A dream that came true

 Hello folks!

There where no posts recently as I was travelling - to Porto, Portugal and Malta.
Today's post is about Porto - the city I wanted to visit for a long time and finally spent few days there.
And I can say only few words - I am in Love!!!!

I stayed at MyStay Hotel - a very good hotel in the city centre with a kitchen in a room. The room itself is very clean and nice. The hotel is pretty small and doesn't have an elevator but for me that's not very important. My room had a small balcony and here you can see few photos I made from my balkony :) MyStay besides the good rooms has also very helpfull staff and the price is also very reasonable! If you decide to visit Porto I highly recommend you to choose this hotel. They also provide transfer service from and to the airport.

Before I came to Porto I saw some pics in internet and in reality Porto is the same as on the pics. All these red tile roofs... river Douro...the ocean... A friend of mine Ana Pina has a lovely blog and there I found a lot of amazing photos of Porto. And these pics made me to think that it's possible to find and show the beauty of the town you live in to everyone. I mean when you live somewhere sometimes you don't see the beauty coz you take your city for granted. And it made think that I should try to do the same - find something I've never noticed before about the city I live in.
When you plane is landing you see red tile roofs and the ocean. And I have to confess I haven't noticed the ocean as in the beginning decided it was some clouds ))))))

The best way to explore any city for me is to walk. For Porto you need comfortable shoes (even though I noticed that some women wear high heels) and be ready that the streets are always go up and down and some of them are pretty narrow. Almost each and every building is covered by azulejos. It was so nice to walk around the city and enjoy old and modern buildings. I visited Clerigos tower and saw the city from the top of it - just breathtaking!

Of course I couldn't miss an oportunity to visit a wine cellar as I like port wine and it was interesting. All wine cellars are located in Vila Nova de Gaia - just on the other side of the river Douro and all you need is to cross Dom Luis Bridge. You can visit any wine cellar you want to but a girl from a wine shop suggested me to visit Burmester wine cellar as they don't have too many people for a wine cellar tour and as a result you'll get more attention and will be able to ask everything you wanna know about the port wine. Every tour includes a wine sampling - usually two port wines.
I wanted to buy some port wine and was lucky enough as I bumped into a nice wine shop with a very professional girl inside. She let me to try different port wines and now I know that I'm a colheita person )))) But even though I prefer colheita to vintage I bought vintage port wine that was produced in 2011 year as it was a very good year and in few years the bottle will cost more than I payed. BUT! if you open a vintage porto wine you MUST drink it in 2-3 days or you'll get a very expensive vinegar :)

In my opinion people in Porto are friendly and it's easier to find someone who speaks English in Porto than in Moscow. People communicate pretty easily and I even met some people that was giving free hugs :) I hope you remember the story about free hugs :)

Beside shopping for port wine in Porto you'll also find variety of shoes, local cheeses, olives and olive oil. I also bought very funny socks - just couldn't pass the shop with such colorfull socks inside :) I was also lucky to buy leather shoeses but port wine won anyway with the score 3-2 (3 bottles porto wine and only 2 pairs of shoes) :) :) :) Even though I told myself that I'm not going  buy an olive oil I couldn't resist and brought home a bottle :)

I also have to say few words about food. Guys it's really tasty!!!!! I doubt that I tried all national dishes but I tried few of them and they are delicious! I got my Francesinha  in Santiago cafe and it was just perfect! I also tried a very delicious and not tooo sweet dessert Pastel de Nata. Another meal that just knocked me down just coz of its taste is Prego em pão - just some grilled meat that they put into a brown bread and also add some cheese inside. Guys it's pretty simple but sooooo tasty!!!!! I wanna try to cook this meal at home and hope I'll be succesfull :) Another thing I noticed  - you always can get a very strong and good coffee, no matter if you order it in a simple small cafe or such cafe as Majestic. I also recommend you to visit a small family restaurant Taberna St Antonio. The restaurant is pretty small so if you don't wanna wait in a line you'd better to come earlier than other people. I noticed that there wheren't a lot of tourists but a lot of local people. The food is really good and the price is more than reasonable!

I think almost everyone heard about  Fado music or about Cesaria Evora. Unfortunatelly I didn't visit any cafe with live music but on the last day I heard some live music from a cafe near my hotel. The windows where open and you could hear everything like you are inside the cafe. It was just amazing.....

I'm happy that I visited Porto not only coz of all its sightseeings but also coz of people I met there.  And it was a real pleasure to talk to them.
I hope I'll be back one day again.

This view I had everyday and enjoyed it!

Lovely shop with handmade stuff

The ocean in Matosinhos

Dom Luis Bridge and a view to Vila Nova de Gaia

Dom Luis Bridge and a view to Porto

This scheme helps to understand port wine

Pretty ordinary view in Porto

I am ready for my Francesinha

New building near Clerigos tower

View from Clerigos Tower

Old tram near Clerigos tower

Clerigos tower

Free hugs for everyone!

Night in Porto

Monday Moodboard "What do I know about Porto?"

Hello folks!

As I'm travelling again this week, here is the post about my next destination - Porto, Portugal.
What do I know about Porto?

Porto also known as Oporto, the second largest city in Portugal and located along Douro river.

