Travel

Over 400 rooms of interiors so dazzling and magnificent and art so precious your eyes literally hurt and you forget how to breath – that is Winter Palace, one of six buildings of the gargantuan Hermitage museum in Saint Petersburg (Russia).

New Zealand might be green and blossoming all year round, but there’s that unique magic in Spring, when you can literally feel the nature waking up. And fragile, very feminine and delicate beauty of the blossoming cherry trees is definitely a highlight of the season.

I must admit, looking at the enormous captions Alex is posting on Instagram lately, I start feeling a bit guilty. Seriously, not all my blog posts are that long!.. Wait a minute! But doesn’t it mean his captions can make a great post? Well, we’re about to find out, as I’m posting his latest Instagram update here. Right now. As a real blog post. Call me lazy, or call me creative (cause I still did an effort to pick photos!), but it’s happening. Because these 15 places to see in Moscow are so epic, you definitely should know them!

Tauranga lures tourists in with its magnificent beaches; Rotorua boasts extraordinary mud pools, geysers and colourful steamy lakes; Taupo relies on its giant lake as a great source of activities for tourists all year round… It might seem that despite being New Zealand’s fourth largest city, landlocked Hamilton will never be that attractive to visitors. But don’t be fooled by the first impression! It’s proximity to Hobbiton is definitely not the only reason to visit Hamilton.

What can one do in under three hours? Well, I can write a short article, for example. Or bake a cake! Or travel from Tauranga to Napier. But can one explore an entire city in three hours? That’s what Alex and I decided to check out on our layover in Qatar back in May.

‘With endless baroque and rococo palaces in turquoise, yellow and pink colours, iconic golden domes of the cathedrals, hundreds of bridges guarded by bronze statues, Russia’s ‘cultural capital’ is the most precious stone in the crown of the world’s largest country. That is the place where all the tsars and aristocrats wanted to live in the past and the place not to be missed today.’ That’s how my article on Saint Petersburg, published in Verve magazine, begins. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t describe this gorgeous city any better:)

We only had around an hour to whizz through the yet sleepy, early morning Arrowtown on our way to Tasman glacier, but you know what? It was enough to make us looking forward to another trip! The cutest lil’ town I have ever seen, that has that magical, enchanted feeling, as if you’ve accidentally took the wrong turn on the highway and found yourself in a new Universe, where everything is so familiar, yet a bit different, like in your favourite children’s book of fairy tales.

Rotorua reminds me of Hermione Granger’s beaded handbag: small from the outside, it was bottomless inside, so she could pack all the supplies she might need one day in it (those included Perkins’ tent, that easily accommodated seven Weasleys and Harry Potter – not sure I really need this detail here, but it’s Harry Potter, you know). Anyway, the population of Rotorua is only 71,700 people. Might look like a sleepy little place. But the truth can’t lie any further from that. You can never have enough time to explore all the activities and entertainments Rotorua has to offer! And I know what I’m talking about – we live in Tauranga. With Rotorua being located only an hour away, it has been our go-to choice for a cool weekend getaway for the last two years.

Many years of the ‘Iron Curtain’ regime certainly did no good to Russia as a touristic country. Even those once curious to see the biggest country in the world, the land of untouched nature, severe winters, gargantuan palaces and the most beautiful girls (no biased opinions, just facts) had ditched the dream in favour of more accessible and friendly destinations. But things has changed!