Summer Travel Diary | York, Barcelona and London

Hi, If you read my summer travel plans post back in June you’ll know that I’ve been missing from the blog for a little while and I’m finally back to tell you what I got up to. I basically visited three different cities in three consecutive weekends, which is hard work.

York

Home away from home - It's so spacious

I went camping in York which was so relaxed and the cheapest of all my travelling because we camped in a tent. We don’t really do much in York other than enjoy a change of scenery within the historic city, drink cocktails and play lots of pool. We made a trip to the Kings Arms by the river for a quick drink and to watch the wildlife. In hindsight this is the holiday we should have ended with because it was the most chilled out.

View of the Kings Arms Pub on the river bank

We normally (weather depending) go to the market and stock up on BBQ goodies and eat alfresco,
which luckily this year we did a lot. Apart from the last night when we had a thunder storm the weather was perfect, just warm enough without turning the tent into a sauna. I got some reading done and finished The Wolves of Mercy Falls series in just a few days.

Barcelona

Barcelona from the air

Four nights in this brilliant city was nowhere near enough. There’s so much to see and do, planning ahead or having a general idea of the places you want to see is a great idea to make the most of your visit. We flew out Thursday morning and returned on Monday evening rather later than hoped after a delay. The weather in Barcelona couldn’t have been better at just over 30 degrees and warm right into the evening. I’m going to do a photo diary type post to share more about what we got up too.

The magic fountain

This was the first time I've flown in years and I was a little apprehensive, I'd forgotten how weird it feels. It was totally worth jumping back on a plane for the sunshine and culture, I'd love to visit Japan one day so I better get saving.

London

Visiting Camden

Finally we headed down to London on the train, we stayed two nights at the new Premier Inn Hub hotel on Brick Lane which was super lovely. We had a little trouble checking in but the staff where super helpful and got us sorted really quickly.

On our first evening we headed over to Camden Town as the boyfriend hasn’t been before and had a few drinks and soaked up the atmosphere. The point of our trip was to visit Hyper Japan which we visited the following day. Depending on what you’re looking for it was a great day out but I think we missed the best stuff later in the day as we left because it just got too hot. There was a mixture of official merchandise, artists work, craft workshops, live music and food stalls.

Hyper Japan Festival

Our final day we headed up to Oxford street so I could finally visit the holy grail that is the Lush Oxford Street Store and it did not disappoint. I went with the intent of picking up some of the exclusive lines for me and my sister. I’ll share what I got in a future post if you’re interested. We then walked down to Covent Garden where we found a nice little pub and chilled out until we needed to head for our train. Again I was delayed on my return journey but we’ve had a confirmation of a 50% refund on our journey so can’t complain.

I had such a crazy month that I’m finding it hard getting back into my normal routine and my blogging has suffered, it’s taken me ages to sit down and actually write this post, hope it was worth the wait. Where are you going on holiday?

Sam

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Summer Travel Plans | York, London And Barcelona

Hi, I wanted to share my holiday plans with you, I’m not much of a traveler but it seems that's going to change over the next three weeks. It feels like forever since I had some proper time off work and it's years since I last went abroad so I'm going to make the most of it.

Summer Travel Plans

First I’m off camping on the edge of lovely city of York for four nights. This has become a bit of an annual trip and one that I look forward too as York is such an amazing place to visit. If you haven’t been you really should, you can see what I got up to last year in this post.

July is a month full of birthdays, it's a big birthday for my mum this year so the family decided to jump on a plane and celebrate in a warmer climate. We're going to Barcelona for a four night stay. We've pre-booked some really exciting things to do so I’m super looking forward to all the fun to come but a little worried about getting on a plane again, it’s been years.

After I get back from Barcelona I’ve got a few days back at work before I pack my bags yet again for a long weekend down in London to take in the sights at Hyper Japan. I’ve had it booked for so long now, I can’t wait. While in London I plan to make a trip to the Oxford Lush store and any other London treats that haven’t quite made their way north of the UK.

So there you have it three weeks of almost nonstop holidaying, I want to apologise now because there is going to be a lack of posts during this time but I hope on my return I will have some extra special posts to share with you.

Are you going anywhere nice on holiday?

Sam

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Monthly Highlights | July

Hi, another month gone. July has been fun but lacking sun badly. Camping was a much needed brake and going to the zoo was a nice relaxing day. I can't believe how fast this month has flown by and how blogging makes everything seem to past so much faster, I'm keeping track of dates more. I feel rather accomplished this month and that I have got a lot done, both on my blog and generally in life.

