For a short stay in Malaga, we recently discovered a really good company, offering fully renovated apartments in the center of the city, located on Calle Santa Lucia, in one of the city's most...
Travel…
We love to travel. And while we’ve been travelling, because we tend to veer off the tourist trails, we realised that we were discovering so many hidden gems, having amazing experiences and picking up tips and avoiding near-disasters, that we thought it would be a nice idea to have somewhere, where this could be shared. In March 2017 we finally realised our dream to relocate to the sunshine and moved to Istria, in northern Croatia. We continued to travel, and although the pandemic restricted where we could go, it gave us the opportunity to discover Istria and Croatia. Things took a very different turn in early 2024 when we decided to sell our renovated house, and take another big plunge – this time moving to Andalucia, and taking on the renovation of a traditional Spanish townhouse.
What we blog about is a good mix of wherever we go. If you love quirky places and things maybe a bit different from the norm, hopefully you’ll like what you find here. You can also pop over to Twitter, for the brief version!
And, we’re not being paid to mention hotels etc, & none of the blogs are sponsored – although, if one day, I could make a living out of travelling to gorgeous places…
recent travel blogs
the hard rock hotel : puerto banus : marbella
Well, this was definitely a new one for us. The Hard Rock Hotel. In Puerto Banus. Not really our usual less-is-more. More, more-is-more-and-the-brasher-the-better... So, it begs the question - why?...
ronda : andalucia : 2024
It's over ten years since we lasted visited Ronda, and that was a flying visit, as we were en route to Seville for Semana Santa. But it imprinted such a memory that we always said we'd return for a...
hotel tugasa castillo de castellar : castellar de la frontera : andalucia
Our roadtrip around Andalucia has introduced us to some incredible places, and definitely places we probably wouldn't have otherwise discovered, if we hadn't been "in between homes". One such place...
frescoes : draguć : istria : croatia
In northern Istria, is the small village of Draguć, somewhere I’d never heard of, let alone been to, until this summer. That’s the beauty of Istria. It’s a small peninsula and so I guess that once...
treviso : veneto : italy
Amanda and Steve, friends who come and visit us from Manchester, usually fly into Treviso, north of Venice, spend a couple of days there and then hop on the train to Trieste where we pick them up....
hotel navis : opatija riviera : croatia
What a treat, a day and night away at Hotel Navis, in Opatija, is. Built into a cliff-face, and with all rooms overlooking the sea, it is situated between Rijeka and Volosko, on Preluk Bay – and for...
petit sant miquel : calonge : mallorca
After spending time on the western side of Mallorca, we decided to explore the eastern side of the island and found a gem of a hotel, called Petit Sant Miquel in the very pretty and very traditional...
hotel grand wiesler : graz : austria
Sometimes, you see somewhere online and you just have to go. No matter what. This happened recently when I discovered the website for the Hotel Grand Wiesler, in Graz, in the Styria region of...
maribor : slovenia
Maribor is Slovenia’s second largest city, but that doesn’t mean it’s big, by any stretch of the imagination. Up until now, we’ve overlooked it, in favour of the capital, Ljubljana, whose appeal is...
officine cavour : padova : veneto : italy
Our second accommodation on our weekend stopover in Padova was an apartment, slap bang in the historical centre, called Officine Cavour. Directions to the car park were great – but we struggled a...
best western plus net tower : padova : veneto : italy
We often drive around the outskirts of Padova (Padua) when we travel back to Istria from Italy. We’ve always found it – even with Google Maps – quite a perplexing city to get out of. It’s not a big...
carnevale : venezia : italy
Apart from Easter in Seville – Santa Semana – we’ve not witnessed a spectacle quite as amazing as the Venice Carnival. We arrived in Venice on a cold, misty February morning, having booked two...
freetown christiania : copenhagen : denmark
We love Copenhagen. Everything about it just oozes understated style and sophistication. It is effortlessly cool. Bars and restaurants (or at least the ones we’ve visited) are contemporary without...
il circolino : citta alta : bergamo : lombardy : italy
On trips to Bergamo, we’ve regularly meant to eat at Il Circolino, just off Via Colleoni, up in Citta Alta. But, we’ve never done it. It’s always looked interesting. The menu has always appealed....
brimham rocks : north yorkshire
Although we know most of the north of England fairly well, we weren’t aware of Brimham Rocks. How did we not know about them? Found on Brimham Moor in North Yorkshire, England the rocks began taking...
london : england
Not too long ago, when we still lived in Didsbury, we often thought about having time away in London, but never got round to it, because, well – London was just too far away from Manchester. The...
whitby : north yorkshire
Split by the River Esk, Whitby is one of my favourite spots on the Yorkshire coast. I always seem to have visited in the winter months, and although I am sure spring and summer are glorious...
the georgian townhouse : walton-on-the-naze : essex
Recently, we travelled south to Essex to visit a We Are Life client and decided to make a bit of trip of it. Not having ever been to Essex before, assuming it was all brash a-la “The Only Way is...