Lisbon

I spent a few days at the beginning of June in lovely Lisbon. Woah. This city is ridiculously cool. I completely loved the place. Unlike a lot of European capital cities there isn't a huge lists of sites to tick off, and so it's a fantastic place to just explore, take in the beautiful architecture, get lost in tiny side streets, look out across all the amazing views and eat all the pastel de nata as is humanly possible! It's also ridiculously cheap, and so a lot of incredible seafood and delicious wine was consumed. If you get the chance, go! 

I feel like Lisbon is a city I could happily live in! I loved the vibe of the whole place and everyone was super friendly, can't wait to go back already! Some highlights were - 

+ Drinks at sunset at Park -  a bar on the roof of a multi-storey car park! It took a while to find the right door in the car park, but the views and the wine were sooo worth it! 
+ Seafood supper at Mercado da Ribeira, a super cool food market down by the docks. This had been recommended to me by a few people, it has such a buzzing atmosphere and sooooo much incredible good food. It's the kind of place you could go to over and over again. 
+ Seeing some live music in Barrio Alto - we stayed in this area, and it's has a bit of a hot summer party night feel the whole time. It's also crazy crazy pretty and covered in all those incredible patterned tiles. 
+ Popping into Manteigaria - Fábrica de Pastéis de Nata - for the tastiest pastel de nata, and to see them being made in all their gorgeousness. 
+ Taking the train out of Lisbon to Cascais, to swim in the sea and sunbathe on the sand! It's a really pretty seaside town too.
+ A trip to the LX Factory - now I really could have spent days here! Sitting under the Pont 25 de Abril, this transformed warehouse contains bars, design stores, artists, a flea market, the most incredible book shop I've ever seen and loads more. 
+ Taking the number 28 tram, just for the experience, it's kinda hilarious and a little like a tiny roller coaster. 
+ Getting lost in the tiny little streets in the Alfama district of the city, it's crazy beautiful, super colourful and really olden times. 

Photos - iPhone 5 + vsco cam. 

the french alps | la rosiere

The end of January was spent at the top of the French Alps, surrounded by fluffy snow, incredible scenery, cheese & wine and a lovely lovely bunch of friends. It had been waaaay too long since I'd last been skiing. And it was amazing! I'd had a mega cough over Christmas and the new year which resulted in a nasty bout of costochondritis over January and was on all the pain killers at the start... but it's kinda magic how quickly a bit of mountain air can fix you up! It was one of the most snowy ski holidays I've ever been on, sooooooo much snow. Which made for a few pretty cloudy ski days, but then some of the prettiest mountain scenes ever ever. La Rosière was beautiful, and here are a few of my favourite snaps.

Photos - iPhone 5 + vsco cam.  

croatia | mljet

We went to Mljet National Park as a day trip from Dubrovnik. A bus, a ferry and a couple of mountain bikes and we were surrounded by the most beautiful lakes and gorgeous green scenery. This place is stunning. It's also totally worth the pretty steep cycle ride from Polače to get there, as cycling round the lakes was not only super fun but also a great way to take in as much scenery as possible and find the nicest swimming spots! Quite possibly the clearest water I've ever ever swam in! 

Photos - mixture of lumix DLSR and iPhone 5 + vsco cam.  

croatia love

Just over a week ago I got back from an amazing, beautiful and ridiculously fun holiday in Croatia, and ever since then things have been crazy hectic go go gooooo! So I'm just gonna look at these photos and pretend like I'm bobbing about in crystal clear turquoise water under the adriatic sun for a while, okay? 

I'll be back soon with more photos and a few of my holiday highlights!  

Photos - iPhone 5 + vsco cam. 

manhattan

And just like that it's been over a month since I shared my Brooklyn photos! I guess I'm trying to make the most of this lovely lovely Summer. But anyway, back to a very crisp cold March in Manhattan...

I definitely preferred New York second time round, even though I still wanted to scream in people's faces every time I got near Time's Square, ahem... and I'm so glad I got to do a few of the things I didn't do back in 2004! Some of my favourite things in Manhattan this time were...

+ Going to the Top of the Rock. Hands down a much better view than from the Empire State. 
+ Shopping in Soho. Urm. Kinda wish I'd discovered that earlier on in the trip, could have mooched around there for days. 
+ The High Line. I loved the way this elevated walk way interacts with the city, giving some incredible views along the way. And the architecture of the High Line itself is seriously beautiful. 
+ The Chrysler Building. Still my favourite. 
+ MOMA. Wish I'd had more time here too, such a gorgeous museum, and soooo many amazing pieces of art. I hung out in the Kandinsky room for ages. 
+ That wall by Maya Hayuk in the Lower East Side. We took seven million photos. I loved it so much. 

