Travel – Page 2 – Romy Clementine

My boyfriend Sam and I road-tripped the East side of mainland Canada and Newfoundland this summer. Other than our car breaking down and being stranded in the middle of nowhere for an entire day (reduced story on Instagram), it was wonderful. We had the most amazing time, with a real mix of city and outdoors. I just wanted to leave my tips for each place, if you’re ever thinking of exploring the beautiful country that is Canada.

We started off in Toronto on 1st August. As soon as we arrived we loved it and felt really excited by the buzzy city and atmosphere. One thing I loved in particular about Toronto was its various areas, which all felt totally different from each other, such as Kensington Market, Dundas Square and Yorkville. It was one of my favourite cities I’ve ever been to and really could imagine myself being there for a chunk of time. A few Toronto tips:

1. If you haven’t been before, buy ‘hop on hop off’ tickets. It’s a great way to get around any city and the Toronto one in particular was great and the guides had so much enthusiasm!

2. CN Tower- I loved this. It was incredible and not to state the obvious… but it is SO HIGH. I actually couldn’t believe it. If you’re a slight wimp like me, do push yourself to walk on the glass floor, it’s worth it! Don’t bother buying an overpriced cocktail at the top though, they’re tiny. One plus though, they came with little CN tower stirrers… so if, like me, you love a bit of tat, go for it.

3. Ripley’s Aquarium- you can book this as a package with the CN tower, definitely worth a visit. Amazing jellyfish and shark tanks and some very excitable sting rays!

4. Burger’s Priest- pretty decent priced burger restaurant/fast food- really tasty but the chilli cheese fries aren’t worth it. Also, don’t buy a fizzy drink can from their fridge unless you want an entire can of coke exploding all over your skirt on the first night. (I’m sure that was just me)

5. There’s always loads going on at the weekend, especially in summer it seems. To name a couple, there was a Caribbean music festival going on when we were there (unfortunately not Sam’s scene), and an amazing temporary exhibition at the National History museum with music and drinks on the top floor.

6. Pancho y Emiliano was a tiny, yummy and authentic Mexican restaurant in Kensington Market, worth the walk just for the delicious homemade guac and white sangria!

7. Casa Loma- a gothic mansion, castle style home converted into a museum. Films such as X-Men and Chicago have been shot there! It definitely had wow-factor.

8. We did a lot of eating….but another place worth a mention is Pizza Libretto, pretty pricey just for pizza, but the most delicious truffle mushroom one I’d had in a while.

We travelled to Algonquin National Park on the way to Ottawa and it was spectacularly beautiful. We unfortunately didn’t have time to kayak there, but it looked incredible. Just the most peaceful, vast space. We loved it there. Despite our lack of water sports, we made time for poutine here. If you don’t know what poutine is (what are you doing with your life), it’s cheese curds, chips and a gravy like sauce. In other words, the best food in the world. The poutine at Algonquin was our favourite of the whole trip, totally unexpected, but perfectly crispy, hot chips, melty cheese curds and the tastiest gravy. All in all, a winner.

After Ottawa, we went to Mont Tremblant National Park, which again was gorgeous. We hired a pedalo and spent the afternoon pootling around the lake. Tip: eat before you go, the sandwiches are questionable, to say the least. Mystery meat anyone? We travelled onto Montreal, a really cool, vibrant city where we stayed for 3 nights.

Tips for Ottawa:

1. There were brilliant street performers when we were there, go a bit early for dinner and enjoy the lively shows.. you won’t want to leave.

2. We went to Parliament, but not for long and we wished we’d had more time. It was so beautiful from the outside and the whole area was so clean and looked after. I would definitely recommend having a chunk of time to look around there.

3. We hardly had any time there due to our car issue, but I would definitely go back as there’s loads of other attractions- I’d recommend going for 3 nights at least.

Tips for Montreal:

1. Hike up to Mont Royal, there’s an amazing view over the city, but definitely don’t wear a skort…. Tried and tested- it’s a no from me.

2. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is FREE!

3. Crescent Street- I’m 99% sure this is the name of street we ate on every night. It was lively, bright and had such a varied selection of restaurants. We loved the (very originally named) Burger Bar and I had the Buffalo chicken mac and cheese- you have to be a spice lover though, otherwise you’ll end up taking it home in your handbag. Reaaaally hot.

4. Street food market at the pier- also a brilliant maze which we thought would be easy after glancing at the average age in the queue- we were so wrong. It was really hard! But we had such a laugh and even got a slushy at the end to continue the childhood nostalgia.

We made our way to Quebec City, one of our favourite parts of the trip. Neither of us knew that much about it before we arrived and had never known anyone that had visited. Sam said this was his favourite city and I would almost agree. It had some wicked bars and restaurants (sensing a theme here) and it was beautifully kept and historic, which still being modern and cool.

Tips for Quebec City:

1. Old town- as beautiful and charming as you could imagine. Definitely worth a visit. We felt as though we were in a European city from about the 1950s.

2. Walk along the Terrasse Dufferin, all the way to the end and climb the stairs…. Yes they will seem endless, but the view is worth it.

