♪ Reborn - Kids See Ghosts ♪

I wanted to post this back when I visited Madrid back in February, but then the second semester started and I never got round to pick my favorite photos from the ones we took on our last full day in Madrid. As this summer I'm going back to two places I've seen before, I was searching through the blog today for the travel blogs I wrote years ago and I realized how helpful they are to me! This blog truly is my virtual diary, just as the name goes, because there are many small details that I've forgotten in the span of 5 years about some of my trips, but the moment I read my old blog stories, it all came back in a matter of seconds. That's why I decided to share a guide on my last day in Madrid, while the memories are still unfaded.

Our third day was our most prolific one because we were determined to see everything we couldn't visit in the first two days. We rented a place on Airbnb in Lavapiés  which is a neighbourhood famous for the amazing street art, the buildings are so artistic! We took a 15 minutes walk around the streets we knew we'd find the most amazing graffiti , en route to our next destination: Atocha train station. Although it's the largest railway station in Madrid, we visited it for a different reason: the station in famous the palm trees and luxurious vegetation it has inside! I loved it so much, if all the train stations would look like this, you would catch me more using a train. Next up, we walked past the Reina Sofia Museum, Caixa Forum and Prado Museum (photos & review on my first post of Madrid here ) to say our farewell, and we arrived at the end of Gran Via, in front of the iconic Metropolis building, where S. took some amazing photos I will cherish my whole life. Next up: Puerta del Sol where I finally found the perfume of my dreams on sale at Sephora: Black Opium by Yves Saint Laurent. Then followed a little break: we saw Plaza Mayor, Madrid's main square, had lunch at Mercado de San Miguel (and the best sangria ever!) and dessert at the world-famous Chocolatería San Ginés -they have a history of serving churros with hot chocolate and I was in heaven!

Probably the hardest thing in the whole day was walking after that lunch to the Royal Palace and the Almudena Cathedral , but once we got to visit the breathtaking palace, it all got better. After our last tourist activity, we managed to walk to our apartment and rest for one hour and then came the most exhausting activity of them all: shopping for our loved ones. The stores were closing at 10 PM so we had 3 hours to manage, and I actually ended getting some cool stuff for myself as well. I couldn't help taking a picture of all the souvenirs I got, I really have a lot of friends and family and I'm happy I was able to return with something for them, although the gifts occupied a whole bed and it took a lot of creativity to pack them, but I'm always up for a challenge!

I took some time before writing about Madrid because I needed to tone down the excitement a notch. Because travelling is so subjective and if I wrote this the minute I got back home I'm pretty sure it would have been all in caps and lots of exclamation points haha. But seriously, I never visited one city which made me feel so at home before this trip. It has everything I ever wanted: glorious art museums, my favorite football team in the world (spoiler alert : the next post will be exclusively about this), clean streets, magnificient arhitecture, amazing history (I basically wanted to move in the Royal Palace!), great shopping and INCREDIBLE PEOPLE! I will make a comparison to Paris, because it's always been the city of my dreams. When I visited Paris, it had all the things I previously mentioned (minus the Real Madrid team) but somehow I felt a sort of unease. I mean, it wasn't so safe to walk on the main boulevards at night (not the case for Madrid!), everything was more expensive and people were polite, but in Spain they're so loving and helpful! It's like they have a 6th sense for tourists who need help. I was sceptical at first because I never encountered such an hospitality in a big city, maybe we were blessed with this incredible experience because we stayed in the lovely neighborhood of Lavapies.

