Vacation

Disneyland

This is most definitely one of those posts that requires absolutely no text whatsoever. I mean, if you need convincing to go to this lovely fantastical place, then my text will not do much convincing anyway, so I’m not even going to bother! Everyone, adult or kid, needs to visit Disneyland Paris at least once in a lifetime! Both D and I were lucky enough to have visited it twice so far and we made a pact to not stop now! Despite not wanting to write any text, I do have a few pointers (two actually) that might actually prove useful and money-saving:

You should avoid eating at the A la Carte restaurants simply because the food you’ll find at the normally-priced restaurants throughout the park is very, very good – remember, we are picky when it comes to food – and it’s simply not worth it paying triple the price.
Do not miss the daily parade!!!!!! Seriously, do not miss it!

That’s about all I am going to say about Disneyland Paris and now, I am going to let you enjoy the 100 or so photos I managed to select from our day of fantasy!

July 19, 2016

evenlymatchedLeave a comment

Until next time…

This is the last fashion moment we had in Milan, but fear not, this is not the last post from this wonderful city as we still have a lot to tell you about the hotel we stayed at. On this last day, D decided to surprise me with these lovely and much coveted pair of Dior ‘So Real’ sunglasses that I’ve wanted to get for almost a year now. True, I have been splurging on shoes in this last year, and one might argue that if I wanted them so much I should’ve just bought them, but where shoes are concerned, I really wanted/needed a few more pairs to have all the must-haves for any real shoe lover – will do a post on that as my collection is complete…for now. Another reason why I didn’t splurge on these gorgeous sunglasses is the fact that until this years’ collection, none of the colour combos really satisfied my taste fully and I wasn’t keen on paying 150 Euros just to get them customised.

Since the designated shopping day had passed and I already had my splurge (Valentino Starstuds) for this vacation, I was sure that these beauties would have to wait a while longer until I got them into my possession. But no! My amazing husband decided to surprise me with them! And what woman doesn’t love these kind of surprises? Especially when they come from their loved one? I was so in love with my new gift that I was determined to wear them despite any weather that might come my way that day! I simply did not want to get them off! Luckily for me, the weather was lovely, as it was throughout our entire stay in Milan and we could visit their biggest park – Sempione Park and snap some photos over there.

On me:

Dress – MANGO; Shoes – Bata; Bag – Obag; Shades – Dior; Bling – Tomorrowland, Pandora, Swarovski and Constantin Nautics; Watch – Daniel Wellington

We did move away from the whole hippie theme on that day, but both of us wore clothes entirely from Mango. Told you the last time that we are having a Mango moment. This time we went darker than all the other days spent here. I opted for an off-the-shoulder flowy dress, in a rich and dark shade of blue that looks black in all of the pics and decided to combine it with wedge brown sandals from Bata that are nowhere to be fond online, so I guess this will be the first time that I won’t actually link something I wore with anything because I haven’t been able to find a worthy alternative either. My bag is newly bought from OBag and is totally customisable, and as for the accessories, you know them too well by now: Tomorrowland, Pandora and Swarovski rings, combined with a Constantin Nautics bracelet. Obviously, the sunglasses are from Dior and I never want to take them off.

On D:

Shorts – MANGO; T-shirt – MANGO; Shoes – H&M; Bling – Fossil and Constantin Nautics; Watch – Daniel Wellington

D also went for a darker ensemble that he entirely bought during this vacation from Mango. He paired a pineapple print t-shirt with light blue shorts and striped ancient H&M espadrilles. Being the lovely husband that he is, he matched the nato strap I chose for my Daniel Wellington perfectly. Aside from that, he wore his Fossil and Constantin Nautics bracelets. Our darker choice of items totally mirrored our mood that always seems to get darker at the end of any wonderful vacation we have together. We are however very anxious to get back to our lovely little dog back home as she always brightens up our mood after any trip.

As promised, we still have to tell you about the lovely hotel we stayed in and its lovely gourmet 10th floor terrace. More on that in tomorrow’s last post from Milan.

July 9, 2016

evenlymatchedLeave a comment

Mustard Everywhere!

Naturally, we couldn’t not have a photoshoot right in from of the Dome, I mean, we are tourists after all, and we were lucky enough to stumble upon the said area in a moment where there weren’t as many tourists as usual. To keep the earthy, natural, semi hippie mood of the vacation, we both chose mustard as a colour theme for our third day in Milan. We did, however mix it with browns and ended up with a pretty nice combo, if I might add.

