A Few Days In Brussels

At the end of our October holiday last year we spent a few days in Brussels, this was the first time I had visited the city since I lived there for 3 months as an au pair when I was 18 or 19 years old.

We arrived by train from Brugge, dropped our stuff at the hotel and started to explore, We went straight to the city centre, on the way we visited the Cathedral. The Grand Place is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, construction began in the 15th century.The square holds the Town Hall, King`s House or Bread House (which is the Museum of the city of Brussels) and many other guild buildings. It is of course full of tourists and very busy.

The Belgium Comic Strip Center is worth a visit if you are into comics or have children and it was near to our hotel. I am not sure what the name of the area where our hotel was in but there were many restaurants and bars which was handy in the evening.

On our last day in Brussels, Alessio and I wondered around the city. There was no plan as to where to go but we did see some very interesting architecture (not sure Alessio was into that). We ended up in park where we stayed for a while before we headed to the airport.

The weekend is very nearly upon us and this one will be busy, my parents are arriving for their normal September holiday. I am going to a wedding on Saturday and no doubt on Sunday we will go on a day trip somewhere! Not to mention that Alessio will be 12 years old on Monday! Good God it is hard to believe!

Happy Weekend!

Sky Tower Auckland, New Zealand

Once we had arrived and checked into our hotel in Auckland, we were both starting to get tired but we still needed to stay awake a bit longer. Our hotel was very, very near to the Sky Tower, so what better way to spend some time, than going up the tower after our weary two day trip!

The Sky Tower is an observation and telecommunication tower which is 328m, so we headed to the ticket desk and bought our tickets. We went up the lift, which only takes 40 seconds to get the main observation level at 186m. There is another observation level at 220m.

You get a 360 degrees views of the city and some of the observation levels have glass floor, which can be a little bit scary! It has two restaurants and a cafe, which is where we stopped off at for some refreshments. Some more info about the tower you can find here!

We managed to walk around the shopping area near to our hotel after our visit to the tower. We looked for a place for dinner and found a nice burger place. Sadly poor Alessio fall asleep after he finished his dinner, so we returned to the hotel. It was only 5pm but he was really very tired as he did not sleep at all on the second flight. Which meant we were both awake by 4am the next morning!!

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

June Reading List

My reading posts seemed to have been dropped a bit so there is a lot to catch up on and this photo has nothing to do with the books I read in June. This is just part of my TBR list and since I did not take any photos of the books from June they photo will have to do!

I read 10 books and here they are:

The Resistance Man by Martin Walker - 3 star

Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker - 3 star

Last Voyage of Valentina by Santa Montefiore - 3 star

Scythe by Neil Shusterman - 5 star

Thunderhead by Neil Shusterman - 5 star

Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness - 4 star

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor - 4 star

Bonfire by Krysten Ritter

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney - 4 stars

The Woman in the Window by A J Finn - 3 stars


So as you can see I really enjoyed Scythe and Thunderhead, these are the first two books in a trilogy. I very much look forward to the last one.

Monsters of Men is the last in another trilogy which I also really liked.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is the first in a trilogy, already read the second in July, now to wait for the third.


Here are some links to check out!

Oh I do miss Obama!

Here is the shortlist for Not The Booker Prize, and they sound all very interesting!

Here are books recommended by writers!

Dunedin Street Art Part 1

Dunedin is the second largest city on the South Island in New Zealand and we spent 4 days exploring this small city and the wildlife in the surrounding Otago peninsula. Dunedin is full of fantastic street art as you can see from the photos. I took loads of photos so will post the rest later on. There is a map you can get to find all the art and there are about 26 or more, we did not see them all.

Slowly things are getting back to normal and the jet lag is going but with it being so hot it is anyway difficult to sleep. The past weekend was busy with my sister Elena being here, and of course we went to the Street Parade, which was lots of fun as usual. Plus yesterday evening I went to see Justin Timberlake with some friends.

Alessio has been busy since he returned from NZ, he spent a few days in Austria with his dad and will go to Europa Park on Sunday.

Wishing you all a great weekend



 Europa Park on the Sunday.

Singapore Lights!

We are back from our big trip to New Zealand, we had a fab time and saw lots of amazing things. We stopped in Singapore both ways and on the return we had a long enough layover to do the free tour offered by the airport.

It last 2.5 hours and just offers a glimpse of this huge city. Once through immigration and that took a while, we hopped onto our bus and boy were we happy to cool down a bit. As many will know Singapore is quite near to the Equator around 137 km away so that means it is hot, hot and hot all the year long.

Those of you that know me, know that I don't like it being so hot, so why visit Singapore you may ask! Well I wanted to see this city once and all the amazing buildings, but dam it was unbearably hot. Even poor Alessio felt bad too!

Anyway we had two stops on the tour, first at Merlion Park, where we saw Singapore Flyer, Marina Bay Sands and the Esplanade. The second stop took in Gardens by the Bay and we saw an amazing light show and these awesome supertrees!

There is another tour called Heritage tour which is during the day, ours was called City Sights tour. We booked through our travel agency when I bought the tickets. As there is only two per night they get booked fast. Our tour was fully booked!

Now back in Zürich and I am super happy it is raining and may cool down a bit!

Have a great weekend!