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you must know how much I love Andy Warhol.  Although Andy may have taken his art lightly at times, famously saying "art is what you can get away with" I disagree with anyone who thinks what Andy did was not art. In my opinion, he is the father of the most fun & joyful art to watch: POP ART. My personality is a paradox, I admit: I can read for months books of history and stare in front of a Botticelli paintings for hours, but there is also a side of me who reads Mindy Kaling's crazy funny books and won't leave the sketches section Andy made for Vogue & so many fashion brands over the years! I don't get people who say you can be only into one type of culture/art. Pop art history is so fascinating, there are so many commercials which Andy invented and which are still going strong today and I bet you have no idea, I'm a fan and I just learned about the Absolut sketch on my trip to Madrid. Somehow, luck follows me when I visit a city: it's the third time I went somewhere and I found a pop-up Andy Warhol exhibition! This one in Madrid is really ground-breaking, with over 300 works of Andy, so much history and massive gift shop with all Andy Warhol things inspired (good thing I had my bff Simona with me and she only let me buy the small souvenirs, otherwise I'm pretty sure I would have spent most of my money on day one!). You can find it until May at Caixa Forum Madrid. I was so impressed with the fact they recreated one of Andy's project which people aren't really familiar with: CLOUDS. Andy made this from the NASA fabrics, in an era when everyone was obsessed with silver because it represented space and our hopes for the future. It's shocking how you can enter a room and just play with giant clouds, no they don't feel like helium balloons, you just want to move there, you could see everyone with a giant smile on their faces as they entered the room!

After this whole incredible experience, we visited the Prado museum. I loved it so so much, Velazquez is a genius, I'm so happy I got to see so many of his works, the famous "Las Meninas" is so moving, we just didn't want to leave its side. Also, the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymous Bosch left me speechless. I recommend visiting the Prado museum before the Royal Palace like we did because the museum is full of paintings of all the royals of Spain and when you get to the Royal Palace you'll be like "I know them all! I know their history! This king was painted by Velazquez". After that, we took a stroll and we ended up in front of this iconic Metropolis building and then enjoyed the exctiment on Gran Via because it was match night- Real Madrid was playing against PSG in UCL. It was one of my biggest dream to see the match on the Bernabeu but we couldn't afford the tickets. Still, watching the match in Madrid is a whole different experience than at home- the whole city freezes, everyone is so focused & you should hear the noise&joy when the team scores. They won 3-1 and it was a perfect way to end our first night in Madrid!

The hottest day we had in Sicily turned out to be the day we had to travel most, because Villa Romana del Casale and Ragusa are far away from Taormina. The heat was also the reason I don't have many outfit photos from that day, absolutely none would look ok in that much amount of sun! Still, I have plenty of food photos and the beautiful places we visited that day.

It took us about 2 hours and a half to get to Villa Romana Del Casale - which is a Roman villa built back in the 4th century- what's incredible about it is the fact that after a big earthquake most of it colapsed. Yet, hundred of years after that, archaeologists discovered some breathtaking Roman mosaics, in perfect condition - it is, to date, the richest collection of Roman mosaics in the world, which is why it was made an UNESCO World Heritage Site. I couldn't take any photos because they were very strict, but believe me, it's totally worth the visit ( just Google it). As beautiful as it was, we still struggled with the heat, so we stopped at the famous Trattoria La Ruota nearby for some refreshments. There, we had the best cannoli in Sicily (okay, it's a tie with Taormina's Da Cristina, but more on that in a future post!).

After this, we headed to Ragusa (once again a long ride). One very important thing you must know about Ragusa: there is the new town (on a hill) and the old one (the historical and charming part). We kept going down with our cars and then we came to a point we couldn't get any further with our cars (you can see the main photo of this post how much there was still to go down) and then we had to go down the stairs- hundreds and hundreds of them! Ragusa Ibla (the old town) is so charming and unique, it wasn't like any old town I've visited before and it was the best cardio workout I got in Sicily ( I imagine people living there are so fit!). It was about 4PM and we were looking for a place to have lunch, but as you know, Italians have their siesta at that time, so there was almost no restaurant open! We weren't just starving after the cardio workout, but also couldn't cope with the heat anymore. We were lucky enough to find Biancomangiare , which is like a bistro, so there we found ourselves eating- burgers and fries in Italy! If you told me I would go to Sicily and have a burger I would have told you- never in a million years! But you know what? They're on the 2nd place in my life list for burgers (the 1st places belongs to Vivo in Iasi, obviously!).  I guess you never know what's in store for you! Now, about our hike back to the cars after having such a rich meal...it's safe to say we burned all calories that burger had haha!