Since asking for ketchup is a total insult anywhere in Italy, while packing, I thought I’d stay clear of any red items that I might have, therefore ending up with a mustard theme. True, this isn’t exactly a hippie outfit, but it is way more casual than anything I usually wear, especially since, yes, this is my second pair of culotte pants and this time, because we were on vacation, I avoided the high heel combo. Partly, I do regret that, looking at the photos, as everything that I managed to avoid when I wore the raspberry culottes last time (short and bulky me), I couldn’t avoid this time thanks to my catalan sandals. But the reality of the matter is, that this look, though not the best one I’ve sported lately, was one of the most comfortable worn in Milan. The advantages of being matched with D to the letter is that people tended to focus not on me on the street but on both of us, which kinda made me feel that they were’t seeing how short I was.

On me:

Pants – MANGO, Top – MANGO, Shoes – Avarca (similar to mine); Bag – from Barcelona (something similar from Mango here); Bling – Pandora, Tomorrowland, Swarovski and Constantin Nautics; Shades – Gucci; Watch – Daniel Wellington

On D:

Shorts – H&M; T-shirt – Lacoste; Shoes – MANGO; Bling – Fossil and Constantin Nautics; Watch – Daniel Wellington

Yes, this is yet again a full Mango look, except for the shoes and bag. It’s not my fault that I can’t really pace myself during their 70% sale, and that I always leave the store with loads of stuff – point at hand, a full vacation worth of clothes. Unfortunately, these culottes were not on sale, but who can resists this lovely shade of mustard, especially as they do tick the other musts for culottes in my book: high waist and knee length. I do confess that I have ironed them before packing but apparently I am not as good at ironing as I’d like to think, this being the reason why only very few items that need ironing are allowed into my wardrobe. The flowy top is also from Mango and this one ticks a lot of trends right now – ruffles and off-the-shoulders, and it was very, very cheap, so this was one of those irresistible buys. Getting home with all of my spoils from Mango, I realised that both the pants and the blouse perfectly match my catalan sandals and my cross-body bag that I got from Barcelona, so this immediately turned into a look for Milan. I just added a Constantin Nautics bracelet and my Tomorrowland, Pandora and Swarovski rings and I was all set!

Naturally, D had to oblige and go for a mustard theme as well. Luckily, when packing, we both spotted his Lacoste polo that is the exact shade as my pants, and from there on it was easy, We just added a pair of H&M beige shorts and the only thing left was to find the right pair of shoes. Though we did leave Bucharest with a pair of spare brown shoes, these mustard espadrilles just found us in Milan at Mango. Apparently, we both have a thing for Mango right now. All he had to do was add his Fossil and Constantin Nautics bracelet, and we both had to find matching nato straps for our Daniel Wellington watches and we were in a full mustard colour scheme, ready to take on Milan for a full day of shopping. And boy did we shop like crazy people in Milan!

July 6, 2016

evenlymatchedLeave a comment

The History of Beauty…

I honestly think that this was the highlight of Milan for both of us. I mean, yes, they have lovely streets with amazing architectural landmarks, amazing shops and wonderful food, but when it comes to cars, nobody does them better than the Italians. True, I do think that FIAT are flops, but then again, the 500 is an iconic car for Italy so I’m just going to also put FIAT up there with the most amazing car manufacturers in the world by default. But this is not about FIAT, not by far, this post is, as one might say, about us visiting the museum (!!!) of beauty.

As you know by now, we are not the types of tourists to actually go to museums. No, stadiums and car museums are out type of landmarks. Naturally, this was D’s surprise for me in Milan, and boy, was I surprised… I do love cars, but for some reason, I can never look away from an Italian car. They are pure beauty from every angle you look at them. I left the Alfa Romeo Historical Museum more convinced of that than ever. I even totally forgot what a pain it was to reach it, as apparently the Italian value the public transportation as much as us Romanians do and we did have to take the metro for about 40 minutes, the bus for another 20 minutes and walk for about one hour through an area that has absolutely no sidewalk, so this really proves how much of a fan I really am. Moving past the inconvenience of actually getting there, this was one of the greatest museums we’ve ever visited so far! It really harboured all the Alfa Romeo cars that they had throughout the years and they are all in pristine condition.

I am not going to bore you with all the historical data we both learned while visiting this mecca for car lovers, as you can find all that info on wikipedia, but I will tell you that if you’re ever in the area, this is one place that shouldn’t be missed, car lover or not. The entry fee was 12 Euros each which is, in my opinion too low, if you compare it with other museums out there, especially if you take into consideration that at the end of the tour you get to experiment a 4D short movie of the best known Alfas. They do have a nice cafe where you can have a small lunch, just to make sure that you do not leave the place on an empty stomach (I suspect that they are aware of the long road that awaits you once you leave), and right at the end of the tour, you reach the Alfa Romeo car dealership, where all the latest models are exposed. I really had a melancholic moment while looking at the exposed Mito.