Photos - mixture of lumix DLSR and iPhone 5 + vsco cam.  

fromwhereistand 2014 | part 1

If you've followed me on instagram for a while, you'll know I've always been pretty obsessed with taking photos of my feet. Sort of as a way of recording where I am, or what I'm doing. I think it's just a bit of a fun way to document little things! Anyway, my friend Claire challenged me at the start of 2014 to take one of these photos every week, for a year. So far, I've managed to stick to it, and it's been pretty fun! There have been a couple of weeks where I've struggled to find something picturesque enough, but there have also been a few weeks when I've wanted to post three photos! But overall, I like them, and I think they're making me document more things which is nice! As we're half way through the year *wargh* I thought I'd share a few of my faves.

Here's to the the rest of 2014! You can follow along here. 

brooklyn

I was lucky enough to visit New York for a week in March, and it was sooo fabulous. We had the most brilliant, fantastic and hilarious holiday! I hadn't been for a decade, and loved it so much more this time around, partly I think because we were staying in Brooklyn, which is definitely much more my vibe than hectic Manhattan! We stayed in Greenpoint which was completely perfect for us. The photo above was taken the night we arrived - we fell for the area pretty quickly! I loved how laid back, arty and cool Brooklyn is; we often felt like locals there rather than like tourists which I think is definitely the best way to see a place. For some reason it's taken me an age to share my photos, but better late than never hey? It's nice to look back on them...

I really recommend staying in Brooklyn. I really think the craziness of Manhattan would have gotten to be a bit too much 24/7, and also, there are just some reeeeally cool places over on the Brooklyn side! Some of my favourite things in Brooklyn were...

+ That swoony view across to Manhattan. 
+ Shopping in Williamsburg. I loved the area around Bedford Avenue and Franklin Street running back up to Greenpoint. I could have shopped here for days! 
+ Coffee and design at Budin NYC. 
+ The Box House Hotel. We booked this place after a recommendation and some brilliant reviews which it really lived up to. This hotel is awesome!
+ Drinks and brunch at Coco. We loved this place so much we went back! 
+ All that lovely street art. 

I'll be back soon with some photos of Manhattan! 

Photos - mixture of lumix DLSR and iPhone 5 + vsco cam.  

this was good friday

Pretty much every four-day Easter weekend I go down to the Jurassic Coast in Dorset for a little holiday with a load of family and friends, and I’m talking 70+ people! It has become a bit legendary and gets bigger and better each year. This year was the 25th anniversary, and so we celebrated at sunset at the top of a cliff, with speeches, champagne, fairy lights, bunting, sparklers, a bonfire, singing, fireworks and a whole lot of love. It might just have been one of the prettiest and most magical nights of my life!

I hope you all had lovely Easter weekends! I'm hoping to get back to more regular blogging soon, I have a few fun projects on at the mo which are eating up all my free time, but feel like I have so much to share on here so will be back soon! 

Photos - iPhone 5 + vsco cam. 

portobello road

Last weekend I had both my sisters staying, and in the few hours of sunshine we got on the Sunday, between the storms, we headed to Portobello Road in Notting Hill. I hadn't been for ages so it was lovely to have a wander around. We mooched through the market stalls, treated ourselves to cupcakes for later, bought daffodils and blood oranges, and ate yummy falafel on our way down the road. We really did luck out with the weather because the skies opened up just as we were getting back on the tube. It was a pretty gorgeous and colourful few hours though! 

Photos - iPhone 5 + vsco cam.

*One of my instagrams from this day was chosen for the first #sfgirlguide round up - yeah! 

the blue mountains

Whilst in Sydney we did a day trip up to the Blue Mountains, I thought they deserved a blog post for themselves. Ever since Claire moved over to Australia I have been pretty amazed by how gorgeous these mountains look, her instagrams and blog posts have had me swooning. So I was so glad we managed to get up there, and on a super gorgeous day too. Those mountains are bloody spectacular, and they're actually blue! It is quite breathtakingly beautiful, I couldn't get enough. The light and the colours were amazing, it smelt pretty great too and I of course took a ridiculous amount of photos. Here are some of my faves...

Aaaand that's the end of the Australia photos... Maybe I'll get back to blogging about London sometime soon!

Photos - mixture of lumix DLSR and iPhone 5, some edited with vsco cam.