Category: travel

Holiblog: Europe Edition 🇪🇺

Hi guys 👋🏻

This year’s ‘Holiblog’ post (holiday blog post for those who are new here) is a bit of a different one as we booked an impromptu train trip around Europe (well, a small part of Europe)

We went for a 5 day trip getting to and from using the Eurostar, and then local trains in-between. So, with just a rucksack, each we set off (at 4.30 am in the morning 😭)

Here’s how it went…

Paris, France

A brilliant first day of our little European adventure!

Our first stop was Paris 🇫🇷

We found some delicious pizza 🤣🍕 and we walked to the Effiel tower (which really is quite massive) very cool.

A highlight was the River Seine boat sightseeing tour. 🏞⛴️

It’s been 33° so it was a welcome shelter/rest from the sun, and we were able to see lots of the sights of Paris that we wanted to. 🌞

Traditional pastries acquired ready for tomorrow mornings early train to our next destination 🥐

Pairi Daiza, Cambron Casteau

Today was amazing. 🇧🇪

If you ever in Brussels you’ve got to visit ‘Pairi Daiza, Kingdom of Animals’

It’s so much more amazing that I could ever have imagined – what a beautiful place with some amazing animals, I’ve never been anywhere like it.

The themeing of each continent area was spot on, and we saw animals we had never seen before absolutely thriving in the most amazing exhibits.

It’s been a full-on, hot day, and my feet ache a lot (10 hours there and 30,000 steps)  but boy, did we enjoy ourselves – we didn’t want to leave!!

Ps – the bats were awesome 🦇

Europe Day Two- done ✔️ 🇧🇪

Ghent, Belgium

Today, we started off with breakfast in Brussels before we headed to today’s stop – Ghent. 🇧🇪

I’d never heard of it before we booked this trip, but I am so glad we came.
This place is so lovely to walk around. The architecture is beautiful, and it’s so quaint with a surprisingly contrasting but infectious bustling night life. 🚤
The canals are really pretty, and as well as wandering around ourselves during the day and at night, we also enjoyed a canal boat tour and a Medieval walking tour.

The local culinary delights, including Leige waffles 🧇  DELICIOUS frites, topped with traditional blemish stew, gravy & mayonnaise, and Belgium chocolate of course.

Another brilliant day! Stop no 3, done ✔️

#Ghent #Belgium #Europe2025

Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Day Four was Rotterdam! 🇳🇱

We started off the day having breakfast in Ghent before heading to our next stop.

We chose this (instead of Amsterdam) as it was suggested to be quite a contrast to Ghent, and that it was.
We visited ‘Mini World’, which was really cool, and it was actually very helpful when spotting interesting landmarks around Rotterdam afterwards.  The lighting at Mini World was very impressive i. Particular.
We also had a walk around the plaza.

The highlight was the food market hall – there was so much to see and try.
We had our first traditional Stroopwafel, which was delicious, as well as trying some other yummy cusines too.

We then headed to the harbour to have a look at the views, finished off the evening by chilling in our hotel room after a few very busy days!

Last stop today!

Brussels, Belgium

Our last day was Brussels 🇧🇪

We never got to look around Brussels when we stayed the other day as it was just the closest place to ‘Pairi Daiza’.

So, here we are! Doing it properly this time (plus, you can get the Eurostar from Brussels so win, win)

We started off by getting a train to the other Brussels station, Centrale, which funnily enough was much more in the centre of Brussels than Midi. It was also a 6 minute walk from our first stop – The Choco Story Chocolate Museum 🍫 it had to be done.

It was really interesting and I very much enjoyed the samples along the way, as well as a chocolatier demonstrating how they make traditional Belgium Pralines which were first made in Brussels (we got to eat those too! Yum)

After that, we grabbed a quick lunch of Frites & Mayo 🍟 in the sunshine 🌞

In order to see as much of Brussels as we could in our short time there, we got tickets for a hop on, hop off tour bus of the city. (Although we just stayed on it for 2 hours to see the full tour)
It was a beautiful blue sky, sunny day and we enjoyed our little tour of the city on the open top bus 🚌  we saw lots of cool sights, street art and the Headquarters of the EU 🇪🇺.

