For some of our friends and acquaintances it’s still summer. Everyday in the social networks we find lots of pictures of nice beaches and exotic places. But for us routine is back. We are already working and I (Laura) am getting used to a new job. However, we are trying to extend the summer period with weekends of beach, drinks and swimming pool. And this has reminded us of one of the most beautiful beaches where we’ve been together: the Costa Nova beach, near Aveiro (Portugal). Its colourful houses stole my heart.
Dídac in Costa Nova beach
Aveiro in fact is a synonym of colour. The vibrant houses, the drawings of the moliceiros… The two big cities of Portugal, Porto and Lisbon, are easily reached by plane from Barcelona. But if you want to get lost among the beautifull villages of this country, having a car is a must. So two years ago we decided to cross the entire Iberian Peninsula with our own car to start a roadtrip that we will always remember.
Some days ago we arrived back home after two weeks in China. Although two weeks seem a very short time to visit such a huge country, we have enjoyed a lot of those 14 days in China and have managed to discover some of the most important Chinese jewels. However, we are already thinking of a second visit to this amazing country, maybe to Sichuan, Yunnan or Tibet. Who knows… 🙂
China, a travel dream fulfilled
We already shared in a previous post the itinerary that we had planned for this trip. Generally speaking, we followed our initial plan, but we had to introduce some minor changes due to the difficulty of getting tickets to enter the Forbidden City in Beijing and the train bookings. The agency that had been managing the train bookings for us told us some weeks before our trip that it was not possible to get tickets for the exact trains that we had requested. Fortunatelly, we had booked our accommodation with free cancellation in Booking.com, as we always do. This made us change our plans as per the nights that we would spend in Xi’an and Pingyao.
We’ve been thinking of sharing the itinerary of our Austrian-Bavarian road trip for a long time. We have already written about some of our experiences there in several posts, but we wanted to summarize in this post the route that we followed and to prove that you don’t need much time or to leave Europe in order to enjoy of an amazing trip. In just seven days, we discovered part of Austria and Bavaria in a road trip that took us from Vienna to Munich through a magnificient alpine landscape.
Although Japan might be one of the most interesting and culturally rich countries in the world, most travelers use to have a limited time to visit it. Thus, the aim of this post is to share the route that we completed when we discovered Japan in 2015. We have written a lot about this beautiful country in previous posts, but we wanted to give you a full idea of the kind of trip that we did and to prove that some of the main hotspots of the country can be seen in less than two weeks.
Tokyo at night from the top of the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower
As we already explained in this post, when flying from Barcelona to Tokyo we did a stopover in Moscow that gave us some time to visit the city and the same happened in our trip back home. This means that we had less time for Japan due to the lenght of our stopovers. Nevertheless, in 11 days and thanks to the wonderful Japan Rail (JR) Pass we left Japan with a good number of must-see places in our bags.
The geography of Lisbon has turned it into a city full of hills that are overcome by means of the funiculars, which are an essential part to Lisbon’s mobility. This particular geography, together with certain amazing monuments, brings to visitors lots of opportunities to enjoy great views of the city and to take nice pictures anywhere. We reached Lisbon by car last summer after a short visit to the Alentejo region and we definitely fell in love with that colourful and vibrant city that we could observe from many viewpoints. Those are, in our oppinion, the best places to see Lisbon on your feet.
1. Padrão dos Descobrimentos
Inaugurated in 1960, the Monument of the Discoveries is located in the northern bank of the Tagus River estuary, from where ships used to depart to explore and trade with India and Orient. The monument recalls the Portuguese Age of Discovery (XV and XVI centuries). If you visit the Belém quarter don’t forget to climb up to the top of this monument to have amazing views of the compass rose and mapa mundi (a gift from the South African government) at its feet and the Jerónimos Monastery in the background.
The Jerónimos Monastery seen from the Monument of the Discoveries