The whole tour took us about two and a half hours and, to be honest, I think that I’ll always enjoy these types of places instead of any Louboutin showroom, mainly because it’s about the same amount of beauty everywhere and my bank account is way safer here that in any place that harbours shoes.

July 5, 2016July 5, 2016

evenlymatchedLeave a comment

Hippie Hippie Shake in Milan!!!

This is the first of many (four) outfit posts that we shot in Milan. For this short trip, my choice of colours was very earthy which is very unnatural to me. For some reason they started appealing to me right before I started packing and there you have it, the whole trip (well, most of it) we were both kinda hippy, kinda earthy. It’s a good thing that I chose mostly loose clothes as the weather in Milan was very hot, somewhat like Bucharest these days but with a much lower humidity, making it more pleasant to breathe in there.

I’ve decided that these outfit posts are going to come in the order they occurred during this long weekend, therefore this was the first fashion moment from the very day we arrived there. We only got to shoot near out hotel and a bit at the Dome area because we only had a few hours of natural daylight and we did have a reservation to one of the best restaurants in Milan (Michelin stars and everything) and we just couldn’t be late. Yes, to answer your question, they let us into the restaurant dressed like that, so there wasn’t any imposed attire upon entry, but you do need to make a reservation in advance, at least a week before. Enough about that, as tomorrow’s post will be on that delicious start to our fattening process in Milan.

On me:

Dress – MANGO; Sandals – Gioseppo; Bag – MANGO; Bling – Tomorrowland, Pandora, Swarovski and Constantin Nautics; Shades – Gucci; Watch – Daniel Wellington

Back to the fashion moment we both shared on our first day… As stated earlier, I am a bit into the whole earthy, hippie trend right now, so I chose this lovely and very comfortable (really comfortable!) dress from Mango, that I got for next to nothing (discount alert throughout their stores – up to 70%) – about 15 Euros – right before I started packing. To keep with the theme, I chose my Gioseppo sandals but instead of wearing the lace up to my knees I decided on a much more comfortable approach and tied them at my ankles. The bag was also a bargain from Mango and it fits perfectly with all the boho accessories I already have ready for this summer. As usual, I kept it simple accessories wise and only added the Swarovski ring set to my Pandora and Tomorrowland rings. I love this ring set as it’s very versatile and whenever I am packing I am always tempted to bring it along mainly because there are lots of ways to combine the three rings, but somehow, I always end up wearing it the same way (as you can see in the previous fashion posts). To complete my look, I also chose a Constantin Nautics bracelet and my Gucci big, brown shades that make me feel like Nicole Richie on a boho day.

On D:

Pants – ZARA; T-shirt – Tommy Hilfiger; Shoes – Nike; Bling – Constantin Nautics and Fossil; Watch – Daniel Wellington

D kept things on a cleaner side, and wonderfully fooling me into going out with him without looking like a hobo (like me). The intelligent thing he did was that he wore more or less the same colours and therefore I was fooled into thinking that we matched. Looking at the photos, I now realise that he looks way more put together than me and I seriously think that he is the reason we were let inside the restaurant. To fool me, he chose his burnt orange pants from ZARA and combined them with a v-neck t-shirt in dark grey from Tommy Hilfiger. Somehow, he managed to perfectly match his Nikes to the whole outfit therefore fooling me into thinking that he was also in a earthy, hippie mood. Aside from his Fossil bracelet, he also wore a Constantin Nautics bracelet – told you he used all sorts of tricks to make me believe we matched. As with most of our vacations, we chose to bring along our Daniel Wellington watches with lots of nato straps to match every day.

After seeing these pics, as with all the photos from this weekend, I decided that since summer is here, I need to start trying out some of those much praised Vita Liberata self tanning mouses and I promise that I will photo document every step and come up with a review some time next week. Until then, I must warn you that a lot of Milan posts are still to come!

July 1, 2016July 1, 2016

evenlymatchedLeave a comment

Milan through our eyes…

Oh wow… We really loved Milan. This is the overall post, where we briefly tell you about our experience. First thing that struck us about Milan is how different it is compared to Rome. I mean, this is such a trendy and cosmopolite city, not that Rome isn’t, but Milan reminds us more about Wien. Everything about this long weekend was just perfect!

Basically, as you roam the streets of this beautiful city, you can’t help but get infested by its beauty. Art, architecture and fashion are at home in Milan and to be honest, I can’t wait for us to go to Florence as I’ve heard that it’s the most beautiful city Italy has to offer. We’ll probably do a long weekend there at some point. True, Milan is a tourist attraction because of the whole fashion influence it has over the entire world, but for some reason, and I suspect part of the reason is the fact that the main landmarks are luxury shops, it’s not as packed full of tourists as Rome. I am not going to waste you time with the places you have to visit as you can very well find those in any given tourist guide, but I am going to tell you that this city requires comfortable shoes as it’s a pity to not visit it by foot.

