TRAVEL AND LIFESTYLE DIARIES

Sorry for the silence dolls and guys, I am on wintersports holiday in the Alps now... Dutchman and I are skiing and boarding here in the Alps right now until the end of the week. We've had all kinds of weather this week so far... cloudy, snowy, misty and sunny. We can't complain really because last year's winter sports holiday we only had one day of blue skies. So we are lucky this year.

We are leaving in a few hours to the Alps for some wintersport fun (skiing for moi, snowboarding for the Dutchman). I will leave you for now with the picture of the Best View of my 2013 Trips, taken at the Col de La Madeleine in the French Alps where Dutchman and I had lunch. This restaurant is only accessible via the slopes (only skiing/snowboarding). Just look at that view. Simply amazing. Catch you later at the Alps. Keep in touch and follow me on Facebook: Travel & Lifestyle Diaries by Dutched Pinay Travels Happy Travels! Enjoy Life =)

You all know I have a VERY ITCHY FEET, so I hatched another exciting getaway! The original plot was, as I have been holding this off for the longest time, is a holiday to NYC-Niagara-Toronto with the Dutchman, but helaas this is not going to push through for the second time around this time, so I have decided to go ahead and do the most natural thing: BOOK ANOTHER SOLO TRIP SOMEWHERE NEARBY. I really do not mind going solo during my trips but I would prefer to have someone with me (that I can get along with, and this is very important), unfortunately, life’s roads are not paved smoothly and easily like that. I have to grab and execute travel plans as the opportunity comes along. So where am I going to the north of Spain and the south of France? GIRONA is going to be my base in northern Spain With side trips to Figueras (Salvador Dali!), Barcelona (I have been here before but I am allocating a day to feel the love and vibe of this city again) and perhaps to the quaint town...

I will be off to a long weekend European solo road trip. This trip will highlight culinary discoveries, stunning architecture, unrivaled history and the splendor of nature. My base will be the beautiful town of Colmar in France. The rest of the places I will be visiting are for stopovers and side trips. With road trips, one must stop somewhere to refuel and move the legs a bit, just perfect to combine these with a lunch or dinner and sightseeing in the lovely cities and towns that fall along the route. As a tradition in this blog, I always post the flag of the country and the coat of arms of the city-town-village I am going to. Here they are: Colmar, France Beautiful Colmar village will be my holiday base in this road trip. I will be doing a side trip to the Alsace Wine Route Villages (I will not post the coat of arms of the small villages as they are quite a few and they are just beside Colmar anyway). Basel, Switzerland This will be a side trip from Colmar. Dont you jus...

This is a short part of a road trip that I have been eyeing for in a looooong time. Time has always been the issue why I cannot fill my heart’s desire to travel and explore the world, but even with this challenge, I always make time to travel. Just one city, and one country, at a time. I have to admit though that sometimes I do not understand myself and why I have this insatiable desire to travel and explore the world. I would have loved to do it on a faster pace but that is quite impossible given the priorities and responsibilities I have in life. I’m not a big fan of long-term travelling (at least for now) because after some time on the road, I know I will miss home. I will miss the Dutchman terribly. More importantly, I maintain a career that is an essential aspect of my future’s well-being, and sanity as well so to speak. Even though I am living quite a good life right now, I still have many years down the road. Questions such as--How sustainable is this travelling lifestyle? ...

We are leaving in a few hours. We will be going to the same ski area we went to last year but will be staying in a different village. Dutchman and I loved the slopes here because they are a kilometre wide! This is the ski village. Just look at how wide the slopes here are. We have visited this village last year, Dutchman several times, while I, I think twice in the afternoon. It was a rather quick visit as it is located at the other side of the mountain range where we were staying. The ski lifts connecting both mountain villages closes at 4PM sharp, so we were always in a hurry. Nevertheless, I will be blogging during the holidays, internet connection permitting. On other news, this weekend the whole Netherlands will be ice skating on the frozen lakes. Here is a Volkskrant article (Dutch) about the ice skating tours this weekend all over the country starting today Friday: Schaatstochten trekken 50.000 recreaten   (Ice skating tours attracts 50,000 holidaymakers) See you ...

Will be gone for a long weekend to Paris! The City of Light! The last time I was in Paris was last year in October together with Blondine. However, this picture above of Sacre Coeur in Montmartre was taken in May 2006 together with MadamE. This time I am going to the city of light with Bru. So need to start packing tonight... Travel Period: August 2012 Destination: Paris, France Keep in touch and follow me on Facebook: Travel & Lifestyle Diaries by Dutched Pinay Travels Happy Travels! Enjoy Life =)

This isn’t about the celebrated French frog legs and snails. This is about food that most northern Europeans wince in horror. I know that the Dutch would. I have seen worse than this in Asia though. There, all sorts of horrifying dishes and animals and their parts that we thought could not be possibly eaten, are served, some even christened as local specialties or hailed by many as aphrodisiacs. Anyway, Dutchman and I spent a leisurely free-from-skiing-and-snowboarding afternoon. We decided to check out the French supermarkets and we learned that the nearest Carrefour is just a short drive away. We drove down to Moutiers, a small mountain village in the valley of the French Alps. Moutiers is a bit of a prosaic characterless place. I do not think I would quickly live here unless I come here for work and they pay me twice what I am currently earning. That is never going to happen I know. While shopping at Carrefour I came upon the meat section and saw interesting packs of meatstuff in th...

In the Netherlands there are no road tolls because every car owner is levied with road tax that is automatically deducted from our bank accounts every quarter. The road tax is calculated based on the type of car, weight, type of fuel used and car value. Thus the more expensive and heavy the car, the more road tax you will pay in the Netherlands. In France they don’t have the road tax system, the French still implement the traditional toll collection on the highways. Driving on the French autoroutes will cost the road traveller a lot of money, however the autoroutes are the fastest option to get from point A to point B. We have not yet calculated the total tolls we have paid but I think they come close to €200 for the entire journey, back and forth. I think the locals get a discount through the automatic payment system (telepeage). We left the Netherlands around 4AM and entered France in the Champagne-Ardennes Region around 8AM after a quick pitstop in Luxembourg. We also did a quick pi...