Croatia - Jerolim

We decided to branch out a bit, and explore another island near to Hvar towards the end of our holiday, Jerolim. A 40 kuna (£4) return water-taxi ride away, it was my favourite place in Croatia. 

We also got a slight surprise... 

Nudism wasn't compulsory, don't worry! (Although there were a few fully nude fellows dotted around the rocks, and me and Lisa came very close to an old fully nude couple trying to take over our sea raft!) 

The island had roughly 20 people on the entire thing, and was serenely beautiful and unspoiled. There were two bars/restaurants on Jerolim, the first being a hippy shack complete with hammocks and homemade ships hanging from trees!

and the tiny beach was insanely beautiful, with the clearest, calmest water ever

In between lounging around on hammocks reading our books (I read The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris which was an amazing book, but made me constantly crave chocolate!) we discovered the other restaurant on the island - Amo. It happened to have the best massages i have ever had - I was sold even before trying their incredible food. 

We all booked a ridiculously cheap massage (£25 for an hour long full body massage?!) which was by an incredibly talented girl called Tina, to the sounds of the waves crashing against rocks and crickets buzzing around happily. 

Then we wolfed down our meals - we had tuna pasta, seafood risotto, spinach linguine, ribs - everything was amazing. The best meal I ate in Croatia. 

We eventually forced ourselves to get up off our sunloungers/hammocks/sea-rafts and head back to Hvar, relaxed, well fed and tanned from lounging around in the sun and swimming. A perfect couple of days on paradise island. 

Cyprus

Sorry I've been away for a while, I've been catching up on well-needed sunshine in Cyprus! I grew up there so it's always nice to go back and visit family. I also took along my best friend Katherine so this was extra fun :)

We spent a lot of time at the beach...



and in the pool..


and eating!


^ If you ever go to Cyprus, get a mixed sandwich. They sell them literally everywhere and they are incredible, usually a mix of ham (lountza), cheese (usually halloumi), salad and mayo grilled together - amazing. Also must-eats are bakery food - not difficult to find, they have seven bakeries in my tiny village alone - especially cheese pies and sasusage rolls! The desserts are also fab. Meze is obvious - around 20 never-ending dishes come out one after another, each tasting better than the last. Most restaurants do it in Cyprus, but go for the run down tavernas - they are usually the best and most traditional!

One day we visited some camels in the camel park, and found a secluded beach with its' very own DJ! (Apparently called Bananarama beach - found in Kiti/Mazotos)





There was a tiny beach shack on the deserted beach, run by a family who were all sitting eating. We got some amazing value and tasting food there - a humongous greek salad, mixed sandwich and drinks for 7 euros!



We sourced out a surf school who kindly invited us to their party complete with free paddle boarding - everyone in Cyprus is really friendly and hospitable!



We also went and visited Nicola who lives in Limassol - in my opinion this is the best place in Cyprus to live/holiday - it is a 'town' complete with beautiful beaches and places to go. Larnaca is a little bare, Ayia Napa is very touristy, Nicosia is in the centre of the island and so just boiling hot, and Paphos is quite touristy/far from everything. A new marina has opened up in Limassol and it's beautiful - I prefer the old town though!





And the old town..





Definitely worth a visit if you go to Cyprus! We made a good tour of the south of the island, starting in Larnaca, up to Limassol and back down to Protaras and Ayia Napa - more on that next time!

June

Can you believe it is finally June?! I am sooo happy it is finally here, fingers crossed the sun comes out a bit more in London! Not that it really matters, because I am off to Cyprus in a week and the sun is definitely out there :)

Goals

1. No Chocolate

I have fallen off the diet wagon for the last week and a new month which also happens to be bikini month is a great time to get back on (and stay on!). It is important when you have (massive uncontrollable chocolate fuelled) relapses that you just draw a line under it as quickly as possibe, and make better choices next time. I am going to try and give up chocolate again completely - I managed to once, it is just so addictive! I used to smoke for 5 years and giving that up was far easier than giving up chocolate (best decision I have ever made). After three days, it is fine - it's just those three days are really difficult! Wish me luck!

2. Learn to Drive

After the excitement of finishing university I have just been hanging out with friends, working and partying too much. I need to learn how to drive ASAP before my time gets super filled up! It's hard because I really hate learning how to drive, thinking to do automatic this time.. any thoughts?