♪ ScHoolboy Q, Kanye West - THat Part ♪

I got back from Sicily last week and it took me a while to get all my photos in order and decide how to write about this incredible experience. I decided to make my first post about the hotel we stayed in, because I truly believe the whole experience wouldn't have been the same without the hotel of my dreams, as I call it now.  Sicily (Sicilia in Italian) is an astonishing island, full of ancient history, breathtaking architecture and unique gastronomy (so many famous Italian dishes have been invented in Sicily like arancini, cannoli, granita- I'll make sure to post about the food in the near future).

I usually don't blog about the places I stay in, I use TripAdvisor to leave reviews, but I loved the place we stayed so much! My aunt and uncle read about agriturisimo (agritourism) being all the rage in Sicily lately and they found La Terra dei Sogni. Located in Fiumefreddo, it's a really cosy and intimate place to spend your holiday because there aren't so many rooms. The hotel is placed in the middle of citrus groves, hence the fresh orange and red orange juice at every single breakfast and the possibility to eat fresh orange or tangerine from the trees whenever you feel like. The room was so spacious, but what we ultimately loved most was the pool area. It was the best pool I've ever swum in, the water was so clean and warm and you could easily view Mount Etna. I need to set one thing straight- location wise, it's the perfect one as long as you have a car. We read a lot about Sicily before going there, and I strongly believe you can't visit the whole island without one (there were days when we'd go 400 km, it's a really big island) and I also heard the bus schedule can be unreliable in Sicily. Fiumefreddo is right next to Giardini Naxos ( the ultimate golden sand beach Sicily has) and Taormina- the best thing there is to visit in Sicily, in my opinion.

Outfit wise, I'm wearing my Zara bodysuit I blogged about in my last post. The shorts are from H&M, two days before leaving for Sicily I realized I didn't have any shorts so I went to my local store and found two perfect pairs for the holiday. I really love their print, they're so fun to wear! All the photos from this post were taken at the hotel.

The Medieval Town of Rhodes is one of the most enchanting places I've ever visited! It has about 200 streets with no names, so it was a real pleasure getting lost there a couple of times (although mom was genuinely scared). Most of the times you'll get around thanks to the many maps they have in the city, but in case you panic you can ask for the Sokratous Street, which is their main street, with tons of souvenir shops, local furs and leather stores. The old town has ten gates, and I recommend you enter it via Amboise Gate, the one near the Palace of the Grand Master because it's near the New Town (the high street shops are 5 minutes away from this gate) and you reach the top of the Sokratous Street, so the only way is going down the hill, which makes for a casual walk. Once you've reached the end of the street, and you're at the Liberty Gate, you can exit the Old Town and you're in the port. Couple of hundred metres on the seafront and you're at the place where the famous Colossus of Rhodes used to be- now there are two towers with dears which show where the feet of the Colossus used to be- I was genuinely impressed, especially because I was obsessed with the seven wonders of the world back when I was nine.

I've included an overload of photos in this post, because there are so many beautiful places I discovered on the quaint streets, so I really felt like I should share my travel tips with you, as always. The ice cream in the Old Town is divine, it's the first place where I've found orange ice cream and I swear it was like a frozen orange fresh, so good. Also, I've seen the most incredible garden: Sokratous Garden, a place with lovely greek deco, great beverages and an impressive amount of orange trees, lemon trees, mostly every tree viable in Greece you can imagine. I've included travel notes above most of the photos in this post.

Fashion wise, it was a really hot day so I chose my white Zara skirt because of its light fabric and my new nude sandals. I've had the hot pink top for two years now, yet I never had anything to match it with until this summer. Of course, you don't stand a chance without having a hat on in the sun, so I wore my new hat, the one I wrote about here.