3. L’Atelier- amazing cocktails, epic nachos and the best tartare.

4. Visit the Citadelle- the residence of the Canadian monarch and military base. You walk through a private gate, explore the area and learn masses about Canadian military history. I know I’m not selling it, but just go, you won’t regret it.

5. I feel like a total tease recommending this, as it’s both unhelpful and frustrating. But on Grande Allée, we had the best grilled cheese sandwich of our lives. The restaurant was right at the top of the street, I can’t remember the name of it. But we shared it and it blew our minds. I’m rambling because I can’t remember anything else, but I’ll just leave that there.

6. Fireworks- Every Wednesday and Saturday in August, there are fireworks across the water between two cities. Apparently, they are absolutely amazing. We had every intention of going… but totally forgot about them once we started our hunt for dinner and then I got distracted by a dj playing Sean Paul outside our restaurant…. Next time.

We had two other night stop offs in Rimouski and Moncton, which we liked a lot more than we thought we would. I won’t go into detail, because we just happened to stop there on our route, they probably aren’t common visiting spots. One last park was Jacques-Cartier National Park, perhaps our favourite one. There was just something so special about it and I took an excessive amount of photos. There was the brightest blue, clear sky that day, so maybe that helped.

After that, we flew across from Halifax to Deer Lake in Newfoundland and spent a magical few days with amazing friends. That deserves its own post, so I will write my tips and document our Newfoundland adventures another time *everyone heaves a sigh of relief that this post is nearly over* Thank you so much for reading, after reliving our foodie (piggie) experiences, I’m off to eat a salad.

On the 30th December 2017, my boyfriend Sam and I went to the land of lava, fermented shark and the blue lagoon… otherwise known as Iceland. We had the most wonderful time, in the most beautifully unspoilt country. I wanted to share how we spent our days, our recommendations and some of our amazing pictures.

We stayed for 4 nights in Reykjavik, in a lovely apartment hotel called ’41 A Townhouse’, which was slap bang in the middle of the main shopping, eating, pretty much everything street called Laugavegur. We couldn’t have wished for a better location after booking pretty last minute and as we all know, if you want to stay somewhere over New Year…. book early. We didn’t, and many of the hotels were full, but luckily this looked gorgeous, and it really was. Complete with the most delightful receptionist who constantly gave us friendly recommendations, it was the ideal place for us. I didn’t know much about Reykjavik before we went as it wasn’t massively on my travel radar, but I can honestly say it is my new favourite city. Completely charming, quirky, trendy (such a Mum word) and unique, it was full of individual shops, restaurants and cafes that we totally soaked up. We didn’t have one bad meal, with some of the most delicious burgers (obvs), soups and breakfasts we’ve had.

So I’ve digressed slightly into a complete love fest for Iceland, but I’ll take you back to the beginning, when we first arrived.

Day 1- 30th Dec
We landed into a dark Reykjavik at about 3pm local time and went to pick up our rental car. The first thing I noticed was that it was FREEZING. Now I wasn’t expecting tropical temperatures, but it really was nippy. After stuffing all of (my) over-packing into the car, we set off for the apartment. Luckily with cars, Sam is like a fish to water, so we were absolutely fine finding our way, and to be honest; the roads weren’t massively complicated anyway. It took us about 40/45 minutes, and when we arrived, we parked on the road outside our apartment. One thing we found in Iceland was that parking is SUPER easy, we were panicking that we wouldn’t get a space but everywhere we went there was plenty of room, which made renting a car that much more of a benefit. We dumped our stuff in the room, and set off to explore Laugavegur and the centre of Reyjavik, making our way towards the famous church, probably the focal point of the city, Hallgrímskirkja (don’t ask me to say it). It was spectacular, and seemed to just appear out of nowhere. Absolutely huge, super high and incredibly beautiful, we walked around there for while and at this point I realised that Reyjavik was somewhere special.

I know I have been pretty detailed up to here, but I just had a moment of ‘Romy people don’t care about your holiday as much as you do…..’ so I’ll be much more brief from now on… thanks for hanging in there.

Day 2- New Years Eve.

After a tasty breakfast at a quaint little café called The Grey Cat, (apparently Bjorn’s favourite breaky- not sure but we’ll go with it), we explored the city fully, shopping, eating and doing everything we do best. One thing I was absolutely amazed by was the vast expanse of sea just on the edge of the city, just the most incredible landscape. From the graffiti covered buildings, to the multi-coloured houses, I was loving Iceland more and more by the minute. One thing we discovered on the first day was how little daylight hours they have in winter. It didn’t get fully light until at least 11 in the morning and started going dark before 3, which restricts you slightly, and you end up feeling sleepy at about 5, but we managed. We went back up to the church, where a quirky waffle van parks every day, and sat watching the sun setting while we stuffed our faces with Belgian waffles smothered in Nutella…. Romantic? Not so much, when you have to eat so fast to avoid your fingers dropping off from being out of your gloves. Cue Nutella chops and HUGE mouthfuls. After freshening up, we set out in search of dinner, and struck gold with a restaurant that had a no-show reservation which meant we had their table- AMAZING! And the food was too. After this, we went back up to the church (sensing a pattern here…) and watched the never-ending firework display done by the whole city, it was PACKED. The streets were completely rammed, and luckily we got there a bit early so we had a really good spot. They were beautiful and it was the perfect way to enter 2018, in the freezing cold with the person who always lets me use his phone to video the fireworks for Snapchat when my phone runs out of battery. No I’m kidding, I promise I didn’t watch the fireworks through my screen, pinky swear.

