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

7 things about our road trip to Vietnam we keep telling people

"how was Vietnam?"
"tell me all about your trip!"

as soon as we came home from Vietnam, and started answering our friends and relatives questions, these have been the main topics we go on chatting about:


1. vietnamese coffee, or cà phê

after the third one, you'll be addicted to it.

one of the many coffee breaks during our sidecar road trip from Hanoi to Hoi An

Vietnam on the road on a vintage sidecar motorcycle

vietnamese people, watercolor illustration 

since we've moved in together, we have a coin jar with "Vietnam & Laos" written on it. 

as wedding present, our lovely witnesses gave us plane tickets to a destination of our choice, so after our lambretta honeymoon in Provence, we started thinking about the next adventure in South East Asia. 

when we read on the Lonely Planet guide that riding a motorcycle in northern Vietnam is a lifetime experience, that was it. we remembered an old classic, the BBC Top Gear Vietnam special, watched it for the 100th time and booked a flight to Hanoi. 

my 2016 travel dreams in watercolors

happy, happy new year! 

i hope 2016 found you well, healthy, in good company and with a brand new list of resolutions in your pocket.

of course i've done mine. it's thinner than usual, as i'm gonna spend most part of my free time and energy {not to mention savings} organizing the wedding {missed something? check this post}, at least for the first time of the year.

anyway, it doesn't mean that this narrow version of the new year's to do-list is lacking a chapter entirely dedicated to travels.

i tried to keep it real, and still don't know if they are achievable or not, but these are currently my travel dreams for 2016: 

provence

before choosing Sicily as the destination for our lambretta road trip last summer, Marco and i briefly considered going to southern France. since then, i've been daydreaming about lavender fields, blue shutters and charming countryside. i bet Provence landscape and our lambretta would get along just fine. 

from Sicilia with love: travel souvenirs

choosing, collecting, arranging travel souvenirs is a form of art. 

in my everyday life i do love to be surrounded by things that remind me of the time away from home. little pieces from other realities, far and different, that from a certain point had become part of mine. i dedicated an entire post to the most loved of my souvenirs de voyage.  

our road trip in Sicily as well, brought back home some precious mementos. let me show them to you. 

let's go: Sicilia by lambretta. July, Wednesday 22nd

another summer, another great lambretta adventure.

we're leaving today, destination Sicily!

June, glimpses of Bordeaux

in june I had the chance to see Bordeaux and the surroundings during a business trip.
here I'm sharing with you some of the (very few) moments I had to play the tourist.
{all pics are taken with my phone and processed with vscocam}

ink your travel

it's time to share a news with all of you. a news i've been looking forward to tell you for weeks, about a project i delevoped with Irene {travel blogger at viachesiva.it}in the last few months.

it's about drawing, it's about travelling. 

so, let me finally introduce you Ink your Travel, a mini-collection of hand drawn t-shirts, designed for travellers.

we chose the first day of spring to be our big day - the launch - , cause we think it may bring luck. so many lovely things happen in spring, don't they?

Lyon #3 city cycling

our last day in Lyon was devoted to explore the Rive Gauche, beyond the left bank of the Rhone. since we already knew how to orient ourselves in the city, we rent a bike to wander around. from the day our arrive we were aware that Lyon is a real bike friendly town, with handy bicycle paths and a developed bike culture that makes cycling there safer than in other part of the world (e.g. Italy). 

Lyon #2 the gourmand side

a detail of  la Fresque des Lyonnais, a trompe l'œil painted wall depicting 31 famous people from Lyon, as the Lumiere brothers and Antoine de Saint Exupéry 

Sarajevo. bosnian roadtrip #4

I am afraid this is gonna be a long post. Sarajevo is not an easy place to describe, so I'd better rely on some pictures to help me share the feelings inspired by the city.

Sarajevo skyline | nikon em + ilford 125 

I primarily intended to talk about our experience in Sarajevo without mentioning the war, or bringing it up as little as I could, to not let this dark shadow overcast the charm and the rising of a city that is still struggling with the past, still finding a new tune to dance.

