Cruise through Northern Europe and around the Baltic with Costa Cruises

18/05/2016

Crociera del nord crociera del mar baltico (15)Cruise through Northern Europe and around the Baltic with Costa Cruises

Cruise through Northern Europe and around the Baltic. It’s so true that when you come to the end of a cruise with Costa Cruises, you honestly don’t know how to get back to your normal routine back on land. The amazing experience, entertainment, sense of being part of a big family, the magical sea and its incredible sunsets, the food (varied and delicious) at all hours, the chance to get to know new countries and cities… it’s marvellous, ladies!!

Cruise through Northern Europe and around the Baltic with Costa Cruises: Saint Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm and Tallinn

Let’s start at the beginning. It was my very first cruise: so I’d never tried it and I was a bit sceptical of this kind of trip. What if we get bored? What if we don’t have time to explore all the cities that we visit? But now, sitting in front of my laptop back in Florence, let me tell you this: you feel SO weird being back on solid ground after a week of walking around on a moving vessel! The Costa Luminosa, the beautiful Costa Cruises ship that was our home for a week, is incredibly elegant, and designed in the Italian style (you can see all the photos of our suit below!). On board there is a huge spa with a pool, sauna, Turkish baths, and all kinds of spa treatments, plus 4 restaurants and 11 bars, where there is an infinite choice of food and drink. You can go from the buffet to the focacceria, pizzeria, formal restaurant (where there are also themed dinners by the chef Bruno Barbieri or gala dinners) to the Samsara restaurants (asian fusion, our favourite!) and the Club Luminosa (on the top floor of the ship, with an incredible view of the sunset!. Costa is also very entertaining: there’s a disco, a cinema, a theatre on 3 floors, a casino, shops, indoor and outdoor swimming pools with hydromassage, a gym and an outdoor running track. The ship is beautiful and very welcoming (and also organised to make sure everything runs smoothly and you have a stress-free holiday), with friendly and personal staff who are happy to help (like Alex, our cabin manager and Carlos, our waiter), who organise everything so that when you arrive at a new port for excursions (you can choose to go in a group or stay on the ship), and it’s almost a shame to leave them onboard…

(Continued below…)

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Hermitage

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My trip to Costa Rica with Piz Buin: Pura Vida!

16/02/2016

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My trip to Costa Rica with Piz Buin: Pura Vida!

My trip to Costa Rica. ‘Pura Vida’ is the official motto of Costa Rica, meaning ‘pure life’. These two words perfectly sum up this beautiful country: a wild and sun-kissed land that is rich in beautiful nature and animals. A land of nature that is still blissfully untouched, dreamy beaches, unforgettable little places. Costa Rica is the country that we had the pleasure of exploring together with Piz Buin, the famous sun-care brand that was the creator of the first suncream, and that is celebrating its 70th birthday this year with the launch of lots of new products and its search for the best sun-kissed corners of the world for you to explore!

My trip to Costa Rica with Piz Buin: Pura Vida!

So super protected by an infinite range of products by Piz Buin that we were lucky enough to try out during the trip (and that I must say, provided excellent sun protection even in adverse circumstances… and this comes from someone who is obsessed with sun protection!), together with the Piz Buin team and some bloggers from all across Europe (Trendy TasteFashion MumblrThe muse and the ladybugSandra Kisic), off we went to explore Costa Rica!

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Here you can see all my articles on my latest travels!

My trip to Manila, The Philippines

4 dream holidays to book for 2016

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What to See in Manila: My Tour in the Capital City of the Philippines with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

22/01/2016

mall of asia manila

What to See in Manila: My Tour in the Capital of the Philippines with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

What to see in Manila. It’s time to tell you about my trip to Philippine, to be more precise, to Manila with – KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and KLM Dream Offers. We flew for 23 hours with all comforts, Giova and I watched thousand of movies, even the most recent, we play games on board, and we had three complete meals with soy noodles and a lemon tart when we were about to land on Asia (as you can imagine we eat every crumble, everything was so good!). On our way back we even try Economy Comfort Class: the price in just like a regular Economy Class but you have more space between each seat and more space to recline: it feels much better!

Manila was one of the locations in my travel wish list for 2016 and it didn’t let me down! All the things I’m going to tell you about Manila won’t be enough to explain how incredible my experience has been. You must see it with your own eyes to understand. Chaos, people literally everywhere, on the streets, inside sidecars, jumping on and off crazy buses that never stop, riding motorcycles (generally more than three people for each), carriages, bicycles and driving millions of cars and taxis. SOUNDS: klaxon, screaming of peddlers, noises from building sites of a giant, still growing metropolis, music on the streets, people chatting, running and walking up and down. SMELLS: of food cooked on the street, the strong smell of a city where the rich and the poor coexist in a perpetual conflict. FEELINGS: the good heart of Philippine people that in such a huge city don’t see many tourists, the surprise in their eyes when they see us walking in places we’re not supposed to be, children waving “hello” ever time they see us passing by, all the smiling faces, the curious looks and the gentle greetings of elders. It’s a tough reality… but it’s fascinating and I want to understand it deeply.

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4 Dream Destinations I Want to See in 2016!

13/01/2016

repubblica dominicana

4 Dream Destinations To Travel To in 2016: My Wishlist!

January is the month for resolutions and of course one of mine is to travel more. Traveling is like a drug for me; the more I travel abroad, the more I feel the need to see new places around the world! Last year I visited lots of European cities: Paris, Barcelona, Brussels, Stuttgart. I went to Provence and Camargue as well. Then I travelled to the Caribbean, visiting Guadalupe and then The Dominican Republic – where we went as far as the Haitian border – before heading to the middle of the ocean to Mauritius. After that I did a whole month of hiking – we walked for a total 200 km – among the highest peaks of Austria in August, Italy, in December and then I flew to the USA to hike in Arizona, Nevada and California. I’ve also been to loads of big US cities like L.A., Las Vegas, New York and San Diego and I’ve seen the amazing Grand Canyon.

I can’t complain about 2015, it was full of adventures all over the world! But this year I want to see more, travel to more new countries and see other continents. So I thought I would write a bucket list of the top 4 travel destinations of my dreams, a wish list of all the places I’d like to go to this year so you can dream with me and you’re about to find out where I’m flying to with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in a few days…

(To be continued!)

Some more posts about travel:

My Trip to Dominican Republic

HERE you can see all my trips on the world map

HERE you can see travel section of my blog

My latest mountain trip in December

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