where to stay while roadtrippin' in Andalucia: our airbnb guide

charming cottage in Jerez de la Frontera

before our road trip in Andalucia {you can find the itinerary here} I've spent hours browsing Airbnb looking for dreamy cottages, cozy farms, cool yurts, enchanting cave houses (and even a  super cool airstream!)... now that the trip is over, and we had the chance to personally test some of those places, I don't want to waste this precious list of locations, that I think could be useful to someone who is planning a trip to southern Spain. especially if you, like me, are particularly picky when it comes to holiday accommodations,  as I'm usually looking for places I can remember {possibile in a good way!}, not impersonal or banal. 

if you are on my team, I hope you like this small selection: there are pictures and desctipion of 4 airbnbs where we stayed, and, at the end, the full airbnb Andalucia wishlist. 

Andalucia on the road: 13 days, 1000 km, 2 (vintage) wheels

if you dream about visit Andalucia someday, if you are planning a trip to Andalucia, if you are just curious about our road trip in Andalucia by lambretta, in this post I'm sharing our day by day itinerary on the road for a 2 weeks long trip, with some personal notes, tips and the usual illustrated map, of course.

Andalucia on the road, illustrated map

lambretta en Provence: honeymoonin' on the roads of Southern France

Provence road trip, watercolor map 

this post is intended for:

- anyone curious about details and organization of our trip to Provence, Southern France

- anyone going to visit Provence soon, by scooter or motorcycle or car

- anyone planning a road trip by vintage scooter

I really hope you find it inspiring, pretty and useful. and yes, I woud love to read your feedbacks.

vintage tour in Val d'Orcia

Val d'Orcia with a rented lambretta

that's on top of my wish list: to be able to travel with a lambretta anywhere we want. yes, we can drive our own or ship it, but we don't aways have the time to do something like that (not to mention the costs). and to rent an original vintage scooter is almost impossible. almost.

visiting Tuscany on a vintage Italian scooter

the dreamer Dario fought the impossible founding Vintage Tours, an agency renting vespas, lambrettas and vintage cars in one of the most beautiful region of Italy, Tuscany.

what makes the difference is people

the back of the cottage, the blue entrance to our apartment | nikon F801s + Kodak Ektar 100

i have already told you something about how special our staying in the southern corner of Sicily had been. i have to admit, it was hard to leave.

now, one month after we came back from our Sicilia trip, when i think about it, the first images that occur to me come from our days over there: wandering around Pachino countryside, exploring Vendicari Natural Reserve, drinking aperitivo in Marzamemi, watching the pretty wooden boats in Portopalo di Capo Passero, having gelato in Noto, walking on the seaside, the cottage's blue doors, cozy porch and hammock... ♥

Sicilia on the road, 10 days and 2 wheels

after i had  the 101 film photos developed, my travel journal scanned and i finished the watercolor illustrated map last night, it's time to talk about our road trip in Sicilia, and i'm still not sure i have the right words for this.

Sicily is overwhelming.
there is so much to do and to see {and to eat} in this blessed island that 10 days can be considered as the first, inebriating, sip.

this post is meant to be for anyone who is curious about details and organization of our trip, who is going to visit Sicily soon, or is planning a road trip by vintage scooter.
enjoy!

Sicilia by lambretta watercolor map

Flanders on the road | Gent & Oudenaarde

maybe the lovelies view on the river, taken from Grasburg

do not be fooled by similar geometry and architecture, Brugge and Gent have different souls. 

the first is a medieval gem, romantic and cozy, Gent is definitely more lively, fresher and vibrant. 

bosnian roadtrip #1

before leaving | iPhone 4s + VSCOcam

where are you going again?

“Bosnia”. seeing the facial expressions that our answer evoked almost made me rethink our destination. yes, Sarajevo is not a typical summer destination for Italians, but, considering the number of “why?” that followed my answer, you’d think that Bosnia and Herzegovina is not a touristic destination at all, which is absolutely not true: many foreigner license plates move around Bosnian roads during summer, Mostar and Sarajevo’s tiny streets are crowded with tourists, and we met many young travellers from all around the world in all the hostels and guest houses where we stayed.

so, the surprise was not about the touristic value of the destination, but about the shadow of the war that continues to follow the name of this complicated country. i was a kid in the nineties, and the Bosnian war was one of the many wars seen on the tv news, but nearer, and therefore more real. it’s not guilt, the feeling that arouse when we think about the Bosnian war in 1992-1996, but it looks a lot like it. we were dreaming the European Union dream, and genocides were taking place a few kilometers outside our disappearing borders.

anyway, this is not the place, nor i am an adequately qualified person to talk about this. i’d try to mention the war as little as possible during this trip’s reportage, because that was exactly my goal: to build another Bosnia in my consciousness. a big mosaic made of landscapes, faces, songs, stories, animals, past, future, architecture, myths, books, religions, recipes. a place that was touched by a bloody war but that’s not its only feature.

this, to know Bosnia better, to be able to think about it regardless of the war, was one of the reasons why we chose Bosnia as our destination, but not the only one. other reasons had been more practical: near, with a good ferry boat connection, doable by lambretta, cheap; others more intangible: we’ve heard a lot about Bosnia and Sarajevo during the past months. as the 100^th anniversary of the beginning of the 1^st world war (yeah, another war.), Sarajevo was on the news for a while, being the casus belli scene (archiduke Franz Ferdinand was killed on Sarajevo’s latin bridge, triggering the diplomatic crisis between Austro Hungarian empire and Serbia). moreover, my sister just graduated with a thesis on a project developed in Bosnia, where she took two field trips.