Top Ten Tuesday #416

Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all had a good week since my last TTT. I had an amazing time at Operation Mincemeat last Wednesday, it was just as fabulous the second time around as it was the first, if you are in London before they finish their West End run in July, then I really do highly recommend seeing it, it’s a real testament to the creativity of theatre, there’s only five in the cast and they perform multiple roles in varying costumes (and of varying genders) completely seamlessly, plus it’s just absolutely hilarious and the songs are incredibly catchy. I’ve got more theatre coming up this week, I’m going to see the play Medea at Soho Place on Thursday, which I’m really looking forward to as I’ve heard great things, and Soho Place is a fairly new theatre that I’ve never been to before. I’m also going to watch the NT Live showing of Good at the cinema on Friday, which I’m really looking forward to as I missed the chance to see David Tennant live when the play was on in the theatre.

I also did my independent bookshop tour on Saturday which was the topic of one of my previous Top Ten Tuesdays, and had the absolute best time discovering all these great bookshops in and around South London. They were all so great that I ended up buying far more books than I had initially intended, but it was lovely to find all of these fantastic bookshops that were all within 30 minutes travel of where I live (and most much closer than that!). I’m definitely going to continue exploring London’s independent bookshops more and possibly writing more posts about them for the blog as I just had such a great time on Saturday that it’s definitely something I want to continue doing (though the next one might not be for a while, my bank account needs time to recover first!).

Anyway, today’s Top Ten Tuesday is once again courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. It’s a non-book themed freebie this week, and as soon as I saw that one of the suggestions Jana had given was Favourite Places You’ve Visited, I just knew I had to do that. For those of you who don’t know, aside from books, travel is one of my absolute favourite things, and I’ve been very lucky to be able to visit lots of different places over the years, so I’m really excited to share some of them with you today. These are in no particular order, I loved going to all of these places and couldn’t pick and out and out favourite. I’ve tried to include pictures of my trips with all of them, but I did go to some of these places quite a long time ago, so if I don’t have an available picture to use on my computer then I do apologise! Also there will be more than 10 here, I could not narrow down! Here we go:

1. Cape Town, South Africa

Me at the Vrendenheim winery in Stellenbosch, one of my favourite photos from the trip!

I spent three months (almost) in Cape Town at the beginning of 2020, and honestly, I still almost can’t believe it was the same year because I had such an amazing time on that trip that it’s somewhat difficult to reconcile with everything that came after with the pandemic! I saved up all my earnings from summer jobs for four years to do the Journalism volunteer project with Projects Abroad in Cape Town and it’s honestly one of the best things I’ve ever done. I loved the project and got to write some articles that I’m really proud of whilst I was out there, but because I was in Cape Town for so long, I got to do so many cool things: going on safari, doing the Garden Route and Cape Peninsula tour, visiting wine farms, going riding on the beach, hiking up Table Mountain, trying sand boarding, going to an outdoor cinema for the first time, honestly the list is endless (and you can read in more depth about it in the linked post above). I also met a group of really amazing girls and hopefully we’re going to all meet up again at some point in the near future. I’d absolutely love to go back to South Africa one day and explore a bit more, because of the trip being cut short due to the pandemic, we didn’t end up going on our planned family holiday after my project finished where we were going to explore more outside of Cape Town, so I’d love to go back one day and explore the places I missed!

2. Melbourne, Australia

My sister took this photo when we were eating at her favourite cafe in Melbourne, Union Kiosk.

I went to Melbourne for the first time last year as my family went out there to spend Christmas with my sister and her partner. It was actually my first time in Australia full stop, not just in Melbourne and I had the best time! When the two weeks were up, I really wished I’d stayed for longer because I’d had such a great time, but I definitely made the most of the time I was there. My sister took me to quite a few of her favourite spots in the city (including several bookshops!), I went for a trail ride because of course I have to find horses everywhere I go (that was obviously not in Melbourne, I went out to Wallan for that), we visited a couple of wineries and had our first warm Christmas, eating Christmas dinner outside was not an experience I ever thought I’d have! I’m sure I will be back visiting Melbourne again to see my sister, and I definitely want to spend a bit longer next time if I can because there’s still a lot more I want to explore (though I definitely fit a lot into just two weeks this time!). I’d also really like to go to other places in Australia, as it’s a huge country and my parents have been able to travel around a bit more than I have as they’ve stayed for longer, so I’d definitely like to be able to travel around Australia a bit the next time I go, if I have the time do so!

3. New York City, New York

This is me in Central Park, one of my favourite pictures from the trip!