And just to round off the day before we headed to the Eurostar, we grabbed some final waffles 🧇
We tried a savoury ham and cheese one which was very nice and a triple chocolate drizzled one.
Belgium chocolate really is delightful

16 trains later (for the whole trip), and we’re back home! All in all, it was a success! And a very fun, jam-packed 5 days – we’ve done many steps, seen many things, visited many new places, and consumed many waffles! Europe 2025, you were a blast!

(& living out of a backpack really isn’t that bad!)

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂



#Europe2025

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Disneyland Paris 2025 ✨️🏰

Hi guys 👋🏻

This time last week, we were in Disneyland 😭

It was such a fun trip!

If you’ve been to Disney, you’ll know how magical and fun it is. It is like no other place you’ll ever visit.

We booked a Disney package, so we were staying at a Disney hotel and had a Disney meal plan.

We stayed at Disney Santa Fe hotel, themed like the Disney Pixar movie ‘Cars’. Like everything at Disney, it was themed to perfection. It was brilliant.

We all loved it, especially my two nephews.

The Mexican restaurant at this hotel is delicious, and they also have their own shop and a Starbucks too. It’s a little further out (15 min walk) but it is a lovely walk – and you can also make use of the shuttle bus if you wish, although we enjoyed the walk.

Let’s take a look at what we got up to!

Monday 21st July 2025 ✨️

Today was a travel day really,  drove down to Dover to catch the ferry this time round. The ferry trip isn’t long and stops at Calais. From here, we drove to the same hotel we stayed in last time, in Paris.

By the time we go there, we mainly just enjoyed our dinner of fresh baguettes and cheese and played a few games before bed.

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 ✨️

Today was our first Disney day! Our Paris hotel was only a little drive away from Disney, so we set off after breakfast to start our magical holiday.

Once we had checked in, we actually managed to have our first magical experience… Goofy was doing a meet and greet in our hotel foyer!!! Goofy is my all-time favourite Disney character, so I was buzzing that he was there!!

We queued up for a picture, of course! (& a hug 😄)

After that, we walked to the park enjoying the scenery from our hotel, the other hotels (some of which were only a building site when we last came!!) And the bustling Disney village.

We went to the main Disneyland Park first and enjoyed looking around, going on some rides, and just soaking it all up! I will never get bored of seeing that castle at the end of Main Street.

There was even a parade going on as we entered, so we of course watched this, my nephews loved it.

In-between rides, we also caught the end of Goofy’s magical, musical conduction of the fountains outside the Disney castle. Amazing.

Our first dinner was at Billy Bob’s tex mex in the Disney village. We came here last time and all really enjoyed it. It was just as yummy as we all remembered. 

Wednesday 23rd July 2025

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This was our super busy Disney day!

We enjoyed a delicious buffet breakfast at our hotel before we headed out.

We got up nice and early to make the most of our ‘Magic Hours’, which are a perk of staying in a Disney hotel…  and its where you get to go into the parks earlier than everyone else.

  We went to the Disney Studios park this time. This one is super cool and has a very different vibe to the main park. It has some really cool rides too, and the relatively new ‘Avengers Campus’ that again was being built last time we came!

We went back to our hotel late afternoon to chill for a bit and me and my nephews and I started watching ‘Cars 2’

Our dinner reservation was at the Mexican restaurant at our hotel, ‘La Cantina’… The best Nachos 👌🏼

We returned to the main Disneyland park for more rides (the 5 min evening queues were very satisfying), and once we had done a few rides, we were ready to watch the evening fireworks show, a Disney tradition and a must see at least once during your trip.

I did 33,000 steps that day! Disney is not for the faint hearted 😂 achy feet is an understatement, thank goodness for the hotel bath.

Thursday 24th July 2025

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The weather was meant to be a bit worse today than other days, so we thought this would be a good opportunity to catch a few of the Disney shows. There are a few going on throughout each day and are well worth a watch (and are all included)

We watched the Lion King show ‘Rhythms of the Pride Lands’ which was brilliant.

