Amsterdam - Netherlands

On September 2015, on the way of Amsterdam, the city of 1500 bridges, over 100km of canals, and even more bicycles than cars. Amsterdam is one of my favorite cities so far. I love its brick buildings, open skyline, plenty oxygen, rich arts, and relaxed, easy going attitude towards life. Along with its glamorous gabled facades and flower-decked watersides, there is a diverse things to do and visit, whether your interests are more Golden Age art or grafitti, rich culture or getting high in a coffee shop. As Amsterdam is a city tied to the water, there’s nothing like seeing the city from a boat.The city is centred around the UNESCO-listed Canal Ring, where three canals form a horseshoe shape around the old center.

Maze-like streets - Jordaan area

Also, Jordaan area is full of galleries, restraurants, and small shops among some of the charming prolong of canal. Hang out in the vibrant area of iconic sign featuring enormous letters, or chill in the cafes of De Pijp, a district with an alive, cheerful feel that is home to the Albert Cuypmarket street market. De Pijp’s multiple of restaurants, cafes and bars, you will be spoiled for culinary choice. From Middle Eastern and North African cuisine to high-end teppayanki and Vietnamese street food, the neighbourhod’s cultural variety glooms through in its restaurants. Apart from that, the market is also home for the homemade stroopwafle which melts in your mouth! Yummy Dutch speciality is a piece of heaven in food form. Also, try some of Amsterdam’s street food poffetjes (fluffy mini pancakes) or raw herring served with ketchup and mayoneise. The center of Amsterdam is fairly low rise, so you won’t be able to find any skyscrapers with views from up high. However, the top of the Openbare Bibliotheek (Public Library) provides some nice city viewpoints with an outdoor terrace looking out over the city.

Eating poffetjes at the Albert Cuyp Market

Doing a bike tour in Amsterdam is like hub of the famed wine-growing region in Bordeaux. The city loves bikes, and there are allegedly more bikes than people in Amsterdam. In fact, it’s the bikes that will run you over so it’s better to keep an eye on bikes than cars. Visiting Amsterdam and its surroundings from a bike is something must-do.

In the the Van Gogh museum, his best works of art alongside an excellent biography of his life and is laid out in chronological order, starting with his earliest works. The museum also allows other artists like Monet, Manet, and Matisse’ paintings. Additionally, the Rijksmuseum is located close to the Van Gogh Museum, and after years of renovation, it’s now thoroughly redesigned. The museum still remarks an widespread Rembrandt collection, and you’ll be able to see the famous painting “The Night Watch.” Besides Rembrandt, there’s also an astonishing and robust collection of other classic Dutch painters, like Frans Hals and Johannes Vermeer. Over one million works of art, craftworks, and historical objects are kept in the collection, and around 8,000 objects are on exhibit in the museum.

The iconic sign letters along with Rijksmuseum museum

Vincent van Gogh’s largest collection of his works such as his paintings, drawings and letters, completed with the art of his contemporaries are displayed on this museum.

When it comes to very well known and most wondered area, The Red Light Street, manages to balance sex and seediness with achieving a majot tourist attraction. In the day light, it’s a quite area and it would look like any other part of the city if there was not sex signs everywhere. However, during the night, the area becomes swarm with drunk, high, gawking tourists walking slowly down the street as they gaze on girls in the window while going from bar to bar and coffeeshop to coffeeshop. I was amazed to see people who was completely free and felt lucky to see and experience for a short time. 

The Red Light Street – is a place not for everyone!

Amsterdam's infamous Red Light District is a carnival of vice, with skimpily-clad prostitutes in brothel windows, raucous bars, haze-filled 'coffeeshops', strip shows and mind-boggling museums.

We also visited Venustempel Sex museum which is the world's first and oldest sex museum. The museum looks at many aspects of sensual love through the ages, displaying an extensive collection of erotic pictures, paints, recordings, photographs and more.

Of course we went to fishing village Volendam which is famous with its authentic, colourful wooden houses, the old fishing boats in its harbour, which is occupied with seafood vendors. 

Volendam colourful and wooden houses!

Volendam is located on the Markermeer Lake, northeast of Amsterdam.

Markermeer Lake is behind of me now!

Through walking down narrow roads, on our left hand side, we stopped at the well known Cheese Factory Volendam.

We also found the opportunity to try the World of Cheese which is provided at the Cheese Factory. The process of making the well known artisanal cheese is shown during the visit as well.

Along the way of seafront, it was nice eating our seafood especially eating herring in ‘Dutch way’ and watching people to eat smoked eels (aghh) while meeting with local people.

Volendam seafood vendors and harbour!

Right after eating our food, we were on the way to Zaanse Schans with the boat shown below!

Just before leaving Volendam to Zaandam !

First we went to Zaanse Schans is a neighbourhood of Zaandam where it has a collection of traditional houses, windmills, warehouses and workshops. The historic village of Zaanse Schans offers a preserved glimpse of what it was like to live in the Netherlands in the 18th and 19th centuries. Windmills are an iconic part of the Dutch landscape and there were still working windmills at Zaanse Schans such as a mustard mill, sawmill, oil mill, and the world’s last working dye mill.