This was a family holiday, we went to the East Coast of the US in 2012 (hence why I look a fair bit younger in this picture, I was only 15!), starting in New York and then travelling by train to Philadelphia and Washington DC. I enjoyed both Philadelphia and DC but New York was definitely my favourite part of the trip! We were only there for a few days, I think maybe 3 or 4, but I had a great time. Since we were there for a fairly short trip, we mostly did the regular touristy stuff: going up the Empire State building, a boat trip where we saw the Statue of Liberty, walking round Central Park, going to see a Broadway show (we saw Chicago), going to Times Square, that sort of thing. We also went to the Met because my mum likes art but I have to admit, I don’t think I appreciated it as much at 15 as I probably would now. My sister and I were massive Gossip Girl fans at the time, and mostly wanted to go to the Met so that we could get a picture on the steps ala Serena & Blair (that picture isn’t very good or I would have shared it here!). Anyway, we had a really fantastic time and I definitely want to go back New York one day and spend a bit more time there as the few days we did was just too short.

4. San Francisco, California

This is the only photo I could find from San Francisco, of me and my sister on a tram. I’m sure we took more but I think they were all on digital cameras and not necessarily uploaded to the Internet! I can’t believe I was only 12 when this photo was taken, we went to San Francisco the summer before I turned 13 and the fact that this was almost 14 years ago is a little worrying!

This was our first trip to America, in the summer of 2009 and that time we did a West Coast road trip, from San Francisco in California up to Seattle in Washington. It was a really fun trip, though I do remember getting a little bored with all the time spent in the car, even with plenty of books to read, it was a lot of driving! Anyway, my favourite stop on that trip was San Francisco, it’s a really fun city, I enjoyed travelling round on the trams, we did a really cool bike ride across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito which is a really pretty place and I think we went to a magic show or something one night there which was fun. There was also a really massive Borders and I remember this because I think Borders had shut in the UK at the time, so I was really excited to visit it. Anyway, I remember San Francisco being a really cool city and I liked it much better than LA which we visited on a subsequent trip and I’d definitely like to go back there again someday.

5. Crete and Santorini, Greece

This is from Crete, we were staying in Rethymno and this was taken in the Fortezza, which is the Citadel which overlooks the city.

This is the view from the top of the caldera in Santorini. We took surprisingly few pictures of ourselves in Santorini considering how many we took in both Athens and Crete!

I’ve grouped these two together because they were from the same trip. This was my 21st birthday trip to Greece, which I went on with my friends Hannah and Zoe back in 2017 (I do have many, many pictures with them also in from the trip!) and it was so much fun, hands down my favourite holiday we’ve done together. We did island hopping, so we started off in Athens, then got a ferry over to Crete and then went on to Santorini before coming back to Athens to fly home. I didn’t think a huge amount of Athens, but I absolutely loved both Crete and Santorini, especially Crete. We spent the most time in Crete, I think we were there for about 3 or 4 days. We stayed in a place called Rethymno and it was absolutely lovely, it’s a gorgeous place. Whilst we were there, we explore the Fortezza (as seen in the top picture), and we went on a day trip to Plaikas and went hiking. We also had some really great food, especially at this little local restaurant which I wish I could remember the name of, but the food was absolutely delicious, I had something called Pastisio, which is like lasagne but with macaroni rather than sheets of pasta. Honestly, all of us said we wish we’d had longer to spend in Crete because it was really lovely and it’s one of the bigger islands so we felt we didn’t really have enough time to explore in the few days we were there.

Santorini was also great, we were only there for two days (we only had eight days in Greece overall) but to be honest, it’s quite a small island and we felt like we got to see most of what we wanted in that time. Only Hannah and I went on to Santorini as Zoe had to go back home for work. Whilst we were there, we went to Oia for dinner so we could watch the sunset (as this is the place to do it in Santorini) which was really beautiful, although the restaurant we went to was kind of pricy. There was also a bakery just down the street from our hostel which we went to for breakfast both days we were there because it was so good! We also walked down the harbour to explore and shop a little which we instantly regretted later when we had to walk back up the several hundred odd steps later on and avoid being kicked by donkeys!

I would absolutely go back to Crete, I don’t know if I would go back to Santorini just because I think we saw pretty much everything we wanted to whilst we were there, but I definitely want to go island hopping in Greece again, maybe for a little longer next time in order to see more islands, and I think I’d definitely spend less time in Athens next time and only go there to arrive and leave!