With that in mind, I have to brag about the fact that my Jawbone tracker was very proud of my activity these past few days. Getting to Milan is quite easy from Bucharest as there are quite a few airlines that offer a wide variety of flight hours. The flight is about 2 hours which is very manageable and you should keep in mind that it will be best to land on Linate airport as that one is the closest to Milan and the taxi fare to the central area is only about 20 Euros. Food wise, there are a few places one should try once there, but naturally we will have a few posts on specific restaurants, however, you should try the fashion cafes as their menu is very trendy and the food is exceptional. We did that for two lunch stops at Gucci and Replay. To express more clearly the great quality of the ingredients in these kind of places, at Replay, D had the tartare burger, which is basically raw meat with bread and parmesan. If the meat is bad than you instantly get sick and you can’t eat it, but D loved it. I also had one of the best caprese salads there, and yes, one could argue that a caprese salad is basically tomatoes with buratta, but the ingredients always make a difference. So, go ahead and try some of these fancy terraces while there. I should mention that at Replay the check was about 40 Euros, but the food was delicious and you should expect a bigger check just because you eat on denim tablecloth.

Obviously, at some point we encountered a PRIDE party, which was one of the most peaceful and lovely street parties we’ve ever been to. Everyone was friendly and they had a great DJ that kept everything on the fun side. The nice thing about it was that there was a wide variety of street food available on the spot and everything looked amazing, too bad we stumbled upon the party after our dinner cos if not, I would’ve tried a lot of things there.

Another great area we discovered and really should make the object of one of the walks in Milan is the Pagano-Fiera area. According to the people living in Milan, that is the real central area of the city, and we’ve eaten there on two occasions and I have to say that the food was amazing. Aside from the food, this area houses one of the most expensive residential places in Italy. For the architecture junkie in me, seeing the way the area was built really made my whole Milan experience complete. That is mainly a spot that deserves a walk in the evening as the new residential complex is beautifully accentuated with architectural lightning.

I didn’t mention the Dome area intentionally, because all the tourists guide talk exclusively about it, and yes, it is beautiful, and yes, one should visit it while in Milan, but we normally are more focused on the less known areas of any new city we visit. Shopping wise, this central area is probably the best, as prices tend to not spike here, or anywhere actually and, if you have accommodation centrally, there’s really no point in thinking that you can get a better deal if you go further from the centre (we’ve tried it!). You’ll just waste your money on taxis or metros. Two more places that really need a visit from anyone travelling to this part of Italy is the Sempione Park and the Alfa Romeo Museum. As you’ve probably noticed, we are big park fans as well as cars lovers so none of these two landmarks could’ve been missed. We’ll have an entire post on the Alfa Romeo Museum simply because we both love Alfas.

Other things to mention about Milan… this is really the shopping mecca of Europe in my opinion, not that it has more shops that London or Paris, but simply because they’re not as packed full of tourists and as opposed to Paris where there’s constantly a line in front of Louis Vuitton or Christian Louboutin, here you actually have the peace and quiet needed to enjoy spending your money. As you’ve probably figured it out by now, we had a great time in Milan and this city reopened our appetite for Italian cities!

June 30, 2016

evenlymatched1 Comment

AHOY!!!

It seems that these fashion posts appear more often lately, but that’s only because we both love dressing up nicely during the warmer months. Wait until the bad weather comes and you’ll see more and more posts from other categories as my uniform in the winter is composed strictly out of skinnies and Uggs. I consider those the boring months. For some reason I can’t seem to find any inspiration during the nasty winter months. Well, we’ll just take it one season at a time.

No matter what we do, we always seem to be coming back to the oh-so-neutral navy and white striped combo. I guess it’s because both of us love going to the seaside so much and until now, we haven’t had the chance to wet our toes into the chilly Black Sea. We did however made the decision to not let July pass without at least one visit to the seaside. The tricky part about July is that it’s quite full with all sorts of stuff (Euro 2016 final – we’re off to Paris), just as crazy as June turns out to be (more details about out travel itinerary next week).What better way to bring the seaside to Bucharest if not by wearing stripes? D went all the way and wore both his boat shoes and his anchor pattern shorts. Unfortunately, I couldn’t convince him to wear red harts as an accent to fully match my outfit, but I think he did a pretty good job despite that.