3. Travel!

As mentioned, next week I am going to Cyprus with my best friend Katherine and I am so excited for it. I used to live there but haven't been back in two years so I will definitely appreciate it this time - can't wait to just lie on the beach and not have any worries bigger than what we are going to do that evening. And the food. Cypriot food is insanely amazing.

4. Grades

I get my results on June 25, and this will pretty much determine the rest of my life (to an extent). I sort of hate and love the anticipation of opening results - my A level ones were a pretty horrendous experience but it all sorted itself out in the end (make sure you get a remark if your results aren't what you expected - mine went up 14 marks as they missed 2 pages of my exam!)

 Fingers crossed that this goes well though, I have put in so much work over the last three years so really, really hope this shows! Then I will officially be a law graduate!

5. Relax!

It's officially summer - time to have fun! :)

Barbados 2

So we kicked off 2014 by learning how to surf... 

I stood up on the first go! however almost immediately got hit by a giant surfboard in my leg - surfing is pretty dangerous, even for me! I got back on though :) 

We went and saw some animals at the Barbados Wildlife Reserve, which was so nice as they were free to roam around a giant jungle with the benefit of being fed daily! 

ginormous tortoises!

then kicked off the boat trips... for some reason my dad decided to book two different catamaran trips! The first one was Cool Runnings - a really fun day where we swam with sea turtles, dove down to ship wrecks and watched a beautiful sunset. We ate some great food and ended with everybody dancing on the deck under the stars!

The second catamaran trip was with Calabaza (below). They were a little bit more informative and peaceful as there were less people to accommodate, and the catamaran was so luxurious! The people on the boat were really lovely and took lots of pictures (underwater too!) for us to (cry over) look at when we were back home. We did essentially the same things on this trip as the one before, but the whole experience was completely different! We were really lucky to be able to experience both! 

 

my brother feeding the fishes! 

 

Another day we went to Hunte's Gardens, down the road from our hotel. It was one of the most magical places I have ever been - built in 2 years, in a sink hole by a very eccentric man of about 70 who lives in a little hut overlooking the beauty. There was classical music playing and you could just sit and listen to the birds singing and the music, it was amazing. 

I took the opportunity to try and work out how to use the macro lens my boyfriend bought me for Christmas here - took a few goes but eventually worked out the (very) basics! 

And that concludes Barbados! Literally the best place I have ever been in my whole life, everybody was so lovely and caring and everything was so beautiful! The food and drink are all amazing - basically it is an unspoilt paradise, and I hope to go back there someday! 

Beach porn in Barbados

Happy New Year! Over the Christmas holidays I was lucky enough to be going on a family holiday to Barbados... aka PARADISE!

I used the opportunity to finally figure out how to use my Nikon D3200 so with over 2000 pictures, there may be a couple of posts!

We were staying on the East coast, in the most beautiful hotel I have ever been to, Atlantis Hotel! With only ten rooms, and a famous and well deserved reputation for food and views, it was incredible. My bedroom was a suite (they all were) and had a living room!!! I went to sleep and woke up listening to the ocean and took hundreds of pictures from the rooftop, mainly of rainbows that came and went.

On the first day we drove to the West coast and checked out their incredible beaches, with many pina coladas and flying fish sandwiches to hand...

a rope swing, trampoline and ice berg awaited us at the Boatyard

and I got to practice some cheerleading! 

Then we drove back over East through the jungle and found the most beautiful, deserted beach! There was hardly anyone on the acres of land except a couple of fishermen, with washed up coconuts lining the shore. Throw in a sunset over the mountains and some good company = paradise. 

Then it was back to the hotel for some incredible freshly caught seafood! The next day was an unusual one, my family and I spent the last day of 2013 on segways... 

moooooo-ve

insanely amazing views

We spent a lot of time exploring Barbados' beaches - there was one everywhere you looked! This was a giant lift on Crane Beach - the 6th best in the world :)

Miami Beach, more of a local than tourist haunt was also amazing, deserted and supplied with rum punch from a little van aptly named 'Mr Delicious'. 

This concludes the first couple of days in Barbados - next time there will be less beaches!