ARRIVING IN VENICE

While planning our honeymoon, I did a lot of research in order to decide whether we should do a day trip to Venice or spend a couple of nights there. Friends that I have spoken to mostly opted for a day trip as hotels in Venice are quite expensive and you can cover most of the attractions in one day if you plan wisely. I had a long list of cities to visit so even though we had 2.5 months in Europe, our schedule was quite packed and a day trip seemed like a more attractive option. In the end, we decided to stay for 2 nights Venice so we can enjoy and explore the city at our own pace.

MENTON

I originally tried to blog about places that I visited on my most recent Europe trip chronologically so it does not seem like each new post jumps back and forth from one country to another. However, since I have not been blogging regularly and it has been a few months since the trip, I will just note when I visited each place instead. Hopefully it is not too confusing =)

Dahlia shorts/Zimmermann tee/Valentino rockstud bag/Tod's flats (similar here)/Prada baroque sunnies/Cartier Love bracelet/Kenneth Jay Lane ring/Dior 'Mirage' nail vernis

On our last day in the French Riviera, we were determined to make the most of it and set out early to visit the last seaside town on our list, Menton. It should only be a half an hour drive from Nice to Menton but DH took a wrong turn and we detoured to Monaco so it took us over an hour to get there. Menton is very close to the Italian town of Ventimiglia, in fact while in Menton you can easily just walk across the border so it was no surprise that parking was scarce (there were so many cars with Italian number plates!) and notable Italian influence in the cuisine. We found a parking spot near the port, had lunch and a lovely stroll along the beach. I'm really glad that we got the Provence & Cote D'azur guidebook by Lonely Planet for this trip, without it we would've have missed this beautiful town and so many other hidden gems.

WEDDING CAKE ROCK

A few weekends ago, DH & I and a couple of close friends went on a day trip to Royal National Park.

Our main point of interest was the spectacular white sandstone bench named Wedding Cake Rock (because it looks like a huge piece of wedding cake!) so we started off by heading towards the village of Bundeena, once there we parked at the end of Beachcomber Avenue and started our coastal walk following signs leading to the popular Wedding Cake Rock. The track was not as difficult as I had anticipated but some of the steep and slippery gorge descends were quite scary. Suitable footwear is definitely a must for this coastal track, although I did spot a few (very brave) girls in Tod's and high heels... 

AUTUMN MOOD

Zara skirt/Quirky Circus jumper (from MYER)/Tabitha Simmons 'Hermione' flats/Chanel Boy bag

MATCHY MATCHY

BOUGAINVILLEA

POST-TRAVEL: PHOTO SORTING TIME

I am currently going through thousands of photos taken during 2.5 months in Europe and as much as I hate to admit it, this will probably take me forever! I still also have so many photos from my Europe trip two years ago that I was meant to post but never got round to it. Come to think of it, now is about time to do so =)

To avoid losing our travel photos again, this time I kept all the photos we took during the entire trip on SD cards and only delete them after I have copied everything onto my external as well as upload them to my online photo library each night. I mainly use Flickr to store and share my photos because I can easily access the app on my mobile devices on the go and it is also a great place to backup my photos in case the original file is lost.  

Organising the photos according to city/country and identifying places is the easiest part for me while the difficult part is actually the narrow down/selection process. Prior to our Europe trip, I spent a lot of time browsing travel blogs for inspiration and was amazed at how great the places all looked, almost too perfect to be real. I knew majority of those photos had some degree of photoshop/post-editing involved but it was not until I visited certain places in person that I realised the real deal was far from what I had seen in photos. Sure, adding special effects or enhancing colours to a already picturesque sight could make it even more beautiful and charming but I feel sometimes people overdo it and the sight ends up looking unrealistically great, giving people like me (first time visitors) a false expectation of what our travel destination looks like. I don't know how to use Photoshop but I do like photography apps such as Rookie and VSCOcam which are great for when I need to add a bit more life to my photos. My favourite VSCOcam filters are C2 or S2&3 which are great for brightening a dull looking photo taken on an overcast day. 

 That is all for now..I will be back very soon with more photos =)