Since the main theme was us missing the seaside, I decided to wear this lovely but oh so short dress from H&M that I got last year. I love everything about this dress, starting with the 3/4 sleeves and finishing with the fact that it has pockets. I just love everything with pockets and finding dresses that have pockets is really, really hard. Since I didn’t want to repeat the Christian Louboutin navy shoes I wore here, I opted for my Melissa x Vivienne Westwood Dragon Lady white shoes with a big red heart on top. I remember a few years ago (four, I think), these shoes were so popular and so hard to find-well, at least in Romania- but nowadays all the fashionistas seem to have forgotten about them and it’s a pity as these shoes are both fun and very comfortable. True, fashion trends come and go, but in my book, these shoes are forever trendy. I am biased because I do admit to having them in three more colours, so you’ll probably see more and more of them.

On me:

Dress – H&M; Shoes – Melissa x Vivienne Westwood; Bag – Furla; Bling – Pandora, Tomorrowland and Constantin Nautics; Watch – Daniel Wellington

What better bag to match my navy style than the one I bought on the way to London (literally on the plane) from Furla? This bag turns out to be a way better investment that I expected, even D is amazed how many things it matches. This only goes to prove that women are always right when it comes to investing in fashion and men should always listen to them! Bling wise, I think you’ve noticed by now that I am a very loyal person and only add a maximum of two pieces to my usual stuff. For today’s fashion post, I decided to add to my usual jewellery a bracelet from Constantin Nautics that perfectly matched my navy, white and red accents.

On D:

Shorts – H&M; T-shirt – Jack&Jones; Shoes – Tommy Hilfiger; Bling – Fossil and Constantin Nautics; Watch – Daniel Wellington

D always seems to get excited whenever there’s a navy theme and I think that’s maybe because he does have a lot of stuff to match that. This outfit is not really a complicated or out of the box outfit. I’d actually call it his summer uniform as he always seems to wear one of his numerous H&M shorts with either a plain shirt or a polo shirt. I do have to admit that even though this makes him a bit boring fashion wise, I do love the way he always manages to not look out of place despite the fact that he’s basically wearing the same thing. I guess his good taste is to ‘blame’ for that! The fact that he decided to wear yet again his boat shoes and that I haven’t noticed that they were the ones he wore last week as well, goes to prove that you don’t really have to have a lots of clothes to look different each time. Well that rule only applies for men, as us women do need to have loads of clothes mainly out of principle!

He also chose a Constantin Nautics bracelet to match mine, and we both decided to wear our Daniel Wellington watches with one of our many matching straps. This is the reason I love our Daniel Wellington watches so much! We can change the strap in 10 seconds and instantly it matches every singe outfit in our closet. If we decide to put on a more fancy leather strap, we can wear out watches to whatever type of formal event comes along. Him being just as loyal to his jewellery as I am, he couldn’t leave his Fossil bracelet at home!

I think this is my favourite photoshoot so far, but then again, I always seem to be thinking that whenever I see the most recent photos. As boring as this marine theme is, you’ll probably going to see it a few more times this summer as it appears that we have a lot of navy stuff in our closet!

June 17, 2016

evenlymatchedLeave a comment

Blue skies…

Here’s yet another bundle of pics from Madrid. I think this post here contains the largest number of photos we’ve ever posted, simply because choosing pics from this day was extremely hard.

I’d like to point out the fact that I’ve really tried to do a no-jeans vacation for once, but I just could’t resist this pair I’ve found in Madrid from Pepe Jeans London. I mean, the colour is just perfect for those long summer days and short summer nights, and even though I have about 20 pairs of skinnies, I did not have this exact wash, so D had to comply and agree that I should have them.

On me:

Blouse – ZARA; Jeans – Pepe Jeans London; Sweater – Terranova; Shoes – VANS; Bag – Michael Kors; Sunglasses – Ray-Ban; Bling – Swarovski, Pandora and Constantin Nautics; Watch – Daniel Wellington

Usually whenever I do some vacation shopping, I always wait until I get home to actually wear the stuff I buy, but this time, I just had to wear them the second day after I bought them.

These photos were taken on our third (photo documented) day in Madrid, and the weather was plain and simple perfect. As stated in an earlier post, we’re not exactly evenly matched colour-wise, but we both chose something light blue to wear.

On D:

Shirt – Massimo Dutti; Jeans – Scotch & Soda; Vest – Bershka; Shoes – Nike; Bag – from Barcelona; Bling – Fossil and Constantin Nautics; Watch – Daniel Wellington

I decided on a white blouse from ZARA, which you can’t really see in any of the pics (as i intended) because I wore my summer white sweater from Terranova (as for the blouse, I couldn’t find the exact same item online, so I’ve linked some alternatives), that I got ages ago, over it. Since it was Sunday, and I was on my third step of my CHANEL routine (Le Weekend) I couldn’t wear any make-up, hence the less bronzy look, and decided on wearing just a bit of mascara. I’ve chosen my trusted VANS because a) they’re white and b) we had a lot of exploring to do by foot.