6. Naples, Italy

I sadly have no pictures of this one, it was a school trip back when I was 13, and I didn’t have a good camera phone at that point! I think I did take a camera, but it was likely a disposable one as I don’t think I had a digital camera of my own yet so if I do have any photos of Naples, they’ll only be physical ones. Anyway, despite the lack of photos, it was a really great trip, my school did something called Activity Week where everyone was off timetable and one of the options for Year 8s was this trip to Naples. It was a really awesome trip, we visited Pompeii and Herculaneum (I actually recommend Herculaneum more than Pompeii, I found it more interesting), we hiked up Vesuvius, we went shopping in Capri and Anacapri (again, Anacapri is nicer) and naturally had really great pizza and pasta. It was a really fun trip but I would definitely love to go back as an adult since obviously being a school trip, it was all very supervised and we didn’t get all that much time to ourselves, so I’d like to go back and explore without the constraints of being a teenager on a school trip! I’d also really like to go and visit more of Italy in general, I’ve only been to Naples (and I guess technically Milan but that was only a stopover in the airport on the way home), so I’d really love to visit more places: Venice is high on my to-travel list, along with Rome and Florence.

7. Munich, Germany

I’ve been to Munich twice, once was on a GCSE History trip when I was in Year 11, and the other time was for a German Exchange when I was in Sixth Form (I still don’t quite remember how I managed to get onto that as I didn’t do German A-Level, I think they needed a couple of people to make up the numbers and me and another girl from my Psychology class were able to go!). I really enjoyed both trips, the first one for my History GCSE was mainly visiting sites from Nazi history as that was what we were studying at the time (including an incredibly memorable but very harrowing trip to Dachau concentration camp) but the German Exchange trip obviously wasn’t so much for strictly educational purposes, we were teaching kids English at a local primary school for part of the time, but the rest of the time we were able to explore the city, it’s a really beautiful place and I would love to go back! Again, sadly I don’t have any pictures of either trip as the ones that there are were taken by other people! I’ve been to a few other places in Germany as well, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Essen (on several exchange trips) but I’ve not yet been to Berlin which is somewhere I’d really like to go.

8. Paris and Carcassonne, France

Katy and I at our hotel in Paris (I do have some proper Paris landmark pics, but this was better than our pics from the Eiffel Tower)

Me walking the walls of the Cité de Carcassonne in Spring 2017, which can you believe we didn’t do until then despite having been going to Carcassonne for a good five years at that point!

I grouped these two together given that they’re in the same country, I felt like Crete and Santorini, it wasn’t worth doing a separate entry for each. We went to Paris in Spring of 2013, my dad had a conference and me, my mum and my sister were able to tag along because it was the Easter break. It was a really fun trip, Dad obviously had his conference stuff during the day, but mum, Katy and I were able to do all the touristy things like seeing the Eiffel Tower and the Arc De Triomphe and the Louvre etc and then we’d do stuff together when Dad was free.

Carcassonne I’ve been to quite a few times over the years, as my family goes on holiday out there quite a lot, so we’ve had various trips out there over the years. The picture is from when we went out in 2017, I had a break from Uni over the Easter weekend and my sister came out to join us from Amsterdam where she was studying at the time. I think I was only there for the weekend, it was one of my shorter trips, but my parents go out every year and I usually join them there at some point in the year. A couple of years ago I went with Hannah and Zoe for a long weekend and that was a really fun trip, I got to show them around the city which was great!

Reading The Librarian Spy last year made me quite interested in going to Lyon someday as I think all the history there with the French Resistance is quite fascinating!

9. Amsterdam, The Netherlands

One of my favourite pictures from my Amsterdam trips, me by the canal.

I’ve been out to Amsterdam a couple of times, both very short trips, I think it was just a weekend both times! My sister did a term abroad in Amsterdam when she was studying at Uni and enjoyed it so much that she went back out to do a Masters. She lived there for a year whilst doing her Masters and then stayed out there working for another year before coming back. The first time we visited was for my mum’s birthday in 2016, when we did the classic Elliott family boat trip (it’s become an ongoing joke in our family that we always go on boat trips wherever we go because my mum really likes them) and Katy showed us around the city, and we went out for dinner for my mum’s birthday. We also got these really great cupcakes for her birthday but I cannot remember where they were from now! The second time was for my sister’s birthday in 2017 and we went out for dinner to celebrate. It was Pride in Amsterdam that weekend as well, so I remember it being quite mad when we were out in the city! I’d definitely like to go back to Amsterdam, maybe for a few days rather than just a weekend this time!

10. Switzerland

I’ve been to Switzerland twice, both times were with Guides, once when I was 11 & once when I was 14. Guides did an annual trip to Switzerland because one of the Girl Guiding World Centres, Our Chalet is in Adelboden, Switzerland. The first time I went to Switzerland, they hired a coach to get us there, so we spent three days in coach getting to Switzerland and then I think another three days getting back, which was quite the experience, though it did give me a lot of time for reading. Thankfully when I went the second time, we flew! Both trips to Switzerland were so much fun, I think we were there for about two weeks both times, and we did all sorts of really fun activities: we went scootering down a mountain, we did quite a lot of hiking, we went to this really cool wood carving place where the wood carver would carve your initials onto all sorts of cool things (the mirror I got on my first trip is still one of my absolute favourite things), we went ziplining, we went on a boat trip, I even went abseiling down the side of a road bridge on one of the trips! I enjoyed it the first time, but I was quite young and I think it was one of the first times I’d really done a trip of that length abroad (not with my family) before so I got quite homesick, I think I was definitely able to enjoy it more the second time! I don’t have any pictures because I didn’t have a phone the first time I went, and though I do have some photos of the second time, none of them are very good!