We managed to meet Goofy again today 🤣 He’s really working over time atm, he is the character we saw the most (not that I’m complaining at all!!)

The weather didn’t actually end up being worse at all so we managed to get a few more rides in, in each park before seeing our second show of the day, ‘TOGETHER: a pixar musical adventure’ which was also really impressive.

We had our dinner for this day booked in at ‘PYM kitchen’  in the ‘Avengers Campus’. This was a new place for us as it wasn’t here last time we came. This place served an American buffet, and I was really impressed. The desserts were especially delicious. I think I enjoyed this meal the most, so I’m glad we managed to book a meal there and I would highly recommend it.

We managed to get on another 4/5 rides back in the Disneyland park before calling it a day.

Friday 25th July 2025 ✨️

Today was our last Disney day 😭

We enjoyed another delicious breakfast (top tier pastries) before managing to grab a Starbucks and then get on the shuttle bus to the park for another session of ‘Magic hours’ fun!

We went on quite a mixture of rides today, going on things we wanted another turn on, which differed from person to person, as well as going on some of our favourites together.

My all-time favourite ride is ‘Big Thunder Mountain’ but I also really enjoy ‘Ratatouille’, ‘Pirates of the Carribean’, ‘Star Tours’ and ‘It’s a Small World’

We finished off our last Disney Day with dinner at the Cheyenne hotel, which is Disneys Wild West themed hotel nearby. This was really cool as the themeing again was on point, and none of us had been before.

The food was yummy and they even offered an outdoor BBQ section to the buffet, which was different to the others. The barbecued chicken skewers were yummy, and I love how each restaurant did a few desserts to match their Disney theme

And finally some more rides at the park. Another 30,000 step day haha. Our last ride was another go on ‘It’s a small world’.

It truly is the happiest place on earth 💖

We had a brilliant trip, it is such a fun and joyful place for a holiday. I can’t wait to start planning the next time, but that’s probably not for a few years. So until Next Time, bye bye Disney 👋🏻  it was a blast!

Have you been to Disneyland Paris?

What’s your fave ride?

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

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2025 memories – 6/12

Hi guys 👋🏻

So, I had an idea to document some more memories on my blog. I used to do a lot more of these sort of posts before I started posting more book/reading content, and when I had more time haha, life seems to be busy these days!

Here is my second quarterly memories update to capture 2025, we are halfway through the year!!

These are the second three months of the twelve of 2025!

Let’s take a look.

April

Easter fun! Me and my Nephews and Niece did some Easter craft, Easter baking and an Easter Egg hunt. On Easter Sunday, we swapped Easter eggs and had our traditional family Chinese takeaway at my sisters. We enjoyed lovely walks and bank holiday board game days, as well as meeting up with my friend Hannah for nrucu to meet her little one and a day in Felixstowe with my friend Charlotte. 

I also handed in my notice to my job at the after-school club where I’ve worked since I was 19 😭

May

May was a fun one!

This month includes mine and my twin sisters birthday. We had a fun time meeting up for a late lunch, and going a bit of augmented darts before heading to mums to open some pressies. We also had a family chippy tea at mine the Saturday before. 

I made our birthday cake and made one that I have always wanted to try… meet Agatha the Caterpillar Cake! I’m really happy with how she came out.

Me and my husband went away for the May Half Term to a lovely place in Norfolk. We’d visited before, and it’s great for a relaxing and chill long weekend. It was lovely.

We also went to a cool exhibit in our hometown for our fave football team, had a beach day and did some good workouts.

June

We had another beach day as we had my nephews for the day and the weathers been great.

We celebrated my Dad’s 71st Birthday together with a garden Chinese,  we also celebrated Fathers day (double celebrations, greedy 🤣)

Other fun things this month include a ‘Hare trail’ coming to our hometown… these are always fun for the Summer. We did a parkrun (first time thos year!!)  Me and my work friends celebrated our friends 40th birthday with a fun party and my nephew came round and cooked us breakfast 🥹

Me and my husband also celebrated our 9th Wedding Anniversary this month. I can’t believe it’s been 9 years.

