The beautiful city of Lisbon in Portugal is a destination filled with incredible architecture, winding cobblestone streets and colourful buildings wherever you go with amazing viewpoints throughout. It is a vibrant and completely captivating city that has quickly become one of my favourite places to visit in Europe.

I have been lucky enough to visit Lisbon twice – once for a three night city break and once for only a single day when sailing on a Transatlantic cruise. Having experienced the city from both perspectives, I can confidently say that Lisbon works beautifully no matter how much time you have ashore or on land. (more…)

The small Principality of Monaco might not be at the top of everyone’s travel bucket lists, but it was somewhere that I had wanted to visit for quite some time. After visiting the majority of Europe, I only had a few countries left on my list and I was ready to finally see and experience this one for myself.

Monaco is easily one of the most glamorous and unique destinations in the world. While many people associate it primarily with millionaires, casinos and luxury yachts, there is so much more to discover once you are there. If you are already travelling through the South of France, it is an incredibly easy destination to add to your itinerary. (more…)

As I have now been lucky enough to visit the majority of countries in Europe, I recently jumped at the chance to finally travel to somewhere new and the city of Tirana in Albania was high on my list of places that I wanted to explore. It is not somewhere that you immediately think of when you are planning a city break but that is exactly why I wanted to go. (more…)

The beautiful and fair city of Verona in Italy which is well known to many around the world as the setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has so much more to offer than just a tragic love story. The city’s historic centre – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – is filled with historic castles and incredible architecture throughout and unlike the crowded streets of Rome, Florence or nearby Venice, Verona also feels so much more relaxed which makes it a perfect spot to explore Italy at a much slower pace. (more…)

Hidden away in the heart of Italy is the Republic of San Marino (Repubblica di San Marino) which is the fifth smallest country in the world and the third smallest country in Europe. It is somewhere that had always been on my list of places that I wanted to visit and earlier this month in March 2025 I finally got there and in turn, San Marino became the 72nd country for me to visit. (more…)

After falling asleep very quickly the evening before and as we had gained an hour overnight, I woke up just after 5:00am and the first thing I did was go out onto our verandah to get some fresh air and I could already see the lights of Lisbon off in the distance. As our stateroom was on the opposite side of the Disney Dream to what the city would be and once we got a little bit closer, we quickly got dressed and headed up to a chilly Deck 13 along with a handful of our fellow passengers with a hot drink in hand to watch as we sailed past the Belem Tower, the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries) and then finally under the Ponte 25 de Abril bridge at 6:20am. (more…)

When I was planning my trip to the amazing city of Riga last month, I tried to do as much research as I possibly could including how we would be able to travel from Riga Airport to Riga city centre where our hotel was located in the heart of the Old Town. (more…)

When I started to research how to get from Sofia Airport into the city centre of Sofia using public transport, it became immediately apparent that there was very little information online about this journey and what information there was available was very old and out of date. So on my recent trip to Sofia in November 2023 I made sure to take plenty of photos and have now written this blog and travel guide with all the latest, current, up to date and correct information to help anyone who is flying into Bulgaria. (more…)

Last week I returned from visiting my 63rd country of Romania and I had an incredible time and whilst I was there, top of my list of places to visit was Bran Castle (Castelul Bran in Romanian) in the Transylvania region also known to many as Dracula’s Castle. (more…)

Gibraltar is a small British Overseas Territory located across the border from the city of La Línea de la Concepción on the southern coast of Spain. Gibraltar covers an area of only 2.6 square miles (most of which is the famous Rock of Gibraltar) and has a population of approximately 32000 people as well as over 300 Barbary Macaque monkeys who are its most famous residents. (more…)