As per usual, I’m wearing my Michael Kors Hamilton Traveller bag. I think I’ve worn this bag a thousand times and I think I’ll wear it to death because it’s the perfect size to fit all sorts of necessities and small enough to not annoy me when I need both of my hands.

D chose his Massimo Dutti shirt which matched the shade of my jeans, and, as opposed to me, he chose a darker look. One could say that aside for the blue items, we were like a chess board. He went for his darker Scotch & Soda (one of his favourite brands) jeans and his way-too-poufy (for this weather) vest from Bershka, that he mostly carried around in his bag.

He, like me, chose his comfortable black Nikes and the one and only bag that he packed that he bought a few years ago from Barcelona from one of the many street fairs happening there all year round.

Sunday was the day we visited the Templo de Debod and Parque del Oeste. You can find loads more info on the locations of our photoshoot in yesterday’s post. I hope you can see from the pics the amount of fun we had on Easter Sunday.

May 9, 2016May 9, 2016

evenlymatchedLeave a comment

Madrid Overall – Curly Part

The third (photo documented) day came and I decided to undo my braids and go for a curly fun look. I owe having the courage to heat-process my hair to the Olaplex system and the incredibly delicate BaByliss Curl Secret and there was no sign of damage to my hair whatsoever.

Since the weather was very nice and warm, we decided on yet another park. This time our walking marathon started at Templo de Debod where we snapped lots of pics (for yet another fashion post to come). Since there’s lots of info online about all the places we’ve been to, there’s no point in me trying write it down here, I’ll just do my best with the direct links for all of them. After we’ve finished our part tourist, part fashion photoshoot at the temple, we realised that we were in one of those great, non-touristic green areas (aside from the temple) thanks to a viewpoint at one end of the temple. Since we had absolutely no time to prepare for this vacation, we took things as they came, and decided to continue our Madrid marathon in that area. First place we encountered was the Garden of La Rosaleda, where, as per usual, lots of photos were taken. We quickly realised that Madrid is a city where there’s always something happening as there was a triathlon undergoing in the area, the cycling part to be more specific. As I was concentrating on posing for D, I realised that my favourite photographer had left me to look as stupid as possible and ran off to catch the cyclists on camera.The Garden of Rosaleda is a vast rose-garden with hundreds of rose species on display, but, unfortunately for us, this was’t their blooming period. None the less, it was lovely spending some time there even without a strong rose fragrance.

As we went further, we discovered the Parque del Oeste, which is a place nobody should miss while in Madrid. If I was under the impression that Retiro Park was the best park Madrid had to offer, well this one definitely changed my mind for good. This is a beautiful area, with lush vegetation and beautifully landscaped alleys. Since this was a Sunday, I was really surprised to see that we were alone most of the time spent there and that allowed us to really discover some beautiful hidden corners of the park. That again, was the thing that got us hooked on Madrid – the lack of tourists. One of the wonderful corners I was talking about was the fully bloomed lilac arch we found at some point along our walk. The fragrance we felt in the area was amazing and this was a place that was completely out of the way of any main alley of the park, so this park really needs a full day for discovering. After we started feeling the repercussions of walking so much (translation: our feet were hurting like hell), we made our way towards the Moncloa metro station, to start our way towards the centre part as we did need to eat our dinner and we wanted to explore the streets some more after that.

We stopped at Puerta de Alcala and made our way towards the Calle de Cerrano, which is Madrid’s high-end shopping area. When D told me where we were ending our Ester day, I was beyond ecstatic and started making lists in my head with what statement pieces I needed for summer. Fortunately for our bank accounts, since it was a Sunday, all the shops were closed, to my disappointment. We continued our evening walk down Calle de Maria de Molina, a walk that I personally recommend as the boulevard is very peaceful and nice with wide pedestrian areas and lots of things to see on the way. We then finally and fortunately (for our feet) reached Avenida de America where our hotel was located.

On the next day, I had my mind set on visiting the Botanical Gardens, thinking that being a Monday it should be quite empty. We started walking through Buen Retiro Park again as D spotted the Crystal Palace the night before online, and since we were there anyway we thought why not make the most of our park adventures, plus it seemed like a lovely place to snap pics. The area around the palace was way more beautiful than any of the pics we’ve seen online or in any travel guide, so this one really deserves the trip. After about 100 photos snapped there we started for our destination, the Botanical Garden. Since the entrance is not clearly specified on the map we were using, we went down Cuesta de Moyano, and as usual a book fair was going on there, with lots and lots of old books, magazines and postal cards for sale.