We had a delicious meal at our favourite Italian in town to celebrate.

What’s been your favourite memory of 2025 so far?

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

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2025 Memories 3/12

Hi guys 👋🏻

So, I had an idea to document some more memories on my blog. I used to do a lot more of these sort of posts before I started posting more book/reading content, and when I had more time haha, life seems to be busy these days!

So I thought as we are a quarter of the way through the year, I could do a quarterly memories update to capture 2025.

This is part one, the first three months of the twelve of 2025!

Let’s take a look.

January

I’m not always a fan of January. It always seems such a miserable month after the festivities if Christmas, but this one wasn’t too bad! Me & my husband went to London together for the day, we saw ‘Harry Potter and The Cursed Child’ (again) and had a delicious dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant. 

There was more footie with my nephew and lots of reading this month!! I love making my new reading lists and new book purchases for the new year. I also had two baby showers to celebrate, which was lovely! Not a bad start to the year, really!

February

In February, we had some fun sleepovers with my Nephew’s and Niece, me and my twin sister played the OG ‘The Sims’ game on its re release anniversary special, so amazing nostalgia there! I went to London to meet up with my Uni friend Kirsty and we watched ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ Musical… we also had dinner with another friend afterwards which was a great catch up (The show was  really good).

Me and my Twin sister also saw a show, but in Norwich, we watched Giovanna Fletcher in ‘The Girl on the Train’. It was so cool to see Gi in a show and it was done really well on stage (I love the book!!) Speaking of books, Me and some friends from work started up a reading library in our staff room which has been going well and is nicely stocked now.

This month I also added some colourful accessories to our bathroom to finish it off, (we had it redone at the end of last year), and I have been meaning to add some colourful for a while!  And we, of course, enjoyed a lovely Valentines evening together at our favourite Turkish restaurant.

In the February Half Term me and my husband went away for a long weekend. We stayed in Norfolk at a lovely inn and enjoyed a chilled weekend! The pub was lovely and cosy, the food was brilliant (breakfast included, always a winner with us!) And we had a little trip to Banham zoo, which I haven’t been to in years. We even had a Meerkat experience whilst we were there as they were only £15 each, bargain. It was a lovely relaxing weekend, much needed.

March

We had lots of fun in March, including the football and limited edition Ed Sheeran stickers!! My besties little boy had his first birthday party (under the sea themed),  and our new sofas finally arrived!!

There was lots of yummy food, including a work meal at Prezzo, Wagas with my sister and our friend Dan, as well as our traditional Mothers Day homemade Afternoon Tea with my sisters and a Mothers Day lunch with Mum. I’ve also been ill a lot this month with coughs and colds, which is not ideal, so here’s to a healthier April.

What have been your highlights this year so far?

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

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A London day out ✨️

Hi guys 👋🏻

So at the beginning of June, we spent a weekend celebrating our anniversary! (See previous post) we decided to do something a bit different this year. We usually opt for a night’s stay somewhere, but instead, we planned a ‘touristy’ day out in one of our favourite cities, London.

Here’s what we got up to!

First up – The Tower of London

Next up – A boat on the Thames

Third stop – The London Eye

Next up – Some Sightseeing

Next up – Dinner

Our final stop – A Comedy Club

We had a lovely time! It was quite fun doing lots of touristy things that we hadn’t done before! These are some of the things I’ve wanted to do for ages but never got around to seeing.

These days out in London are great if you can grab a ‘London Day Out’ train ticket too! Much more affordable (only £20 each, bargain!)

What’s your favourite sight to see in London?

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

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May Highlights ✨️

Hi guys 👋🏻

Here are my May highlights…

Promotion to the Premier League…

An absolutely unbelievable weekend, one we’ll never forget.

I can’t wait for the football season to start up again!

Our Birthday!

We had a fun birthday weekend celebrating together. We grabbed lunch and spent the day hanging out together on Saturday. Delicious picky bits at Revs in the sunshine, mini golf, cocktails, and the cinema.

