Of course I couldn’t go all the way to Washington DC and only see the pandas – today I am sharing my city guide and what we got up to on our trip in September 2018. It was very hot on our first day, however that day then ended with a crazy rainstorm and we got very soaked! After that it was a bit of a damp and cloudy trip, however that didn’t spoil our time, just made for some dullness in the pictures but hopefully they still show the city and its attractions well.
Within Europe, Vienna was the first place I visited specifically to see the giant pandas! I booked the trip almost as soon as they’d announced that Yang Yang had given birth to twins – which was a risk, but I got lucky and those babies were adorable^ I also took my mum along on the trip, we really got a great deal and ended up paying £300 for the two of us for flights and 3 nights in a hotel, which was one of the benefits of travelling in February! So it was a little cold, and there was snow and ice on the ground, but we still had a great time – just need to go back in the nicer weather as I think it will be an equally beautiful city in the summer time. I didn’t take so many photos on the trip so there’s not a whole lot to share but here’s just a snapshot of 3 days in Vienna in February 2017.
Back in January I visited Belgium to start 2020 – I was invited to the Giant Panda Global Awards held in Pairi Daiza on the 3rd of January, so I added a couple of days onto my trip so that I could visit elsewhere in Belgium. I’ve been to Ghent a couple of times as I have a friend there, and I’ve also been to Bruges before on a day trip. However I went to Bruges very unprepared so I didn’t make the most of my time there, I decided I would spend the weekend in Bruges this time and I did a little research before going! After being at Pairi Daiza and getting some viewing time with the pandas of course, my friend took me back to Ghent, and then I caught the train to Bruges, so I ended up having pretty much 1.5 days in Bruges to fill. I took so many pictures on this visit, and I did so much walking around the city – so I rounded up some of my top things to do when visiting Bruges!
Welcome to Chengdu! Chengdu was the first city I visited in China back in 2016, and I’ve been back every year since – however I did most of these things in the first two years, and only added a couple of things in my last two years of trips. If I am able to travel this year I’m planning to tick some sights off my ‘to see’ list in the city. I really love the city, I don’t find it too hard to navigate, and it really doesn’t seem too big – however the population is 16 million, fairly close to Beijing 21.5 million (for reference, Scotlands apparently tiny population is 5.5 million). But it has such a different vibe to Beijing. In the past 4 years there has been a lot of development in the city, whole skyscrapers have been put up all over the place and I’ve really felt the expansion of the city when travelling around the area of the Panda Base which is just outside the city centre. This isn’t an extensive guide by any means, but just provides a few really interesting and cool things you can do to add to your trip to see the pandas (which is probably the reason for most trips to the area)!
