Weihnachtsmarkt Essen

Christmas Fair in Essen

It is time for the Christmas Fair!

Tough choice, there are so many nice places and markets to pick from. My personal favorite is Essen, Germany!

Essen haas a nice market, not to big. Dusseldorf for instance has a large market, but it is ready crowded. You don't need to walk, people will push you forward. In Essen that will not happen so soon. They have a very nice mall, so you will have a great day there!

And Essen had a large Primark (6 floors) and parking is easy and cheap, so why not choose Essen?

We start at the Mc Cafe for a good coffee and nice cake!

You should go to the market when it gets dark, the lights are the most beautiful then.

You can find lots of stuff at the market and the ambiance is great in Essen.

You cannot leave Essen without a ride in the big wheel.

 From all this you get angry, so you go to the market to get some food. There is lots to get, those Germans know what the good life is ;-). Flamkuchen, noodles and off course bratwurst mit pommes!

And Gluhwein!

So if you are looking for a Christmas fair to go to, I recommend Essen, Germany, cheap and easy parking, nice mall and great people and ambiance. Here is a link to their website, here you can find the times the market opens and closes etc.

Season greetings to you all!

Utrecht nice citrytrip

I write about city's en countries other than my own, but why not write about a perfect city trip to the Netherlands? This blog is about Utrecht!

Utrecht is a very lovely city and especially the "Gracht" is the place to be to eat and go out at night.

If you are looking for a nice place to eat at the Gracht and you like Thai, you should definitely go to Mahanakorn. You can eat here very good Thai and drink Singha beer!

If you like steak, you can also walk a little further and walk to Janskerkhof, here you will find Hofman Cafe. This is a very nice place, good food, nice people, take a look, you won't be disappointed!!

If you have a little budget, but you want to eat fresh and good, you can go to la Place. Here you can have breakfast, lunch and dinner for a small price, but always with fresh ingredients. You can find la Place in the big warehouse V&D.

Unfortunately I cannot recommend any hotels because I have never slept in Utrecht in a hotel. So I don't know what is a good hotel and what is not, I am sorry.

Utrecht is a very beautiful city, with very beautiful buildings, such as the Dom.

And the Muntgebouw.

If you like to get away from the city for a day, you have so many options in Utrecht. For instance you can visit Castle de Haar in Haarzuilens, very near Utrecht. It is a beautiful castle with very beautiful gardens surrounding it and there are planting a whole new forest nearby!

So you can see Utrecht is worth a visit!!

Tignes France wintersport

Our first and unfortunately also our last wintersportholiday went to Tignes in France.

We stayed in a very beautiful apartment from CGH Residences & Spas Le Telemark.
The appartment is very beautiful, two bedrooms with each their own bathroom, a fully utilised kitchen en a balcony where the sun shines in the afternoon, lovely!

We picked up our rental ski's and sticks in the village which is a 10 minute walk from the appartment . Groceries and such is wise to buy those at the foot of te mountain, before you go up to Tignes, because those are expensive in Tignes!

The others went skiing, it is almost ski in ski out here at out apartment.  If you are a very good skier than you can ski in ski out, but if you are a little unexperienced you cross the road, which is in total I guess ten steps from the apartment and then you are in the snow, perfect! I went for a walk from Tignes le Lac to Tignes Val Claret, the weather was perfect and I met some "Marmot" who where playing in the snow, if you look really careful at the picture you can see them on te left.

I wanted to do a walk around the Lac (the Lake), but the whole path was snowed under, so after I disappeared twice ende the snow, I changed my mind and walked on the road ;-). 

After my walk and the others their skiing adventure, we checked out the welles from CGH. There is a very lovely pool, even nicer saunas and teamcabines, what a treat!!

Closing the day with a nice glass of wine and a little brie, how much nicer can life get!

If you want to get cheaper groceries, you have to go down the mountain, this is a 45 minutes drive, it is only a few kilometers, but it takes 45 minutes!!

If you go the other direction, you can go to Italy. We tried too, but we were stopped at La Rosiere, because of all the snow! La Rosiere is a bit of a ghost town when we were there, you can get your picture taken with a Sint Bernharddog here, but there was no dog and no humans at the time we were there. No Italy either, that was a bit of a bummer. Only 8 more kilometers, but unfortunately.....