On our birthday, on the Sunday we had a delicious brunch together, exchanged our presents, spent time with family and had a birthday meal with cake to round off the weekend.

Oh… and we may have got a matching tattoo on our birthday as well 👀

(See the blog post below for the inspiration)

Promotion in pictures 💙🤍⚽️

Celebrating special birthdays with friends.

We enjoyed a bottomless brunch in the sunshine 🌞 followed by some fun and games at a local bar, including interactive darts & karaoke.

A lovely family holiday to Norfolk.

We stayed in a lovely air bnb cottage in Norfolk. We went along with my mother in law, brother in law, my husbands Auntie, Cousin, and Grandad. We had a lovely time chilling out, cooking together, exploring nearby towns and Norwich City, walks  (weather permitting), and we even hired a boat, which was a highlight!

& I saw some bats, which was epic.

Going to see Take That live!

I will always love seeing Take That live! No one does it better. I can’t believe that this was the 7th time I’ve seen them love!!

Another fun month! And we are almost halfway through the year!!! Madness.

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

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February Highlights ✨️

Hi guys 👋🏻

Well, that month flew by, didn’t it!

Here are my February highlights…

We started back doing our Parkruns this month! Happy with my time of 34.01 – here’s to getting back to it again 👟

Me and my twin sister Sarah organised our bestfriends baby shower. It went really well and everyone had a great time! Lots of delicious food, fun games, presents and laughs 👶

Pancake day! One of the best days in Feb 🥞 I managed to have two pancake meals, haha.

We celebrated Valentines Day this year with our traditional meal to a local Turkish restaurant. It was delicious as always.

As you may have see from my previous holiblog post, we went to Northern Italy for the Feb half term. It was brilliant. We did Verona, Lake Garda, Milan & Venice (again!)

We had a brilliant time, there was so much to see and it was beautiful. We were also mostly, pretty lucky with the weather.

Another great Italy adventure

🇮🇹

What’s been your February Highlight?

✨️

Here’s to a good March!

🌈

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Holiblog: Northern Italy Edition 🇮🇹

Hey guys 👋🏻

This Feb Half Term, we embarked on our latest Italian adventure, this time in Northern Italy. This trip was sort of inspired by our 2020 Italy trip that never was (thanks, Covid!)

We changed the plans a little from the original idea, as we only had a week half term instead of the Summer Hols, but we knew we wanted to travel around more of Northern Italy. I found some cheap flights to and from Verona, and we went from there.

Let’s see what we got up to!

Day 1 – Travelling to Italy

Sat 17th – Today was mainly spent travelling to Italy. It was pretty uneventful (and actually an ok flight, and that’s coming from someone who isn’t very fond of flying)

We arrived in Verona at 7 pm and after a short bus ride and a check-in at our hotel we went in search of food.

The little Pizzeria (Rio’s) that we found nearest to our hotel did not disappoint. It was one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had in Italy.

Day 2 – Verona

Sun 18th – Today, we spent the day in Verona, exploring the town.

We did lots of walking.

We had a short tour of the Verona Arena, which was really cool!

It’s the best preserved Arena in Italy! 

The Arena was probably my favourite ‘sight’ of the trip.

In the early evening, we travelled to Lake Garda, the next destination of our trip.

Day 3 – Lake Garda

Mon 19th – Today, was we visited Salo in Lake Garda.

It is home to the longest promenade in Italy.

& it is very beautiful.

They also do a bangin’ sandwich. This was an insanely good lunch. That bread 🤤

We had a lovely time walking up and down the promenade as well as looking through the city streets.

We rounded off the day with a delicious dinner, Caprese, Rosemary Foccacia, Risotto, and Tiramsu – so good.

Day 4 – Lake Garda

Tues 20th – We started off Day 4 with another yummy breakfast at our lovely B&B  before we headed off to get our bus tickets for the day.

We didn’t realise a market was on, and it was quite extensive. There were some amazing food stalls, including fruit, veg, soooo much cheese and meats.

