On both my second and fourth mornings of my time in Dujiangyan 都江堰 I headed out to the Chengdu Field Research Center for Giant Pandas, or more commonly known, Panda Valley 熊猫谷. I had only planned to have one visit here, but after looking through some of my pictures and having only seen a small glimpse at a few ‘big-name’ pandas, I decided to use my extra time for a second visit!
After my first Disney park experience in Shanghai I knew I wanted to visit other parks around the world – unfortunately covid hit and put a halt on those plans, but finally in 2022 I finally booked a trip, my first time in Disneyland Paris! I did plan to travel alone, but eventually persuaded my sister to come with me on my birthday trip. My birthday is at the end of November and that works out perfectly to see the park festive with Christmas decorations (Christmas is also my favourite time of year). We booked this in April of 2022 and stayed for 2-nights with 3-days in the parks. It was around £450 for the two of us for the room on site and park tickets and we were pretty happy with that – we did book before they had actually announced the festive celebration dates, so it may have increased in price after this. Disneyland Paris has 2 parks, so I felt like this was a good step for me before making the trip to Disney World with the 4 parks (trip also now booked with my sister after she really enjoyed Paris!) – so we had a lot to squeeze into our time!
Amsterdam is one of my favourite cities, I’ve been several times and was happy to go back even just for an afternoon on my way home from Madrid last year. I had a 9-hour layover in Amsterdam which was a perfect amount of time – the plane landed timely and I was off super quick (because within Schengen zone, no passport control needed) and on a train into the city in no time. En route I bought my ticket for ARTIS, and then had plenty of time for a leisurely stroll through the city to get there. After visiting the zoo I then strolled back along the canals in the beautiful Summer weather to head back to the airport. A perfect way to spend an afternoon!
Continue Reading “Amsterdam strolls, June 2023”
When planning my trip to see the giant pandas at Madrid Zoo I knew I wanted to have 2 full days in the city – this was a bit of an insurance policy incase I didn’t get to see the pandas on the first day for some reason, but I was lucky and my day at the zoo worked out perfectly. So I had the evening after arriving from a long day of travel, the morning and evening after visiting the zoo because of the later opening time, and then another whole day to fill – luckily there is plenty to see in Madrid!
Continue Reading “Madrid strolls, June 2023”
A small pause on pandas/my May 2024 trip to China while I post some European city break content!
Despite having been to Belgium a few times before, I have never done anything in Brussels apart from fly into/out of the airport. So when I rebooked my Pairi Daiza trip for October 2022 I added in some time for experiencing Brussels! On this trip I travelled with my mum, so made sure to drag her around the whole city!
Continue Reading “Brussels strolls, October 2022”