Escaping to Sunny Salou

A few weeks ago, myself and Kevin headed off on our third trip of the year. The last two trips, Paris and Munich, were very busy trips with lots of exploring and sightseeing so we wanted a break away in the sun where we would do nothing but relax! Searching through Ryanair and Are Lingus websites, we found relatively cheap flights that worked around a weekend to Reus. We chose to go to Salou (we actually were there about 6 years ago too) as we knew we'd be guaranteed to have a total chilled out weekend.

How to get there?
We flew with Ryanair direct from Cork. We flew out on a Friday evening at about 6.30pm and arrived back into Cork Sunday night at about 11.30pm. This was ideal for us as it meant we didn't need to book any extra time off work.

Where to Stay?
We were initially booked into one of the Port Aventura Hotels, Hotel Caribe, but Alpharooms ended up overbooking us and we were left to find a new hotel 4 days before we were due to travel. Not ideal considering 91% of the hotels in Salou were already booked out. We ended up staying in Hotel Dorada Palace which was gorgeous. It had two pools plus a rooftop pool, a bar, restaurant, games area, entertainment and was just a short walking distance to beach and local bars and restaurants. We had a gorgeous room with a huge balcony that overlooked the main pool and entertainment stage.




What to Do?
For us, this weekend was just a chance to unwind and do nothing! Of course Port Aventura was nearby and there was plenty of waterparks but doing all of those would have meant we'd be doing the opposite of what we booked the trip for which was to relax. We basically spent the whole two days lying by the pool which was total bliss! In the evenings we just strolled along the beach and by the local shops.

Where to Eat?
Breakfast in the hotel was included in our booking so we had a continental breakfast there each morning meaning I didn't eat very much there :P For lunch we chose to eat in the hotel's poolside bar just so we didn't waste some of the afternoon venturing out looking for a restaurant. For dinner, we actually ate in two restaurants that we loved when we visited there 6 years ago. The first was Robin Hood's which is a UK bar. It looks a little tacky from the outside but the food was great. We both had Tikka Masala and although it wasn't as enjoyable as we remembered it was still really good. The second night we went to Spaghetti House for some gorgeous pizza. It was absolutely amazing and I'd definitely recommend it.

Although it was a very short trip, it was so lovely to just completely relax. I honestly felt like I had been away for about a week! We vlogged the trip too so you can watch that below!

A Weekend in Munich

A couple of weeks ago, myself and Kevin jetted off to Munich for the weekend. It was our first time in Germany and we absolutely fell in love with Munich. The buildings and architecture were absolutely gorgeous and we really enjoyed just strolling around, wandering the beautiful streets. I decided to put together a quick little travel post on where we stayed, ate, visited etc.

How to Get There?

We flew with Are Lingus on an early Saturday morning flight and came back on a Monday. It was the first flight out of Cork so unfortunately, I don't think the future schedules fly on a Saturday.

Where to Stay?
We stayed in the Holiday Inn Munich City Centre and the location couldn't have been more ideal. There's steps from the hotel leading down to the underground train station so you don't even need to step outside to get on either the S-Bahn or U-Bahn (one stop to the city centre - Marienplatz). The hotel itself was absolutely gorgeous and we couldn't fault it.

What to Do?
Ok I need to first point out that we arrived on a Saturday, had that full day and a full day Sunday. BUT what we didn't know beforehand was that every single shop closes on Sundays. So we had left all of our shopping until the Sunday and we got a great shock to see that nowhere was open :P So if you are planning a trip there on a weekend, leave the sightseeing things until the Sunday as they're still open.

Frühlingsfest 

After searching Google for ages to find something that was open, we went and visited Frühlingsfest (Spring Festival) which was like a mini Oktoberfest. There was two big beer halls and lots of outdoor rides like mini rollercoasters, ferris wheel etc. It was a gorgeous day and I'm so happy we found it. I think this festival was only on the time of year that we went but it's worth Googling as they do a few different festivals and markets every so often.

Tierpark Hellabrun

We visited the Munich Zoo and loved it. There was a variety of animals but we were most looking forward to the ones we had never seen in other zoos e.g. bear, polar bears, wallaby etc. The weather was gorgeous so it was lovely to stroll around for the day.