We decided to pick up some bits and create our own lunch. We chose a delicious fresh tomato, a fresh ball of Mozzarella, a fresh Foccacia, and some amazing strawberries. Delicious.

These made a yummy picnic.

In the afternoon, we headed off to explore another part of Lake Garda – Sirmione.

They are known for their delicious gelato, so we had some in the sunshine when we arrived!

We then had a walk through the castle and town on our way to the ruins of a Roman villa. There was a museum and the ruins itself so that was really interesting to see.

The ruins were so vast.

Once again, the weather was amazing.

We went back to freshen up before having a delicious dinner and a chilled evening in our room.

Day 5 – Milan

Wed 21st – Today we travelled to Milan! We were sad to leave our lovely accommodation in Garda.

Milan Centrale Station is massive! It gives Grand Central Station NYC Vibes for sure.

We spent the day doing LOTS of walking around Milan, seeing the city on foot, there is some cool architecture and graffiti. We picked up some more delicious ice cream, and we went to the Leonardo Di Vinic museum to round off the day.

We had these incredible crepes for dessert from those amazing Gelatoria that we discovered first in Verona.

Day 6 – Milan/Verona

Thurs 22nd – Today, we travelled back to our starting point, Verona, for our final leg of the trip!

Once we made it back Verona (after a 40 min delay at Milan) we freshened up and spent some time just chilling/reading in our hotel room.

It rained in the evening, so we just ventured out nearby to get some food. We didn’t stay out for long before heading back and watching a film in bed.

Day 7 – Verona

Fri 23rd – Today was the only day it rained pretty much all day. We had been so lucky with the weather so far. Typically, we had our Verona Walking Tour.

We didn’t let the rain dampen our spirits and we both thoroughly enjoyed the tour of the city. It was so interesting and Verona is such a beautiful place.

Booking a tour is well worth it!

We grabbed a spot of lunch from a place near the end of the tour, as recommended by our tour guide. The fresh pasta was delicious, and the tiramisu was insannnne.

We were very glad to have such a lovely shower in our hotel room because we were freeeeeezing 🥶 after walking back in the rain. 

And of course, we had another delicious dinner to round off the day!

Day 8 – Verona

Sat 24th – Today was our last full day 🥲

The weather was beautiful, which was great for our final day. We headed over to a cafe that we heard was really nice. We had yet another delicious coffee and pastry.

We spent the rest of the morning/early afternoon looking around the castles museum – it was really interesting with our audio guide, and at the top, you get soke beautiful views of Verona.

After all that exploring and walking around, we enjoyed a lazy afternoon in the hotel.

In the evening…

WE WENT TO VENICE!!! My favourite 😍

It was beautiful as always ❤️

We had a delicious pasta dinner when we arrived…

… before heading to our favourite gelatoria!! 🍨 Su So is incredible. We had to squeeze some in for dessert.

It was buzzing in Venice as it was the Venice Carnival that weekend.

Venice is truly unique.

I love sitting by the Grand Canal. It’s so peaceful.

💗

Day 9 – Home time

Sun 25th – Today, it was time to go home!

We enjoyed a nice walk into the city centre of Verona to find a nice cafe for breakfast again. We really enjoyed doing this the day before.

We had a final delicious coffee, pastry (and Lasagne for Tim 🤣)

We then had a walk around a bit more, including the arena before heading back to make our way to the airport.

We had such a brilliant trip and it was great to see so many new parts of our favourite country.

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Edinburgh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Hi guys 👋🏼

D A Y • O N E

First stop, airport breakfast. Are you even going away if you don’t have one?!?

We flew quite early on our first day (half a good idea as you get a whole day, half a bad idea as we were knackered and needed a nap before dinner)

Once we had landed we got the tram from the airport to the town centre, which was cool.

We then found our accommodation, left our bags and headed out to look around and book a tour. We had been hoping to book the tour that day as we had prebooked some others, unfortunately there were no slots available so we booked it for the second day.

We had a little bit more of a look around. The architecture and city centre are amazing, its such a beautiful place.