When we finally reached Plaza Murillo, where the entrance for the Botanical Garden was located, we realised there was no way whatsoever that we were going to see the garden as the queue was two-hours long, so we decided to explore the area surrounding it. We made our way towards Plaza Mayor by way of Calle de Huertas and then we continued our walking-marathon towards Puerta del Sol as we realised that we had not yet bought presents for our families and friends back home. We, however, changed direction at some point, on Calle de Augusto Figueroa because D spotted some lovely side streets and we can’t resist small streets. Lucky we id that, as we found Mercado de San Anton where we ate one of the best meals while in Madrid, but more details on that in the food post.

Our last full day in Madrid was all about tennis. Being sports freaks, we enjoy watching tennis as well and we absolutely love going to live tennis events, as, just like with any other Open, the atmosphere is incredible. We were very fortunate to catch a very eventful third day, with matches played and won by Simona Halep, Rafael Nadal and Any Murray, but since we had quite an early flight the next day, we couldn’t stay and see Murray as well. None the less, our day was perfect with just two important matches, especially, as we know by now, Halep won the Open. If you’re ever in Madrid while Mutua Madrid Open is happening, make sure you won’t miss it, as everything from location to the people coming there is absolutely a must-see.

Since we had a lot of packing to do, we started our way towards out lovely hotel, but we did stop at Paseo de Eduardo Dato, which is a location we saw on our first day, because I had my mind set on taking a few pictures there as well. Naturally, when we got back to our hotel, none of us could stand on our feet anymore and the whole packing experience was time-consuming and horrendous.

Overall, Madrid is a wonderful city to visit and I personally think that it’s way underrated as a tourist destination because of Barcelona and Valencia. Trust me when I say that it’s a must see and this is coming from someone who’s seen Barcelona (twice) and Valencia (once). Though we thought we’d come back way fatter than we left, thanks to our walking marathons I think that after 2 weeks of serious gym and diet time, we’ll bounce back into our original shape. Until then, loose clothes and comfortable shoes for us! I really am very excited to do the food post because, to be honest, by comparison with Valencia and Barcelona, in Madrid we’ve found the best food options.

I honestly hope that you enjoyed our text/photo tour of Madrid and stay tuned as more posts on our vacation will come with lots more photos. And by the way, our next vacation is in Milan, so if anyone knows any good places to eat and see there, please leave a comment either here or on our Facebook page!

May 8, 2016

evenlymatchedLeave a comment

Madrid Overall – Side Braid part

Here’s the deal, we are finally back and I was really torn about how to do the posts on Madrid mainly because there’s a lot to say about this city and I had no idea if I should do a day bay day walkthrough our vacation, or do a few overall posts and a few fashion posts. In the end, D helped me decide, so today we are going to post the first overall view on Madrid.

What we both loved about Madrid is that, unlike any other big cities we’ve traveled to, it’s not filled with tourists. Mainly I think that’s because Spain has Barcelona and Valencia to offer. This makes Madrid one of the go-to destinations if you are anything like us and hate pushing your way through masses of tourists. In my personal opinion, a very tourist-popular destination takes all the originality of a place. The downside being that Madrid was the first place we ever went to, where we had serious language barrier with the locals. Good thing that we used to play mime-games when we were both little, as that was mainly our way of communicating with people. Seriously, you can hardly find someone in Madrid that speaks fluent English. We did however manage to learn a little Spanish while we were there so I guess that’s a win for us.

Now, a bit about the weather… When we chose Madrid, we mainly did it because in Bucharest, in May, the weather tends to be more on the chilly side and quite frankly this year, the day we left for Madrid, it was full-on late autumn, so when we decided our destination, back in February (I think!), we thought that the temps will hit 30 degrees in Madrid. That wasn’t the case, as it seems most of Europe is under an autumn-winter kinda weather. When we landed there, it was cloudy and chilly, but not as cold as Bucharest had been lately. However, by the time the afternoon came, the sky had cleared and all we got was sunshine and temps up to 29 degrees for the rest of our stay. We were very lucky in that department, as the day after our flight back, the weather was supposed to turn cold again. Fortunate for us, as we managed to do a lot of fashion shoots while there.

Back on point… Another reason for choosing Madrid was the fact that the last time we had a Spanish experience (Barcelona), we really enjoyed ourselves. Lisbon was our first choice as none of us had ever been to Portugal, but unfortunately there were no direct flights from Bucharest at the time we booked out trip. Not for one moment did we regret the lack of airline services, as Madrid was great!