Open Top Bus Tour
The first day we arrived, we did an Open Top Bus Tour which took us around to the various sites and landmarks Munich has to offer. We got off at the Olympic Tower and the English Gardens.

Olympic Tower
Olympiapark is an area in Munich where the Olympics were held years ago. They have lots of sports facilities and the 291m high Olympic Tower where you can go up and see the views of Munich. For only €7 it was definitely worth it and although I'm afraid of heights I actually didn't mind it too much.

English Gardens
This is one of the largest urban parks in the world. It has lots of pathways and grass areas which are perfect if you want to stroll around or have a picnic. We walked around it for a little while and came across these guys surfing on a really rapid part of the river - it was very cool!

Here's our vlogs from the trip.

 

A 2016 Reflection - What Did I Achieve?

Last year I wrote a post on whether I achieved my 2015 goals and I thought I'd do the very same this year. Back in January 2016, I made a list of goals to achieve within the year so I'm writing this post now to see whether or not these goals were met.

In 2016 I hoped to...

♥  Travel more and go to at least one place that I haven't been before - Success! In 2016 we went to London, Barcelona (which was a new city for me), Florida and Paris. 

 

♥  Eat healthier - I'm just gonna be honest here and say this was a huge fail! Like why did I even think I could achieve this?! I'm a pizza gal at heart what can I say! There was also peppers in this rice - does that count as healthy eating?!

♥  Exercise more - nope! FAIL!

♥  Move out - success! Ok so I did cheat with this goal as when I wrote the post last January we had already bought our house :P but in saying that, things could have fallen through! This was by far the best thing about 2016 and I'm so looking forward to seeing what home DIY and decor projects 2017 has for us.

♥  Get a driving licence and start driving - success-ish! I got my provisional licence and did one driving lesson :P does that count?!

♥  Reach 1000 YouTube subscribers - success! We're now on 1200 and excited to seeing how far we can go in 2017.

♥  Start making more videos on my own YouTube channel - FAIL!!!! Didn't even consider this one :P

♥  Reach 5000 Facebook likes - NOPE! Far from it at 1600! Facebook has been a BITCH for business pages this year so how many people see your post has significantly reduced and they just want you to start paying to advertise! I don't tend to post on Facebook much so I've decided to mainly focus on my Instagram and Snapchat (rfairydustblog).

♥  Be more consistent with blog posts - Ya not so much! To be fair it has been a very busy year for us especially at the beginning of the year with all the house stuff! This year I'll be better (ya I know I say this every year :P)

I'll be doing another blog post soon on my 2017 resolutions as it's always fun to come back to at the end of the year and see what I have accomplished. 

A Weekend Break in Killarney

Hey guys!

I know it's been a while since my last blog post, I'm super busy at the moment with something that'll be revealed really soon! To take a break from the busyness of it all, myself and Kevin booked a last minute trip to Killarney in Kerry last weekend.

We stayed in The Holiday Inn as there wasn't much availability in Killarney that weekend. The hotel was about a 15 min walk from the town centre and because the weather was absolutely amazing that weekend, we were able to take in all the beautiful surroundings. We did a lot of strolling around just admiring the town and also paid a visit to the Killarney Outlet Centre as well as a few shops in the town.

We wanted to just relax and have a chilled weekend and that's exactly what we did. When we go away we always have something on or something to attend, so it was nice to just completely relax and unwind with no time schedules! We'll definitely be back.

Just Touched Down in London Town

So our first trip of 2016 was a birthday trip for Kevin to London! During the Black Friday sales, Ryanair had return flights to London (and probably other places) for €4 per person. No that's not a mistake...I did mean €4!!!! So I got return flights for us both for a ridiculous €8!! We flew from Cork (which we haven't done in SO long and it was so handy!) and arrived in Stansted at around 8 a.m. It was a very short trip as we arrived home early on Sunday but considering the price of the flights, we didn't mind!

We stayed in the Thistle Euston which was less than a 5 min walk to the tube station. It was a perfect location as we were only about a 5-10 min journey on the tube to Oxford St. The hotel was gorgeous and we really enjoyed our stay there.

