late so we were famished as we hadn’t eaten anything yet. So after dropping off our stuff at our amazing hotel, we went for some late night dinner. The hotel we stayed as was great, such a colonial and impressive building with an incredible rooftop terrace! There you could enjoy the wonderful view accompanied with some cocktails. Our first dinner was at a Hummus bar where we ordered a pita with falafel. We wandered around the city for a bit before heading to bed.
The next morning it was time to explore some more! We visited the chain bridge and the parliament building. Both quite impressive! Furthermore, we stopped by the st. stephen’s basilica and crossed the liberty bridge. When we got hungry, we went for an amazing avocado toast at Szimply! We had to wait for a little bit so we got coffee at Kontakt. The food is not only delicious at Szimply but also super instagrammable! It looks gorgeous.
Afterwards, we visited the Gozsdu Weekend Market, where my mum bought me an amazing handmade leather handbag. The strap was actually to big for me at first but the guy selling the bag punched a few more holes in the leather for me! I don’t remember his name but if you find him at the market, definitely buy a bag from him! I still use my bag to this day. I simply adore the bag. In the afternoon we thought it was time for some cocktails, so we went to this cute little place to drink a few cocktails before heading to dinner. We went to Urban Betyar and the food was really good.
The next day we went on to explore Margaret island, which is located on the middle of the Danube, where we had a lovely lunch before heading to the Fisherman’s Bastion. This is located near the Buda Castle and you have an amazing panoramic view of Budapest. Definitely worth a visit! Afterwards we enjoyed some cocktails at our rooftop terrace where you have another splendid view of the city. We finished our evening with a lovely dinner at Na’Pasta bistro.
Another day, another adventure! We started our day with a visit to the heroes’s square, it’s the largest and most symbolic square in Budapest. After strolling around the square for a bit, we continued our journey to the city park where you can see a lot of nice sights. For example: the Vajdahunyad Castle, which I thought to be pretty impressive! The Zoo is also located in this park but we didn’t visit it. After a morning of exploring the city we decided it was time for some relaxation! So we went to the Szechenyi baths. This is one of the many thermal baths in Budapest and it’s the largest medicinal bath in Europe. It consists of 18 pools and we tried all of them! It was such a lovely and relaxing experience. Of course, it’s a little crowded as many tourists want to visit it. Nevertheless, we enjoyed it thoroughly. On our way home we bought a traditional Hungarian pastry: a chimney cake, which was super delicious! You must definitely try one when in Budapest. On our last evening, we decided we wanted to try another typical Hungarian dish called Goulash. It was really tasty!
Unfortunately, our trip came to an end but we had a lot of fun and explored a wonderful city! We are new looking into another mother-daughter trip for the summer of 2022! So stay tuned. [...]
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februari 4, 2022After our adventure in 2018, it was time to get back to the real world. We had to find jobs and a place to live! We moved back in with our parents for a little bit as we both had no place of our own anymore. We searched for jobs for around 3 months until we found our jobs in Nijmegen. So that meant that we had to move as well! My boyfriend found his dream PhD in Nijmegen which is why I had to look for a job there too. We both started our new jobs in April 2019 and were frantically searching for a place to live. Fortunately, my aunt and uncle live in Nijmegen and we could stay with them for a little while! We soon found a temporary place to live in the city center of Nijmegen as the apartment we actually wanted was still being built. We moved into our own apartment in September 2019! Where we still live to this day.
That’s enough background story! Settling into the new working life wasn’t always easy as I longed back for the days that we were traveling. So, we decided that we needed to plan trips throughout the year! So our first trip was a trip down memory lane actually. My boyfriend lived in Barcelona for a semester during his master’s degree. So we decided that it would be nice to visit Barcelona over the summer! As we both spent a lot of time there during 2018.
So off we went, our first trip of 2019! We settled into our working lives and took a trip to Barccelona in July 2019. We visited all the places we already know and love. As we know the city so well, I thought it might be fun to make a little list of where to go!
Favorite places
My favorite place in Barcelona definitely is Parc de la Ciutadella. It’s such a wonderful park and so much to see in it! When my boyfriend lived there, I used to go here to enjoy the sun and read a book in the grass. My other favorite place is Plaça d’Espanya with Parc the Montjuïc and Font Magica. Damn, do I love that fountain! My boyfriend lived closeby so during our evening strolls we would also walk up there and I simply adore it. I used to walk up there during the day as well to soak up some sun and read a book. My final favorite spot in Barcelona are the bunkers del carmel! Here you have an amazing view of the city! Definitely worth a visit.
As of course, we had already seen everything in Barcelona, we did not visit everything again. Instead, we went strayed a bit from the city and went to Vilanova i la Geltrú to meet up with two of my boyfriend’s friends. They picked us up and we drove to the beach! What a marvelous day which we ended with some great food nearby the beach.
On one of the evening’s one of his friends took us to a restaurant (I don’t remember the name unfortunately) and afterwards we went for drinks! We started the evening with Vermouth and wine, went for a nice dinner and ended the night at some sort of street party! Which was pretty cool. So all in all, we had a great trip to Barcelona!
And of course, there is still plenty to see in Barcelona so I made a little list for first time visitors! Things you definitely musn’t miss:1. Park Güell2. Sagrada Familia3. Barri Gòtic4. The beach at Barceloneta (duh!)5. Tibidabo6. Camp Nou (I was even lucky enough to see Messi play!)7. And if you have some time to leave the city, definitely visit Montserrat! [...]
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