A bit disappointed we drove away and took the samen dangerous road back, little bended roads and such. We went to Albertville instead, but we stopped on the way and behind the trees we found this little oase and so we stayed here for a while. It was beautiful here!

Once we were in Albertville, we got an icecream and we went to the Carrefour. My tic is that in every country I am I have to visit the Carrefour, just to see what they sell. Albertville is very nice for a visit, so you can pay Albertville a visit, you won't be disappointed.

Our view from the balcony:

Impressive right! Le Telemark, is very special, the people that work there make you feel really special, as if you are a regular VIP! They speak very good English and want to do the world for you. You can borrow a fondue or a raclette, games or dvd-player with dvd's! 

The kitchen is super, with a very good oven! The balcony was great. In the morning you are skiing, in the afternoon you can enjoy the sun on your own balcony. Apres ski is very nice in Tignes, there are several places where you can relax and enjoy a good beer and music! Our apartment was on the third floor, on the first floor is your own barn, where you can keep your wet ski equipment, which is dried there, so no snow or wet in your own apartment! The welnesscenter is really nice with a very big pool, bubblebaths, two saunas and a Turkish steamboat free of charge! You could also enjoy a massage or other treatment, but those are not free.

The front of le Telemark:

Tignes the place to be this wintersportseason!

Ghent the place to be!

Ghent

In april we made a citytrip to Ghent.

Have you ever experienced coming to a place and thinking, wow I do not want to leave here? Well, I had that with Ghent. Ghent is amazing!!
It is a beautiful town, really nice, people very friendly and the atmosphere is great. They say you must have seen Rome before you die, but you have to been to Ghent  too before you die!

Ghent has beautiful architecture, a lot of boats on the water, a lot of nice places to eat and drink, a must visit!!

One tip! Put on good walking shoes, they have cobblestones as roads, they don't walk really easy with high heels! Might you have sore feet from walking around, you can go to Zen Senses at Reylof! This is a beauty/welnesscenter situated by Sandton Grand Hotel Reylof and they have the best treatments for your feet and the beautiful part you can do them together with your partner!! 

And if you are looking for a place to sleep, the best hotel in town is Sandton Grand Hotel Reylof!! It is a very beautiful hotel, very friendly staff, great breakfast and on walking distance from the center!

We wanted to eat Ghent-style stew or Flemish beef stew with fries, but everything was full. We could eat no where!! Make sure you make a reservation if you have a nice restaurant that you want to visit! Finally we found this little Chinese restaurant at de Korenlei named Jin Jiang. It smells funny inside, but the food is excellent! You can have a look in the kitchen from your seat, that is nice to watch! Even if it is not on the menu, ask if you want something because maybe they can prepare your dish anyway, they made my special request!

I personally recommend the beef in black beansauce, really great!!

The weather wasn't really our friend, so I hope to come back some day, to have that Belgium beer and stew and see some museums!

I love Ghent, Belgium!!

Cabo Verde Ilha do Sal

Here is my travel diary from my dream trip to Cabo Verde!

Thursday
On the 6th of August 2015 we went to Cabo Verde. The plane-trip was horrible, there was a crying child which cried for 7 hours!!!! First we made a stop in Boa Vista, but we were not allowed to leave the plane and then we were finally in Santa Maria, my first time outside of Europe! We went with a transfer to our hotel Riu Garopa. The welcoming there was amazing and unforgettable. That evening we got a little glimpse of the Cabo Verde life. There was a market in the resort, where locals sold there handmade souvenirs and there was live music and people were dancing, it was great. That was our Thursday.

Friday
On Friday we went to the beach, because the pool was too crowded for our taste. The beach is very beautiful, there are palmtrees, very lovely. When you go on to the beach there are locals who try to sell you excursions, please do one or two excursions!! It is very nice to do, very interesting and the locals make money. If you need a reference who to pick, I can refer you to Discovery Tours from Janilson, we had Emerson and Danny as our guides and they are great!

We went to walk to the right on the beach from our resort. You end up on a piece of beach with only rocks, black sand and there are even a few homeless people living there, they made houses of cardboard and garbage, old wood etc. So right from the resort is not very interesting.