Day 3- New Year’s Day

Waking up in 2018 with a (reasonably) clear head felt pretty good, and we set off driving around The Golden Circle, a route taking us to several natural phenomena. I won’t describe every single place in detail, as you can literally type ‘The Golden Circle’ into Google and entire websites dedicated to it come up, but I will say, each one was uniquely wonderful in its own way. From the vastness of Pingvellir, to the spectacle of Geysir, we loved road tripping in a different way than ever before, not knowing what each destination would bring. We ended our day at The Blue Lagoon, potentially my favourite moment of the whole trip. We arrived at 4, and discovered that once you check into the Lagoon, you can stay as long as you want, which meant we had a relaxed 3 and a half hours in there! We were given two different masks at the Mud bar, a complimentary drink at the Lagoon bar, and spent the next few hours chatting, swimming and soaking up the peaceful atmosphere of a place that we will never forget. We ate at the Lava Restaurant in the Blue Lagoon, and once again, the food was amazing. Sam and I got very excited for the rest of the meal after the most insane selection of bread came out just after we sat down…. (the best part am I right?). It really was magical, and although we arrived in the dark, we got a different sort of experience of the Blue Lagoon and floating around in the water watching the stars was a truly memorable moment. To top it off, we saw the Northern Lights driving back to the apartment, which was just the best start to 2018 we could have wanted, I mean what more could Iceland give us???!!

Day 4- 2nd January

On our last full day in Iceland, we spent the morning walking around the city, and spent the afternoon Lava Caving. I know, I hadn’t heard of it either, but apparently it’s a MUST DO for Iceland. Before I tell you about it, just another reminder of the BLOODY FREEZING WEATHER. Now I’m ready…. So our lovely tour guide picked us up, and he took into the middle of nowhere (there’s probably a more geographically specific location, but bear with me), and he firstly showed us several different hidden gems, such as the black beaches and a geothermal area that smelt like rotten egg. And we loved every minute! He then took us down into the lava caves, which are lava tubes from volcanoes that have turned into caves which you can explore without getting burnt to a crisp. We didn’t plan on doing any expeditions before we came to Iceland, so unfortunately I was wearing Mom jeans, however I still managed to clamber through some pretty narrow spaces, avoiding the sparkling icicles hanging down from the ceiling. It was an activity completely out of my comfort zone, but I’m so pleased we did it, and we took some pretty amazing pictures, before finishing off with a hot chocolate in the car! We spent our last evening after dinner in our favourite bar near the apartment, drinking mojitos and laughing at each other’s hat hair.

It was the most amazing holiday, I never expected to love Iceland so much and I most definitely would go back, as I realised how much there was left to see. If you’re still here after all of my ramblings, I didn’t quite succeed on making it shorter but thanks so much for reading and I hope it has inspired you to put Iceland on your travel list. Just before you go, here’s my top tips for Iceland.

TOP TIPS-

If you’re going in the winter, bring a WARM coat, and I mean WARM. I know this seems obvious, but I genuinely thought my coat was snug enough, and it bloody wasn’t.
If you can, rent a car- we found the freedom and adventure so exciting and it meant we could travel about on our own terms and at our own pace… also driving in Iceland is BEAUTIFUL, the landscape is just breathtaking, so you don’t quite get the same feel on a coach trip. Plus, you can sing as much Pitch Perfect at the top of your lungs as you want.
Book the Blue Lagoon before you go, and spend as much time there as you can. You won’t want to leave.
Take a thick moisturiser…. the cold holds no prisoners.
Order the house white- EVERYTHING is expensive, so if you fancy a tipple, order the cheapest thing- except if you want a mojito…. Then always go for the mojito.
Be up and out by 9 even though the sun isn’t up, and there’s virtually nowhere open for breakfast. The sunrise is worth it.

Food you HAVE to eat-

The Grey Cat- the croquet madame was delish.
Sand- the breakfast there was amazing. We both had Eggs Royale and it came with kale… I know I know, but it was actually delicious, I even surprised myself.
Sandholt bakery- the sandwiches, just the sandwiches. And the cakes, and pasteries…. You get my drift.
Snaps Bistro- delicious fried ravioli & mouth-wateringly rich beuf bourguignon.
Lebowski Bar- we didn’t try the food but fab mojitos and a really lively atmosphere, plus they have this sign on the door…. ‘If you are racist, sexist, homophobic or an asshole… don’t come in!’ I think that sums it up.

Thanks for reading, here are some of our pictures!