No doubt we went to Kooijman Klompenmakerij (Wooden Shoe Maker or Klompen Museum) where a klompen is a symbol of Holland that Dutch people are slowly moving away from. Farmers, gardeners, tradesmen, and fishermen in the countryside make up the majority of Dutch people who still wear the conventional wooden clogs at the present time. The reason why the Dutch wear klompen in Holland is because they could be made cheaply and could withstand laboring conditions. We also found the opportunity to see and listen an handsome guy who was explaining and watching the process of the shoe making in a sarcastic manner; how those wooden shoes are made less than 3 mins with huge factory machines rather than doing with handmade which lasts hours and maybe days.

My attractive Zaandam man in a dirty socks! 

Collecting all those exciting and unique memories and gaining different experiences has had a big impression on me regarding the Netherlands. It’s a country that I would like to visit again for sure. I strongly recommend for everyone and I just love it!

Romania - 10 Days Trip

In my trip to Romania, I found Authentic, Natural and Cultural country. These are the words that best capture the essence of Romania, a dynamic country rich in history, arts and scenic beauty. I accomodated with my boyfriend in Medgidia where is a municipality in the county of Constanta, and Constanta lies on the western coast of the Black Sea, which is the third largest city in Romania whereas the fourth largest port in Europe, ranked just after Rotterdam, Antwerp and Marseille.

In Constanta, one of the most stunning structure was Constanta Casino (Cazinoul din Constanța) which is perched on a cliffside overlooking the Black Sea. The impressive structure's art deco shapes and details are still in tact despite having shuttered decades ago. Maintaining the massive structure was simply too expensive, so after passing hands several times over the years, it ultimately shut in 1990. However, we took many pictures just outside of the Casino, where seas hit the land and gives gorgeous sound and scenery as well.

We have been in the most famous luxury resort of the Romania, North of Constanta: Mamaia! Mamaia allows a beautiful view throughout the sand covered beaches along with offers water sports including scuba diving, paragliding, water bike, sailing which was teeming for Romanian families and young party revelers. By night, Mamaia morphs into what feels like one long nightclub, with dozens of high-adrenaline dance places and impromptu beach parties.

After visiting couple of times Constanta, we headed on to Bran which is the Transylvania region of Romania, ringed by the Carpathian Mountains. We booked our butique hotel for 3 days which was super cheap, super cute and had super uber landscape place to stay. 

In Bran, we have visited to Bran Castle which build by the Saxons in the 15th century. For its early years the castle acted as a defensive position against Ottoman invasions, but later it became an important customs checkpoint between Wallachia and Transylvania. A century later Bran Castle was repossessed by the city of Braşov, when King of Hungary, Vladislas II was bankrupted. It remained in military use until 1920, when it was adopted as a residence of the Romanian royal family. The royal family was eventually expelled in 1948, at the behest of the Romanian Communist Party.

Also, a series of market stalls have grown into a festival of tents and tourist attractions, gathered in the shadow of Bran Castle. Here you can buy everything from t-shirts and other Dracula-themed memorabilia, through to fresh local produce. Second day of our tour in the central Romania, we headed to Rasnov Fortress which is located on a rocky hilltop in the Carpathian Mountains.

The road leading upwards was a bit challenging, however, once you arrive to observation deck, you will understand that it surely did worth the trip, mostly because of the amazing view the top of the castle offers of its surroundings: both the dense pine forest and the pretty tiny town.

The citadel has been restored with cobbled pathway around buildings with their chipped stone facades. Right after browsing medieval-themed souvenir and craft stalls, we stopped at the citadel’s peak point to admire views of rolling hills.

What is more, during our Transylvanian short trip, we have visited Brasov which hosts a number of medieval watchtowers still glower over the town. Surrounded on three sides by mountains, it was a perfect place for a medieval settlement. We have stopped at Jamaican cafe and had shisha and cocktails along with the atmosphere of hippie style and turn back to our pretty place and enjoyed the view with my lover.

To the finishing line of our 10 days holiday in Romania, we stopped by Peles Castle, Sinaia. The castle was founded by King Carol I of Romania and the castle was very modern for its time  – the first castle in Europe to have electricity and also central heating, central vacuum cleaning and an intricate architecture in 1883 when it’s completed in 10 years. No doubt, it is elaborately decorated, fairytale-like Romanian royal palace is one of the most striking castle in Europe.

The mountainous backdrop makes for some amazing photos on a clear day, and the forests add a classic bit of Transylvanian charm. This stunning Castle’s garden hosts fountains, urns, stairways, guarding lions, marble paths, and other decorative pieces. Its 160 rooms are adorned with the finest examples of European art, Murano crystal chandeliers, German stained-glass windows and Cordoba leather-covered walls. The unique part is that every single one of those rooms, as well as the hallways and foyers, were decorated in a completely different style or theme, drawing from influences such as Turkish, Venetian, Florentine, French, and Moorish, among others. In fact, the whole country managed to seduce me. What made me fall in love with this country was my Romanian love was my guide all along the trip J