Guessing game: my vacation in photos #nofilter

Dear readers,

After my trip to Formentera I packed my bags for a colder climate.

Can you guess where I went to?

Here are some clues:

Ok, maybe not a clue at all. A very random pic of this tee I saw in New Yorker, but I had to take this picture because it reminded me of the lovely and most funny Ingrid Nilsen aka MissGlamorazzi.

I was trying out taking some (good) selfies as I'm so bad at taking pics and I always think I'm too ugly for photos... I liked this one because the hubby was making fun of me and I had to laugh for real.

So, we'll start our journey with this pic. It was late afternoon and we had an hour to kill before our dinner reservation.

We love this city especially for its beautiful shopping area. I went to LUSH and went a bit cray cray and #FeelingSpendy I purchased over 100€ worth of products. Noticed the currency? - hint hint

This little beach was lovely to visit, not so crowded as the most famous one.

The hubby got some apple pancake and me, I just love me some poffertjes and this was the first time getting them with bacon, normally they are served with butter and powdered sugar mmmmm.

We saw this crane while biking along the canal, we both love these birds as they mate for life, isn't that super romantic?

I'm still a bit stiff from all the biking we did... ahem! - clears throat

The little town near our hotel had this idyllic look, almost like a painting.

For those of you who haven't guessed yet this sums it all up: nom nom nom

Broodje haring: Yay!

For the love of traveling, again,

My weekend in photos: Formentera

Dear readers,

I spent the weekend in Formentera, a small island near Ibiza.

If there were an award for the worst blogger ever I'm sure I'd win it, I left my camera at home and had to borrow the following pictures from my friends:

photography and editing by Marta Villen

This island has the most beautiful beaches:

 photography by Marta Villen

View from our hotel room balcony - taken with my iPad :(

We had an amazing breakfast at the Gecko Beach Club Boutique Hotel:

Me and my coworkers/friends. Paco was celebrating because Real Madrid won the Champions league for the 10th time the night before and he wouldn't take his shirt off. He told us he'd showered with it on.

picture taken by @13mgg 

Beautiful lighthouse in el Pilar de la Mola:

 photography by Marta Villen

Bit windy:

 picture taken by Paco

Typical Mediterranean fishermen's boats:

 photography by Marta Villen

Time for refreshments:

photography by Marta Villen

Thanks to my friends for a wonderful weekend and also for letting me steal some of their pics to include in this post.

Now I need to unpack my bags to repack them for my next destination, can you guess where I'm going?

For the love of traveling,

Jerusalem in photos

Dear diary,

Topic 8 of the #2014BloggerChallenge came in with the most perfect timing: I was just going on vacation to Jerusalem, Israel so here you have my week in photos:

Mahane Yehuda Market:

The Western Wall:

Blending in:

On our way to the Al-Aqsa Mosque:

Dome of the rock:

View of the old city taken from the Mount of Olives:

Church of Mary Magdalene:

Church of Gethsemane:

Tel Aviv 

Beach view taken from old Jafo:

Perfect spot for surfers:

Chilling out with a Latte Macchiato at Banana Beach after having a wonderful late lunch:

Perfect selfie regardless of the shadow cast by my arm. As you can see we don't like taking pictures of ourselves as we both think we are too ugly for words, lol. Not kidding, I hate having pictures taken that's why I only take boring postcard-type photos.

The most perfect ending to a lovely holiday:

Thanks to the guy who lend me his iPhone to call the bicycle rental when we stupidly locked the bike without having the combination to unlock it. He didn't even want us to give him any shekels.

I'm not a religious person but I enjoyed my trip very much because of the history this place has kept inside it's walls for so many centuries.

Everyone was so friendly and helpful it really filled my heart with hope for a better future without any hatred or fighting.

For the love of traveling,

After Christmas mellow

Dear diary,

Sadly Christmas is over and we only have New Year to look forward to. But I'm still in celebration mode: I've taken a couple of days off from work and I've packed my bags for a one-day trip, just to relax and take a break from the holiday frenzy.

We had some Paradores points to cash in before the end of the year so we decided for one Parador/Hotel nearby. But on the way over we stopped at a big shopping centre as I had to go to Primark and buy me some pajamas. Tanya Burr mentioned Primark in one of her Vlogmas and said they had the cutest pajamas. As we don't have a store nearby I've never been to a Primark before today, this is what I got (among other things, of course, lol):

Before going to sleep I'm taking a bath using my last Twilight bath bomb from LUSH and some Yankee Candles:

But before that I'm anxious to try out the Glamglow Supermud I got at http://www.feelunique.com:

We are also going to have a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant, I'll try to remember to take some pictures as I tend to forget to photograph food, I get sidetracked by how yammy and delicious it all seems and only remember my camera when my plate is completely empty.

For the love of food,

Field of stars

Dear diary,

This year I made a long time dream come true...

I walked the Way of Saint James, well at least the last 100 Km that is needed to obtain the certificate and dragged my husband with me, lol.

We decided to take the original way and started off in Lugo and walked the first 18,5 Km until San Romao da Retorta where we had the 12-bed hostel all to ourselves, well maybe not quite...

This first stage was pretty easy, even though I'm not used to walking long distances and had never carried a backpack before in my life (school bag doesn't count).

The second stage was more difficult as we went through mountain passes with lots of ups and downs until we arrived in Melide. We walked about 30 Km that day in the hot sun and stayed at the overcrowded pilgrims hostel.

As a special treat for having walked so far we had a humongous T-bone steak at Casa Quinzan where Mariano, the manager, was nice enough to share his own dulce de leche and made me some pancakes.

The third day was the worst, my feet started to hurt so we stopped at Ribadiso to soak them in the icy waters of the Iso river. We continued our journey to Arzúa but I could hardly walk anymore, my feet were full of blares. My husband suggested we should walk back 2 Km to Ribadiso and stay at their beautiful hostel but I was so frustrated to go back instead of forward that it took him a long time to convince me. Total walking distance: 14 Km + 2 Km back: 16 Km.

We were lucky to have stayed at the Ribadiso hostel, even though it was full, the layout and partitions of the big dormitories where better made for having a quiet night's sleep. I rested my feet and took good care of my blares but best of all was that I could watch the F1 race at the restaurant, yay!

The following day we started off badly, my feet still hurt a lot and I only could walk at a really slow pace. After a 3-hour walk we stopped to have lunch and I took some Ibuprofen for the pain, something I never do as I hate taking meds. There we met a group of very nice people and we continued with them until O Pedrouzo but it was still early (13:00) and there were only 18 Km left to Santiago de Compostela so we decided to continue and give it a try.

In fact, we had planned to stay at the Santa Irene hostel but my husband was so wrapped up in his conversation that he didn't hear me scream his name when we passed by. As I was also having a good time and felt much better I let it pass and we walked the extra 4 Km.

What should have been a 5 day journey ended up in a 4th day nightmare, we wanted to arrive to Compostela so badly that the last 5 Km seemed endless. My blares started to burst so I had to walk the last 3 Km in my flip flops and my husband's knee started to hurt so much that he really couldn't have walked any further. But we had made it! A total of 40 Km on this last day proved to be a bit too much for us. Tears were running down my face at the sight of the magnificent Cathedral:

We stayed at the Parador Hotel:

And enjoyed the Galician gastronomy:

The best anecdote from this journey was that I got attacked by a ferocious hungry feline:

For the love of sharing,