Dean Village, Edinburgh

The spring school holidays are finished and we are both back to work and school, for the second week of the holidays we went back to Scotland.

It had been a really long time since we have been to Scotland in fact Christmas 2017, so we were well overdue a visit.

I had planned lots of things to do and see for this week and a few days, one of them being a trip to the capital Edinburgh.

I wanted to visit Dean Village which is a part of Edinburgh as I had seen lots of lovely photos on Instagram. It did not disappoint at all, lovely buildings, houses, and views. The only thing was that it is a small area and did not take long to see. Of course we might have missed out part of the area, not sure. There were lots of other people wondering around too. it has the river Leith flowing through and it is possible to walk all the way to Leith. My father and I think we might try that walk on another visit.

We did lots more on our visit but I will post that another time. Now at home there are some changes going on. Alessio is changing his room to the spare one as it is a bit bigger, he has chosen a new bed, furniture and curtains. The walls are getting painted too, I got rid of lots of stuff and some of mine too from the spare room. It is amazing how much stuff has been collected over the years. It felt good to get rid of it all. Hopefully by the end of May his room will be finished.

Happy Weekend

A Long Weekend in Riga, Latvia Part 2

Very interesting bar!

So a quick trip back to Riga to finish off our travels to this city and one off the things you would notice about this city is that it is very colourful. It also has lots of amazing buildings and architecture too. You can also check out the photos from my first post about Riga on the blog. 

We went to a cafe/bar called Black Magic, which was a tip from my Latvian friend Kat. It was very nice and I tried the drink Black Balsam which is from Latvia. It is very nice with prosecco but for me on its own not my cup of tea! I would definitely recommend a visit for sure!

This week has been filled with Alessio`s birthday, his birthday was on 3rd Sept and we had a small celebration that evening. Today was his party, which was a joint one with his friend Josiah. They decided to go to Alpamare. I had not been for over 15 years and could not remember much about the place. The boys had a super time, we had delicious carrot cake bake by Amy, Josiah`s mum and of course they got presents. So that it is over for another year!!

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

Doors Galore, Belgium

Brugge

Ghent

Antwerp

Last weekend we had a lovely time in Barcelona, seeing an old friend Elena and seeing FC Barcelona play and thankfully win!

These are a collection of doors we saw in different cities in Belgium from our week back in October.
The first 5 doors are in Brugge, the next 3 doors are in Ghent and the final 4 are in Antwerp! If you know me from Instagram, then you will know I do like to post pictures of doors and I do think these are all interesting!

Tomorrow evening I am going to see David Guetta in concert with Hannah, so looking forward to that very much!

Have a good mid week!

Porvoo, Finland

Porvoo Cathedral

Red Shore Houses

The long weekend we had last week, I visited Helsinki with two friends Hannah and Riikka. On the Saturday we visited the mediaeval city Porvoo, which is about 50km from the capital. We did think about going one way by steamboat, but it was really quite cold and we decided to stick with the bus!

This is a gorgeous city, full of fantastic shops, cafes, and old, colourful buildings. We were all glad to see that there are many arts and craft shops and we all bought some things from here. The river Porvoonjoki flows through the city and you can see the well know landmarks, the red shore houses which were once used to store goods and produce.

Porvoo is the second oldest city in Finland, founded nearly 800 years ago. I just loved walking through the streets, looking at the fantastic houses and buildings. It was just so colourful!

I really would encourage you to visit Porvoo if you happen to be in Helsinki or any other place nearby. I can only imagine when it is warm, sitting outside and relaxing would be lovely.

Have a great weekend!