We found this awesome place for some lunch. How cool is it!! Bats are my favourite animal so I fell in love with this place immediately. It was really quirky and unique inside too, I love finding independent places like this.

Once we had enjoyed our food we wandered back to our accommodation as we could now check in. Hubby listened to the football whilst I had a nap as I was knackered thanks to the end of term/early start. It was much needed.

We got up and ready for the evening and went to a delicious Italian (our favourite) which we had spotted earlier.

We just had a chilled evening as we were both travel tired and wanted to be ready and raring for the next few days.

A brilliant start to the trip!

D A Y • T W O

For our second day, we headed back down to the Royal Mile for our first tour of the day.

Our first tour was called ‘The Real Mary Kings Close’. It is an hour long guided tour where you learn all about the history of the different closes and the people who lived there. Our guide was brilliant in character and really funny, which made the experience that bit more fun too.

After the tour, we hung around the Royal Mile for a bit, had some lunch and a drink before our second tour.

Our second tour was a history of the old town. It was so interesting and really cool learning about the different buildings all around the Royal Mile and their significance in the growth and development of Edinburgh.

We were shown the ‘only official’ Harry Potter merchandise shop on our tour, so at the end of it, we queued up (yep, it’s so popular you have to queue) and we went in. It was so cool, the decor is insane! And there’s so much cool merchandise.

We rounded off the evening with ‘The Best Fish & Chips in Edinburgh’ which tbf were pretty delicious. I even tried a battered Mars bar, which was really yummy.

D A Y • T H R E E

We enjoyed a yummy breakfast at our ‘hub’ Accommodation before walking the length of the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace.

I always loved the Queen, so it was cool to see Holyrood Palace and its grounds. We didn’t have time to go in, which was a shame, but it was a lovely day, so we went for a walk through the garden and admired it from the outside.

We also had a look around the Scottish Parliment building, which was interesting, too. You had to go through proper airport style security to get in, which was a bit mad (but understandable).

We then walked all the way back up the Royal Mile to Haymarket station where we met my Uncle.

He lives in a different part of Scotland, so we arranged to meet up with him for a day while we were close by. We took the bus together and went to Edinburgh Zoo.

It was an unprecedented hot day in Edinburgh, and everyone had obviously decided to do the same as us and visit the zoo… the queue was mad, but we got in eventually, and we had a lovely day.

It is such a lovely zoo and a really good variety of animals, some which they don’t have in our local zoo.

We especially enjoyed seeing the different types of penguins (the King penguins are amazing!) and the Gentoo penguins, as well as the Sun Bears, Sloths, and most incredible of all, the Giant Panda!!

That is an animal I never thought I would actually see, and it was so cute.

We rounded off a brilliant day with a delicious Italian before we headed back to our respective homes. It was one of my favourite days of the holiday and it was great to catch up.

D A Y • F O U R

For our penultimate day, we had an earlier start. Again, we enjoyed a hotel breakfast before heading back to the Royal Mile for our Harry Potter tour!!! Exciting ⚡️

Here is a little rundown of some of the cool things that we saw…

Harry Potter Walking Tour ⚡️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

1. Outside The Elephant House Cafe where JK often wrote ✍️🏼
2. Sorted into our houses at the start of the tour 💛
3. Tom Riddles grave 🪦
4. Hogwarts inspo for the exterior, houses & alot of interiors eg Great Hall 🏰
5. Victoria Street, the inspiration for Diagon Alley 🪄
6. Outside the shop that is believed to have inspired Flourish & Blotts Bookshop 📚
7. Bank of Scotland, inspo for Gringotts
8. The Balmoral Hotel where JK finished writing the last ever Harry Potter book ⚡️📚
9. On the Royal Mile, the main body of this monument inspired parts of the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets 🐍
10. JK Rowling’s Handprints on Edinburghs very own ‘Walk of Fame’ 🖐🏼✨️

Once we had some lunch, we headed to the National Museum of Scotland. They had a Doctor Who exhibition that we wanted to look around.

It was really good, we enjoyed looking around the exhibits.