Saturday
On Saturday we went to Santa Maria to the pier. This you should really do and experience, this is great. You can walk from our resort it is 15 minutes by street or by taxi, that would cost you 3 Euros. On the pier there are the local fishermen catching fish and the wives are trying to sell the fish. The children are running around, happy with only the sand and the water. And there at that exact moment, I cried. It just hit me, these children have nothing and our children have never enough! We were in a perfect resort with so much food in abundance and outside the resort is poverty, it didn't feel good to be in the resort and to be there. But my husband told me we had to be there so they can live from the tourism. So everybody needs to go to Cabo Verde!!! We took pencils and ballpoints with us for the school, unfortunately there was a holiday so the schools were empty and we left our stuff for the local kids in the hotel.  By the beach near the pier is a very lovely bar/restaurant La Villa, you can sit here and have a drink, and the service is very good and they have free WIFI!

There is only one thing you have to watch out for and that are the Senegalese salespeople. They can be very persistent and the souvenirs they sell are not handmade and are certainly not from Cabo Verde.

Sunday
On Sunday evening we went on our turtle tour. It was a three hour tour from 20.00 until 23.00 usually. Now we arrived at the hotel at 01.30, because the turtles wouldn't show themselves and Emerson wouldn't give up looking for them. The tour is an adventure. You go in a jeep, we were with two other family's. And then you go to the beach. At the beach it is very dark, the only thing you hear is the amazing sound of the waves hitting the beach and above you a very starry night. It is a very impressive experience, everything is so quiet and there are so many stars, in our town we don't see much stars because of all the light there is. It is so beautiful, inspite of not seeing any turtle I wouldn't want to have missed this in the world!!!!

Monday
On Monday we went to walk to the left from our beach. This you should do!! You walk for miles and don't meet a soul, miles and miles of beach only for you and your loved one! After a walk of 45 minutes we saw the pier in Santa Maria. The beach here is so beautiful and so very quiet!

Tuesday

On Tuesday we did the Island Tour. You should really do this if you would like to see more of the island. We went with Discovery Tours and took the private tour. So you can go where ever you want to go, the trip took almost all day and our guide Danny showed us everything we wanted to see!! So remember Discovery Tours!!!

You start at Murdeira Bay.

Then you go to Monte Leao (Sleeping Lion mountain) . It is very beautiful up there and tourists make piles of rocks and come back years later to see if their pile still stands.

Then you go to Palmeria, the fishing town. Here are a lot of aggressive Senegalese salespeople, be aware!  The women are waiting for their husbands to return from the waters.

After this we went to Regona, where you can jump off the rocks into the water! This is a very beautiful spot, people like to picnic here but also leave there trash behind unfortunately!

Then it was time for Buracona, the Blue Eye. 

Then it was time for the Mirage, Terra Boa. It looks likes water, but there is only sand!

Here you find an original souvenirshop run by locals, who make the souvenirs while you watch.

You can also get a refreshing drink here.

In Espargos we had lunch and on the way you pass shanty towns, where the poor people live.

It was time for a little danger, Shark Bay. Here you can rent water shoes for two Euros per person, you will need those because the water is filled with sharp rocks. With renting those shoes you help the locals a little. For those two Euros you get a guide, who guides you through the water near the sharks. We have seen some shark tails, but it was very busy and crowded.

Last but certainly not least we went to Pedra Lume, the Salt Lake, which is really cool to swim in or I could better say float in. You should really go here, this is a very nice experience.

Wednesday

On Wednesday during the day we had a little rain. But in the evening we went to photograph the sunset. 

Thursday

On Thursday it was time to go home already, with tears in my heart I said goodbye to this beautiful country and the beautiful habitants!

So don't let anybody tell you Sal is boring and only sand. If you stay in your resort, then the only thing you will see is beach and the resort, but go outside and see the beauty of the whole island! Sal is beautiful, some parts look like a desert in Africa, other parts look like the beach of a Bounty island, the fishing city's look like fishing city's, but everything combined it is just beautiful. The people ar very nice and beautiful, the country is amazing.

I made this blog in English, usually I write in Dutch (you can probably tell by my poor English), but I want to reach a bigger audience. People should know about Cabo Verde. Sure you can go there if you only want a sun and beach holiday, it is perfect for it. It is perfect if you want to surf or dive, but if you want to see something rent a car and drive across the island or even better book an island tour. The beauty of the island will then be revealed!!