Since we only had one day there we wanted to see as much sightseeing stuff as possible, without having a jam packed day, so we decided to do the open top bus tour. We booked the Golden Tours hop on hop off bus tour which brought us on a guided tour to all of London's main attractions. We chose to stay on the bus but you can hop on and hop off as much as you like all day. Big Ben and Westminster Abbey were our fav - the architecture is just amazing! It was Kevin's first time in London and he loved it! Afterwards we headed to Oxford Street for some retail therapy!

 

We had a lovely, though very short, trip and we can't wait to go back again! Let me know what you like to do in London so we'll know for our next trip :)

Hopefully, there'll be many more travel posts on my blog for 2016 :)

Visiting Beautiful Monaco

When myself and Kevin were in Nice, we took a day trip to beautiful Monaco. The scenery is just amazing there and I felt like I was walking around with my mouth open all day. I was constantly grabbing Kevin saying "OMG", "WOW", "I wanna live here", "Look at this" etc. etc. haha!

We explored the beautiful sights of Monaco including the Prince's Palace (myself and Kevin are now in the running of becoming the next Prince and Princess of Monaco...), Monte Carlo and the famous Casino (where we just about stepped inside of the door!). We also had a lovely walk along the marina looking at the amazing yachts in awe and obviously deciding which would be ours to purchase! There was a lot of walking to do but I completely fell in love with the place and when I become the Princess of Monaco, I'll be sure to do a house tour ;) haha!

For outfit details, check out my YouTube video :) see our vlog of the trip here!

Trip to Nice, France | May 2015

If you've been following any of my social media (mainly Instagram and snapchat), you'll have seen that last week myself and Kevin spent 5 days in the beautiful French coastal city of Nice. The weather was gorgeous and there was lots for us to see and do so I thought I'd put together a quick blog post all about our trip.

Why did we pick Nice?
I chose Nice at random as a birthday present for Kevin. I've only been to France once (Paris in 2013) and wanted to see more of the country. I wanted to go somewhere that had sun and also places to visit. Kevin's parents had been there last year and loved it and the flights with Ryanair were also pretty reasonable so my decision was made!

Where did we stay?
We stayed in the Best Western Hotel Riveria which was lovely. The room was clean, the staff were friendly and we really enjoyed our stay there. It was very close to the train station, less than a 5 minute walk to the main shopping street, Avenue Jean Medecin, and only about a 15 minute walk to the beach.

What did we do?
We took a day trip to Monaco (separate blog post coming soon!) which was just simply fabulous! We people-watched and ate ice-creams on the (stoney!) beach, climbed a million (or slightly less) steps near the Castel Plage to see some amazing views over Nice, visited the beautifully scenic Nice "Old Town", visited Cannes during the film festival and played countless games of Spit, Rummy and Switch with our very stylish Minion playing cards!

Where did we eat?
We ate in La Pizza Cresci in both Nice and Cannes - best pizza we've had! We also ate in the Old Town in La Favola, Royal Kashmir where we had an amazing Indian curry, Hippopotamus and also had very romantic meals in McDonalds and Subway haha!

Want more info?
Email me at rainbowsandfairydustblog@gmail.com, tweet me or send me a message on Facebook!

We vlogged every day on this trip so head over to our YouTube channel to see more :)

Enjoyed this post?  Check out my other TRAVEL posts featuring Manchester, Florida 2013, Florida 2014, Paris and Turkey!

Beach Day

The weather in Cork has been (unusually!) gorgeous lately and so I've been making the most of it while it lasts. Last week I went to Garrettstown beach and thought I'd share some photos of the day with you :)

My Facebook page has also reached 300 likes this week so I'm running a competition on there until Wednesday so head over there to check it out!

 

Blogmas Day 9: Florida 2014

So as some of you may know, myself and Kevin went back to Florida again this summer. I never posted about it and since we just booked for 2015, I thought I'd share some photos of this year's holiday! It was definitely the best holiday we've been on! We had a two week pass for Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure and Wet n' Wild waterpark and we did one full day in Disney's Magic Kingdom. We also did plenty of shopping, the weather was amazing and our hotel was literally out of this world. Just talking about it now is getting me way too excited for next year-Florida take 3!

Here's yesterday's vlogmas video :) don't forget to subscribe :)