A Severe Case of Wanderlust

THE TRAVEL BUG
I've always been a lover of travelling and discovering new places, but it's usually about this time of year that I start craving a holiday. So I thought I'd tell you the places in the world that are top of my wanderlust list right now...

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
While I am wishing that I was in Melbourne at the moment, just know that I'm ALWAYS wishing I was back in Melbourne. It's my favourite place on earth. I'm actually going back in December for Christmas and New Year, but I wouldn't say no if you offered me a holiday there right now. Melbourne was the best place, you've got the city itself which has excellent shopping and a rad selection of restaurants and cafes to stop you from ever going hungry. But there is also so many opportunities to explore the Australian countryside with the Great Ocean Road and Phillip Island only a few hours away. When I was in Australia I had the chance to feed wild rosellas, feed kangaroos and meet koalas (we couldn't hold them, so it was of a stroke and photo deal) and it was incredible. I just want to be back with amongst the wildlife!

Degraves Street, my favourite place in Melbourne.

LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA
Slovenia isn't the classic holiday destination but don't let that put you off. I'm actually writing a book at the moment that was inspired by the coffee shop lined alleyways and the suspicious amount of origami dragon graffiti in Ljubljana, and I think it's for this reason that I'm craving the city. I keep remembering little areas I visited, like the dragon bridge and the castle you could reach via a funicular. And then there's the restaurants - the one that did the best pad thai I have ever eaten, the ones all by the riverside that twinkled at night because of the candles on the the tables, and the quiet, little wine bar tucked away next the cathedral that had amazing cheesy snacks on offer. OH AND THE CAFE IN A BACKSTREET THAT WAS SO NICE. I love Ljubljana, and I'm also about 700% sure there is some sort of magic going on there.

This is the cafe that I just had that all caps outburst about. 

PARIS, FRANCE
I want to go back to Paris in general, the Eiffel Tower never gets dull, but this wave of wanderlust washed over me when I was getting a mug out for coffee (yes, the wanderlust is getting out of hand). The reason for that is because the mug I was using was a birthday present from my 16th birthday which I celebrated in Paris, and so when I got the mug out I suddenly remembered opening it in one of Paris' cafes and found myself wishing that I had a cup of Parisian coffee in front of me instead of waiting for the kettle to boil. Also there's this one picture of me in Paris from about two years ago that I love and it always makes me wish I was back there.

Squinty and wind swept, but this is the photo that always brings a fresh wave of Paris based wanderlust with it. Taken about 2 or 3 years ago.

ICELAND... ICELAND
The reason I haven't specified anywhere in Iceland is because when I was there I went to a lot of different places around the country. Our base was Reykjavik but we then travelled around to see the geysers, waterfalls and beaches (I was on a geography school trip by the way, so we were mostly travelling around to learn about how things were formed and all that jazz). Iceland is the most stunning place and I really want to see all the amazing things it has to offer again. Plus I need to explore Reykjavik more as we only really had a few hours in the afternoons to look around the city, so I know I missed out on a lot of things it has to offer. And also I would have loved to go on a whale watching boat trip, so I need to go back to experience that!

Meet 15 year old me. I thought I was hella cool. I wasn't. The glacier behind me was though. 

This was taken a national park in Iceland and it was beautiful there. The sun was rising which was crazy considering it was about 10am already... Iceland is weird like that. 

Reykjavik from above. 

BACK TO REALITY
That's it, and I think it's probably time to come back to real life and get on with completing my to-do list for the day :( Have you ever visited any of these places? And what countries are on your travelling bucket list? Let me know in the comments, I love chatting about travelling so it'd be great to hear from you!

Thanks for reading, make sure to follow me for weekly updates.

Love Chloe x

A Weekend in France // TRAVEL

A Weekend In France - 14/15th June 2014

So over the past weekend my parents and I tumbled into our car at 5am and drove down to Kent where we would take the Eurotunnel, and it was here our adventure started!  

After an uncomfortable sleep in the back of the car and a short drive once we had arrived in Calais, we reached our home for the weekend - Le Touquet! Now you can go to markets all over the world, but France really knows how to do a market, although it's quite common to see spare parts for dolls and barbies in boxes, which is just a little bit terrifying. Saturday is market day in Le Touquet, so after having scones and lattes for breakfast (yes I did have scones have breakfast and yes it's as good as it sounds) we wandered over to the market. You could buy pretty much anything there - shoes, fruit, books, antiques, home ware, fish and that's just a little selection of the stuff on offer! My favourite purchase at the market was the radishes we bought; not because I really love radishes or anything, but because we bought them off a French farmer who had real life green fingers! And he looked really pleased that we'd chosen him to get our radishes from - bless! 

After lunch and a little browse around the few shops Le Touquet has to offer, we headed back to our hotel. Now the hotel we always stay at when we're there is right on the beach. Like when you step out of the door you're on the beach, pretty great right? However that does mean that rooms with a sea view are a little pricey! So we'd settled for a room with a view of the sand dunes (which is just a nicer way of them saying that your view will be of the car park and if you really stretch your head out the window you can catch a glimpse of the sand dunes). But to our surprise we had been upgraded to a room with a sea view, woooo! Also they'd left a bottle of Le Touquet brewed beer and biscuits in the room, extra woooo! 

We had our dinner in the best fish restaurant I've ever been to, the food there is amazing! And then we finished off the day in the hotel bar, where we were joined by the most beautiful sunset. It was all oranges and reds and pinks and the reflections of it on the sea were breathtaking. I could have taken thousands of photos, but due to the fear that it looked like I was taking photos of the couple sitting outside, I didn't... hahaha.

Now hotel breakfasts are one of my favourite things ever. There's just so much amazing food to choose from, and also an endless supply of coffee and orange juice which is great. And as I said, this hotel is right on the beach, so I enjoyed my platefuls of pastries and scrambled egg and bowls of cereal with a lovely morning view of the beach... Perfect!

Sunday’s in France are very relaxed, most shops close or are only open until midday, but when you’re right by the beach, shopping isn’t really on the top of my list of things to do. Therefore, we walked along the beach instead. The beach at Le Touquet stretches for miles, so even though I’ve been here loads of times, there were still parts of the beach unexplored. So we walked along those parts, discovering a lovely little café that was placed right on the sand and loads of little beach huts that were all brightly coloured and adorable. After some cold drinks we emptied the sand out of our shoes and headed into the main part of town. We took a quick look around some of the shops before they closed their doors for the day and then settled into the local Irish pub for a coffee. 

So cute.

People watching in the Irish pub.

Before leaving the beautiful beach and starting our journey home we got lunch in the hotel bar. A club sandwich and chips for me, accompanied with a pineapple flavoured mocktail, yummmm! And then it was just about time to go home.

The mocktails, delicious!

It was a short but sweet trip, and I can’t wait to have more Le Touquet adventures!