Goals Complete 6/10

• Play with bubbles in the Sun
• Buy an epic Ice cream
  
• Take photos for an OOTD post
• Walk the York cat trail
• Finish a book
• Have an awesome holiday
• Eat somewhere new
• Wear a floral head crown
• Treat myself to something from Lush
• Try some new hair styles

The holiday was a great chance to relax, I really needed it. The weather could have been better but it didn't spoil anything. In York I bought a space girl bath bomb (can't believe it will be my last) and did some of the York cat walk as planned while wondering around the city. While I was there I got in a lot of reading time. I not only finished one book this month but five which for me is amazing. So many stories from all different genres, all where really good I'm glad to say and I think this speed up my reading.

I got a massive Ice cream from Dixon's (A local brand), they used to only do the vanilla milk but now do a varied selection of flavor infusions. Even so I stuck to the classic with a drizzle of raspberry juice in a waffle cone, it was so yummy. I ate at a Brazilian grill restaurant where you basically get served all you can eat meat at your table. They come round with the meat on massive cooking skewers and carve the meat off to serve it. The sides of skinny fries, rice and refried beans are also super yummy.

Recap/Highlights

• Reading 5 books - I started with the #Sassybooks pick 'Only Ever Yours'  you can read my review here and the other four books reviews are here.
• York camping holiday - whats not to love about a holiday in york, read what I got up to here.
• Yorkshire Wildlife Park - a day out seeing so many super cute and generally beautiful animals, polar bears are so big. You can read about my day here.
• Lush Space Girl - Sadly discontinued so I had to pick one up before it is gone forever, I did a review to tempt you to try one before it's too late, read it here.
• Versatile Blogger Award - I got nominated two times this month, you can read some random facts about myself on the posts as well as find some really good blogs. The posts can be found here and here.

Hope you had a fantastic month and completed all your goals.
Sam

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A Catch Up | York Highlights

Hi, I've been back from my camping trip a week now. York was a nice break away from it all, I don't think I took many photo but that's nothing new for me, it's something I really need to work on. Oh well I'll just have to tell you what I did instead, which honestly wasn't all that much other than eat at a few nice places and read continuously for 4 days, bliss.

- York Minster and a map of York -

Sunday
We arrived about midday, after a short drive of about an hour, to a very busy campsite which had only been open for three days. We managed to pitch the tent in a grand total of 15 minuets which I think is a record. After that we went for a little supermarket shop for the essentials (Cider mainly) and then sat in the sun for the afternoon reading. We had some BBQ chicken skewers for tea which were super yummy. This was the night of the storm, proper fork lightening and very heavy rain, a little worrying when you're only in a tent.

Monday
With camping the sunlight wakes you up at the crack of dawn. So reading time pretty much starts then if you can't get back to sleep. Later in the day we headed to the Evil Eye bar and had a drink or two and then headed to the Sam Smith pub The Kings Arms. We opted to eat at Yo!Sushi taking advantage of the blue Monday menu. I tried the salmon and avacardo hand roll, it was so delicious. We had loads to eat and the bill came to just under £30, which for two is a bargain.

- Playing Pool and Beers at Evil Eye -

Tuesday
This was the day that it rained and rained and rained, until about four in the afternoon when we headed out to find some food. We started at the Evil Eye for a drink and then ended up at the Wetherspoons named the punch bowl, where I got the Mexican burger which was really nice. We then tracked down a little pub called the priory which had a pool table so we could have a few games before returning to the tent for the night.

- Pints at the Kings Arms and Cosmo Restaurant -

Wednesday
Another wet day, we headed to Cosmo for tea. It's an all you can eat which servers food from all over the world. You can have Pizza, Carvery, Sushi and curry all under one roof. This was a place we found on our last visit and have been really looking forward to going back. The heavens opened as we left the restaurant so we had to walk back in the very heavy rain. It's not the shortest of walks so we where quite wet but hiding under trees was fun.

Thursday
This was by far the nicest day of the week. We headed into town purely to get some stuff to have a BBQ. We opted to buy from the market as you can buy smaller amounts, we got burgers (I had lamb) and mackerel. I was really happy to have finally been able to have a proper BBQ, the appearance of the sun was also welcome to dry the tent off before our departure and it stayed really warm until late.

Friday
Home time! had a very lazy morning, breakfast and then started to pack up. Again we managed to put the tent down in record time. Packed up everything into the tiny Metro car, I still don't understand how it all fit.

I had a lovely week off and it feels super weird to be back at work but I'm sure that won't last that long. I finished two books and got more than half way through a third, so a pretty productive reading session. I have slight holiday blues now and really want to organize my next trip away for something to look forward too. If you made it this far congratulations and thanks for reading.

Do you have any travel plans?

Sam

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