Porto VII. by vlad

One of Portugal's internationally famous exports, porto wine, is named for Porto. My favorite porto is Ferreira Towny as min 10 years old but I'm going to try other porto wines and going to visit a wine cellar as well.

Vintage Porto Wine Print, Art Deco - Portuguese Poster by BelugaStore

In Portugal you can also see amazing blue-white ceramic tilework, called 'azulejo'. The way how you pronounce it ( [ɐzuˈleʒu]) is another thing I like about Portugal - portuguese language and how it sounds :)

Portugal Blue Azulejo Tiles Replica CHANDELIER EARRINGS PORTO Blue by Atrio

I promise to write a post about other stuff I'm going to discover about Porto, when be back
So stay tuned ;) xoxo

Personal Experience "Weekend in Halle, Germany"

Hello folks!

Last weekend I spent in Halle, Germany as was visiting my friend Katerina. We know each other for around 3 years and it was pretty exciting to come to her place, finally met her husband and spent some time together. We had a plan to felt a bag but weren't succesfull as the wool and the frame haven't arrived in time but we done a lot! Walked in a park, done some shopping, visited a local market, went to play a billiards and open a season with BBQ in the park.

So here are my impressions about Halle and Germany.

It wasn't my first visit to Germany but anyway it was different. First of all it was a small difference on the passport control - in Leipzig airport it's easier than in Berlin :) In Berlin I had a feeling that I'm going to enter trough '"an iron curtain" )))) Like they are not sure I have only tourist plans in my head ))))

I was a very very lucky as it was a really great and warm weather  - when I arrived it was around +22 or maybe even more and everywhere you could see trees with flowers. Can you imagine I even saw lilac!? (in Moscow it was around 0 and pretty cold when I was leaving)

The streets are clean enough and here is the key why it's that - when you buy something to drink you not only pay for the drink itself but also for the bottle and then you can return the bottle and get some money. It's 25 cents for a big plastic bottle and 8 cents for glass beer bottle. That's a really cool idea how to keep the streets clean! I wish we have the same rules here in Russia!

There is no need to talk about food but anyway - guys 0.5l beer bottle costs less than 1 euro!!!! and it's really good beer! And very tasty sausages!!! Plus in Germany it's easy to find turkish shops with turkish food and as I'm keen on turkish food I was on heaven ))) and bought my favorite black turkish olives. And we also have simits and baklava for breakfast. Baklava is not very very very healthy food but who cares when you are on a holiday )))))

A bit about public transport - it's only 11 minutes from the airport to Halle by train and in the city you can use buses and trams. For trams (maybe for buses too but not sure as we used the bus only one time) they use voice tapes from different people - so one stop can be introduced by a woman and another by a child. It's interesting and I've never heard about something like this before.

 Another thing I liked is that you can buy rhubarb on a local market and the price is not that high. That's not about that you can buy everything you want but about that in my childhood it was easy to buy rhubarb in Russia and we made some compots and pies etc but now I haven't seen rhubarb like for ages! And don't understand why it's happenning..... Rhubab is not something rare for the place I live in....It's not like some exotic fruits...

Another thing is a local chocolate! In my opinion it's more tasty than chocolate from Moscow. Right before the trip I ate a chocolate candy from Babaevskiy chocolate fabric and was sooooo dissapointed - it wasn't tasty at all (((( But this chocolate from Halle is really tasty and made from high quality ingredients. They even have marzipan chocolate candies that made with dark beer and even though I'm not in love with marzipan I loved them!

One more thing caught my eye and honestly I'm not sure that's a brilliant idea. A lot of people have bicycles and some people have a special baby carriage that hitchs to the bicycle, not in front but behind. In my opinion that's not very safety - you can't see your child as their are out of your eyes and plus a car driver can possible not see your child so it can be dangerous.

 Oh and guys I saw an amazing laptop! We visited Katerina's husband's colleague and first of all where impressed by a very comfortanble kitchen but then we saw the laptop! We (me and Katerina) like couldn't speak at all ))))) This laptop gives your an opportunity to change colors of the touchpad and the keyboard and also has another illuminations and you can change the colors as well! The trademark is Alienware and it made me to make a joke - OMG I met my relative!!!!!! That's coz a friend of mine is pretty sure I'm an alien coz I'm not like other russian people - I'm smiling and don't complain )))))


For me this trip wasn't like I was travelling for a long distance but like I was visiting a friend that lives next street :) And I'll be back for sure!

Monday Moodboard "Travelling is happiness"

Hello folks!
I love to travel! I love a sound of suitcase's weels....a way to an airport....a seat near a plane's window...
I like to buy a guidebook and read it from the first to the last page and make a plan which places I wanna see and then arrive to a destination and change the plan totally )))) I'm in love with visiting museums and walking on streets, listenning to my mp3 player and making sometimes weird photos... discovering nice hidden places...trying new food...looking for small gifts for friends...drinking coffee and watching locals through cafe's window...I'm ok to travel alone but share a jorney with a right person makes the jorney even better and I'm happy that this Saturday I start my this year trips with the right person and going to discover a place I've never been before.

Mens Ring by tinahdee

Strict сhenille brown jacket by MokshaClothes

dSLR Camera Strap by TheSweetStrap

Reflections in Acqua Alta Photo by stevepreston