11. Trinidad and Tobago

Katy and I, I think this was at our hotel in Trinidad

We went out to Trinidad and Tobago for our family summer holiday in 2013. It was such a fun trip, we spent most of our time in Tobago, we went on the classic Elliott family boat trip, we went snorkelling, we did a trip into the rainforest, we spent quite a bit of time on the beach and then we spent a few days in Trinidad before heading home. We did another boat trip there were we got to see quite a bit of wildlife, and we drove around so Mum could show us some of the places that our grandparents had lived/worked when they were over in Trinidad in the 50s (which was our main reason for the trip as my Mum was born there whilst my grandpa was working out there and she hadn’t been back since they left when she was very young). Trinidad was actually really lovely and we wished we’d spent a bit more time there, as nice as Tobago was, it’s a much smaller island and we felt like we didn’t have enough time to do everything we wanted.

12. Edinburgh, Scotland

Me at Edinburgh Castle in 2017

I know this list hasn’t included any UK places thus far, but I do enjoy going to places in the UK too, I swear! One of my favourite cities in the UK, probably just behind London actually, is Edinburgh! I’d never been until I went up to uni because when I went to Scotland with my family, we usually went to Glasgow when going on a city trip, because the shopping is better (and to be fair, I do prefer shopping in Glasgow to Edinburgh), but Edinburgh is my favourite of the two cities. Once I went up to Scotland for uni, I went into Edinburgh quite a bit, I went for the first time to the Christmas Market with my friends when they visited me in my first year in 2015, and we went back every year after that because we all loved it so much. I also went quite a bit with my Uni friends, we again went for the Christmas markets, but we also went just for days out quite a bit, including when I did a literary tour of Edinburgh for a travel article I had to do for my journalism module. Now I always tend to go into Edinburgh at least once when I go up to Scotland, usually to meet up with friends. It’s just such a gorgeous city and I really enjoy spending time there.

13. Lanzarote

This was our family summer holiday in 2010 I think, and it was a really fun one. We stayed in this sports resort for part of it, so there were a lot of activities to do: my dad and I went snorkelling, we also did the training for scuba diving but I was horrible at that! We tried windsurfing which I was also horrible at, my dad and I went kayaking, we did a bike ride, we went to a water park, went to the beach, it was a very active holiday though I do remember being a little annoyed that I couldn’t do quite a few of the activities because you had to be fourteen and we went at the beginning of August so it was a month before I turned fourteen in September! Unfortunately I don’t have pictures of this holiday either, again I’m sure we do have them somewhere but just not on my computer.

14. Stagecoach Trails Guest Ranch, Yucca, Arizona

Weirdly specific I know, but this was my favourite part of this particular holiday. When we went to America in 2011, we did California & Arizona that time, and one of our stops was at this dude ranch in Arizona because me, my dad and my sister all really love horses (my mum not so much, so it was very sweet of her to book this for us considering that she’s not really a horse fan and until this particular holiday, hadn’t been on a horse in almost twenty years). It was the most fun few days that we spent out there, we got to go riding twice every day, out on a hack for several hours and I just had the best time. Me, my dad and my sister got to go out on separate hacks as well as were advanced riders so we were able to go out with just us and a wrangler so that we could go a bit faster than the usual walking groups! It was my first time ever riding Western, so that took a little bit of getting used to (their saddles are like armchairs I swear!) especially because Western paces are actually slightly different: Jogging, which is what they call trotting is basically the same but it turns out a lope is actually something between a canter and a gallop. Who knew? Well now you do! The horse I rode was called Dunner and he was lovely, if incredibly hungry and kept stopping to eat. We were only there for a few days but I was basically in horsey heaven the entire time. The dude ranch also had a really adorable Golden retriever puppy called Bandit, so we were able to get a dog fix whilst we were there as well!

So there we go, those are some of my favourite places I’ve visited! Have you been to any of these places? Where’s your favourite place you’ve been to on holiday? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back next week with another Top Ten Tuesday, this time we’re doing Favourite Audiobook Narrators but since I did that topic for another freebie a couple of years back, I’m going to share Audiobooks I’m Hoping To Listen To This Year instead.