Mostar. bosnian roadtrip #3

the Stari Most, built in the 16th century and destroyed on 1993 during the war, was rebuilt and completed in 2004. now it's the most famous landmark in Mostar again. | nikon f-801 + fujicolor 200

at the 485th km on our odometer, we were in Mostar.

mouthwatering smell of barbecue, stone houses, green hills and minarets surrounded us, while the old bridge, undisputed symbol of the town, was the center of gravity of this small and multicultural urban galaxy.
the heart of Mostar beats on the tangle of streets around the bridge, and all the tourist crowd seems to concentrate there, between restaurants and small shops.

bosnian roadtrip #2

dirt road to Jajce |  iPhone 4s + VSCOcam

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.

let's go: Bosnia roadtrip. July, Friday 25th

we're leaving! summer holidays are here.

we're about to spend a few days on a roadtrip by lambretta in Bosnia we've been planning for weeks: this afternoon we're going to sail from Rjeka to Split, and then we'll make a big balkans loop through Split, Neum, Blagaj, Mostar, Sarajevo, Travink, Jajce and back to Split and the ferry boat to Rjeka.

i'm excited but departures make me nervous.
wish me luck and good weather ♥

{p.s. for on the road updates follow marco's instagram or i diari della lambretta facebook page}

travel packing list

Irene is a lovely travel addicted who masterly runs via che si va, italian funny blog full of travel memories and tips. 
in addition to travel, we share the passion for books, illustration and.. making lists. the outcome is a post on her blog, with our travel packing lists, her advice, and my little drawings.

here, i briefly report the highlights.

happy to

some italian bloggers are writing posts about three daily things they are proud of.
i'm usually not into chain blog post at all, but the lovely Serena has nominated me, so i'd feel bad to ignore her call.

so, let's see.. what are the actions, rituals, good things that i am proud of doing in my everyday life? actually, i don't feel so special (plus, there are a million things i'm not proud of) so i'd rather tell you what are the few things i am happy to do because i think they're good not just for me, but for everyone.
{for each one daily action, there is a matching travel aspect}


i'm happy to #1 shop at the farmers market (when fruits and vegetables grown at home are not enough), eat my chickens eggs, buy milk at the vending machine of a dairy. in other words, i try to eat locally sourced food, as much as i can.
this means that when i travel, i'm happy to: eat locally, shop locally, sleep locally.

in the pic, some spring joy from the farmers market in Vittorio Veneto this morning

Transilvania roadtrip. January, 18-20th

after a day in Bucharest, our romanian journey continued with a roadtrip to Transilvania, kindly organized by Anna {green holiday italy} and Dario, who hosted us in Romania.
like everyone i suppose, i had some images of Transilvania on my mind: the land of vampires, with castles, mysterious aura, spooky landcapes.. well, i cannot say it is actually like that, but, as in every legend, there is a grain of truth.

București. January, Friday 17th

Stavropoleos monastery | mănăstirea Stavropoleos

Bucharest could be a beautiful city. my friend Anna {the pen behind green holiday italy} warned up with these words, when M. and i arrived in the capital of Romania {flew there with Wizz Air, about 2 hours from Treviso}, where she and her mate hosted us for a lovely weekend. it could be indeed. such a culture's crossroad, with one foot in europe and the other still in the former soviet union, with a latin language, russian words, balkan food and middle eastern influences. but not yet.

there are charming corners, as the Stavropoleos monastery. all that remains from it is a little church, which looks lovely from the outside {first picture} but is way better inside: velvety atmosphere, hand paintings lit by candles, dark and gold. it was the first thing we stopped to see while sightseeing in the historic centre.

Lipscani district

Lipscani is the heart of the city centre. it used to be the most important commercial area of the city. many streets still bear the name of their trade, as can be seen in many european cities. looking at the old buildings {a nice mix of art nouveau, neoclassical, near to medieval memories}, it seems clear why, in the interwar europe, Bucharest was nicknamed little Paris. nowadays Lipscani is recovering from a long period of degradation and neglect. most of these buildings need to be restored, but the whole recovery of the district seems to be going towards the creation of a modern noisy area of bars, strip clubs and cheap shops, without any vibes, any traditions. i think it deserves better.

neoclassical building detail

women near Biserica Curtea Veche

the best moment of our day in Bucharest was a visit to the old princely court church {Biserica Curtea Veche}, the oldest of the city. it started like a normal visit of a tourist site, but we soon realized that there were a few tourists, and most of the people was in the queque, waiting for praying in front of holy icons. with fervor and emotion, they lit up dozens of votive candles, kissed the icons, then went away, in silence. the most authentic moment of the day. 

we had just one day to visit Bucharest, and i'm sorry we didn't have the time to see two museums which seem quite interesting: the museum of the romanian peasant {muzeul tăranului român} and the national village museum {muzeul naţional al satului}, but our weekend continued with a roadtrip to Transilvania, which i can't wait to share with you!

p.s. good news! i diari della lambretta has been shortlisted for the Italy Magazine blogger awards, category best travel ♥ so, if you like it here, that's the link to vote!