We even went inside a Dalek!

We had a brief look around some of the animal areas of the museum before we headed back for a chill before dinner.

We went back to our favourite Italian ‘Pomo’ one last time for some delicious food.

I had been eyeing up the frozen Raspberry Daiquiri all week, so I decided to have one ok our last night… it was amazing.

We then headed back to the lovely bar we visited earlier in the week – The Hanging Bat 🦇 we got a cocktail each to round of the evening.

D A Y • F I V E

Our final day!

We went out for breakfast at a little cafe before heading to the Royal Mile one last time.

We went to the Writers Musuem, where they have rooms all about three famous Socttish writers; Robert Louie Stevenson, Robert Burns, and Sir Walter Scott.

We then walked down to the new town and had a look around, had a drink,and even got to get right up close to ‘The Balmoral’ (as mentioned in the HP tour on Day 4) which was really cool.

Finally, we headed to the castle to have a closer look before we left. We didn’t get around to going in, but to be honest, there is so much to do that we could definitely visit again.

The views of Edinburgh from up by the Castle were amazing, too.

We rounded off the trip with one last lunch stop at The Hanging Bat 🦇

We’re going to miss this place!

We then grabbed our things and headed off to the airport.

All in all we had a brilliant trip- Edinburgh is beautiful and we got so lucky with the weather. There is SO much to do and it would definitely be great to go back.

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

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A weekend in Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Hi guys!

So this weekend saw our first trip of 2023 – and we visited Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Friday 24th February 2023

📍Merthyr Tydfil 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

We stayed in a lovely AirBnb…

We drove up on Friday night in order to give ourselves maximum time on Wales. A quick stop at a services on the way and we made it in time for bed, ready to start the adventure the next day.

Saturday 25th February 2023

📍Barry Island 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

I was super excited about this day!!! We got to visit somewhere that I have wanted to visit but never thought I would… Barry Island.

Now this may seem like a strange choice but if you’ve watched the TV show ‘Gavin and Stacey’ then you’ll get it.

I was literally having my Gavin and Stacey moment and it was awesome. Seeing the seafront where so many iconic scenes took place, Nessa’s slots, Marcos cafe, Gwen & Stacey’s house, Bryns house and Doris house… it was friggin’ epic!!!

Honestly one ot the funnest days ever. So amazing.

We spent most of the day enjoying the seaside sights and then we headed home via a shop to make dinner at the air bnb.

We played games and of course watched some Gavin and Stacey to round off the day.

Sunday 27th February 2023

📍Cardiff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

As the capital and as it was on the way home we decided to spend our last day exploring the city.

We started off by getting some yummy lunch!

After that me and my sister had a look around the Primark (Standard!) Haha

We then looked around the Castle. We didn’t pay to go inside but you can walk right through the middle and see it all from the outside which was really cool.

Our second stop was the National Museum of Wales.

This was really cool, in particular the animal section and dinosaurs. My Nephews really enjoyed it too.

The architecture of the building and the town hall next door was amazing too.

We enjoyed the extra ‘100 year’s of the BBC’ exhibition that was happening at the time too. It was really interesting to see the evolution of television over the last century.

There were some really cool parts to the exhibit like props from Cardiff filmed BBC shows such as Dr Who. There was also a cool set up of a 1970’s lounge complete with retro furniture and TV set… and finally there were some awesome retro children’s toys that were on programmes over have all been on the BBC – very nostalgic.

We headed off once we had, had a refreshment at the cafe (I tried a Welsh Cake – the regular ones were delicious but a scone is better!!)

& of course once we had been to the gift shop…

They were very happy with their Wooly Mammoth and Pteradactyl!

The journey home was pretty straightforward and it didn’t seem quite as long as in the way! We made another, quicker stop at a service station together on our way home and finally got back around 10/10.30 which wasn’t too bad.

We had such a great weekend and we managed to cram lots in, in order to make the most of our time there. I’m looking forward to more trips throughout the year.

Have you been to Wales before? What was your favourite sight?

Until Next Time,

Roseanne 🙂

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