We chose Silken Puerta America Hotel for our stay, and to be honest, I don’t think we’ve ever stayed in a more special hotel. I may be biased when I say that simply because of my architecture background and the fact that we stayed in the room designed by one of my favourite architects, the late Zaha Hadid. The hotel itself has every floor designed by a different architect and I told D that I, for sure want to come back here again as I’ve spotted the next levels I want to stay in. We had the option of choosing Zaha’s white or black room and we decided to go for the white simply because the light was better and I’ve always loved completely white rooms. Since we are talking about a five star hotel, the service was great if you go past the fact that at their cocktail bar the bartenders barely spoke any English, so drinking my evening tea was quite complicated (go figure – I still don’t know how to ask for tea in Spanish). All in all, if you follow me on Instagram, then you probably know by now that I love hotel rooms in general and this one was a real treat. I think it is very important to talk about the breakfast buffet, because we always search for reviews on that before we book anything. The breakfast assortment was quite good, but in my opinion, being a veggie-lover, they lacked in the fresh vegetables department. Other than that, all was decent, but not as rich as the buffet breakfast we had in London.

Now let’s get down to the nitty gritty and talk about Madrid. First of all, I’d like to point out that neither of us is into visiting museum and/or castles whenever we are in a new city. Basically, growing up, we each had our share of that whenever we used to visit with our parents as kids. We’re both more on the walk-till-you-drop side where discovering new cities is concerned, hence my Jawbone Up band was really happy with me during this vacation. The day we got to Madrid, let’s call it the ‘No Photos Day’ as we took absolutely no pics, we ignored the fact that we were both up at 3 a.m., we quickly unpacked (but there was not a lot of unpacking going on as Zaha Hadid designed the room with barely any space for clothes) and then we hit the streets. Basically we covered the entire central area that day, and my tracker registered almost 30000 steps, which is about 5-6 hours of wandering the streets. Needless to say that a) our feet were killing us when we finally reached our hotel again and b) we were really starting to love this city.

Let the day-countdown begin… The next day, which was actually the day we started taking pics, we visited most of Buen Retiro Park. This is probably their biggest and most central park and it has everything that’s considered park function in it. It’s beautifully landscaped and one could spend all day walking on the alleys and discovering something new with each step.

We exited the park at Fuente de Neptuno, near Prado Museum and none of us was really tempted to go inside it. This area in particular, being a museum area, is quite crowded with tourists so we decided to venture on the side streets, where Madrid surprised me again. There were a lot of small local shops, local brands, handmade stuff and basically all the things that make an economy strive. We later realised that most of the locals buy everything from these artisans, and to be honest, I bought a few things even though I left home with the mantra of not buying much during this vacation, in my head. I just couldn’t resist as most of the stuff they’re selling is top quality and beautifully hand crafted. These small streets are located between Calle de Cervantes and Plaza Mayor, where we ended our evening, but not before walking by foot to our hotel (because all those kcals from our dinner needed to be burned). Our said evening walk started on Calle Mayor, passing on Puerta del Sol, going down Calle de Preciados and Calle Fuencarral. I’m trying to redo all our walks so a) you’ll get and idea of the amount of physical exercise we got and b) these walks are wonderful and I’m trying to convince you to take those walks for yourself to see how beautiful he streets of Madrid are.

The following day we were set on visiting Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. Those are our kind of museums that we enjoy visiting when on vacation. Since we both watch football, this one seems like the right fit. However, we rarely ever cheer for the same team (except for Barcelona), so you can imagine the war-zone our home becomes whenever there’s a World Cup Championship or an Euro Cup Championship on. This doesn’t stop us from visiting all the stadiums whenever we are on vacation. As per usual, we walked most of the way there, and as expected by now, we found some beautiful places near the stadium. The stadium itself was very impressive, as in my opinion, it’s the steepest stadium I’ve seen so far, and I’ve seen a fair amount. Because none of us is really a fan of Real Madrid, we didn’t get the goosebumps we got when visiting Camp Nou.

In the area we stumbled upon the Google Campus and we decided to snap a few (hundreds) pics, but you’ll see them in one of our upcoming fashion posts that we are preparing. We then walked towards Jardins de Sabatini and then to Palacio Real, which was a wonderful and relaxing walk until we managed to bump into some tourist groups therefore deciding to change course towards Plaza de Oriente. On our way there, we found Mercado de San Miguel. This is a marketplace where you can buy groceries as well as enjoy a glass of sangia, beer or a cone of seafood, like D did to my disapproval, as he ate some sort of squids and other likewise disgusting sea creatures and prevented me from coming close to him for about half an hour because, in my opinion, he reeked. I also got a small bite, some sort of lemon almonds and thyme almonds and managed to ruin the integrity of my beloved pants, hence from that point onwards, all the pics I let D take of me were from the back. When our feet decided to stop cooperating with us on the grounds that we tortured them enough, we started our journey towards the hotel. But not before we stopped for dinner. Naturally we did that every single day, but the places we found in Madrid served such amazing food that they deserve a different post.

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this: