2014 was a busy but great year!
It was a year of lots of traveling:
- New York - every year must include a trip to the Big Apple, where we had the chance to go to a football game, ate dumplings in Chinatown's oldest tea house, had a pretentious dinner in the Meatpacking district, jumped on the tramway to Roosevelt Island and walked though the High Line in the cold.
- Shanghai - finally visited Asia! and it was a very interesting trip, cuturally and gastronomically, from beautiful temples to gardens, not forgetting the super modern skyscrapers and the ancient towns. We even had a coffee at a replica of Friends' Central Perk bar!
- Hong Kong - The second part of the Asian trip, and probably my new favorite city: dim sum, a beautiful skyline, dim sum, gardens, dim sum, temples, dim sum, boat rides, dim sum, etc - and a quick visit to Las Vegas of the East, Macau.
- Andalucia - a hot road trip in one of my favorite places in Spain after a stop in Cordoba to visit the breathtaking Mosque, we headed to Seville and found a nice shadow under the trees at the Real Alcazar gardens and the Plaza de España arches - and oh, the food!
- A quick stop in Copenhagen to finally visit the famous Carlsberg brewery
- A second visit to Budapest, where we discovered fantastic restaurants, bathed in thermal baths night and day and also visited some cultural and touching sights.. and drank lots of Tokaji :)
- I still have to write about a weekend we spent at the beach in Rimini, another one in Barcelona, Hamburg, our first visit to the Snails Festival in Cherasco and also about a Mexican Paradise... so stay tuned for 2015!
2014 was also a year with lots of food:
- Michelin-star restaurants, like the new location of Alice inside Eataly Smeraldo in Milan, the yummy (and cheap) dim sum from Tim Ho Wan in Hong Kong and the newly appointed Borkonyha in Budapest.
- Street food and markets everywhere! From the Milanese taco bar experiment and the street food temple, the festive atmosphere at a Hong Kong market restaurant, the lobster rolls palce under the Plaza hotel in NYC, the food markets in Cordoba and Seville and the cool street food island in Copenhagen.
- also Bars, from the funky ones like Szimpla Kert in Budapest and Garlochi in Seville, to the cool views of Shanghai's Hyatt Vue Bar, not forgetting the fine wine bars like Cultivini in Budapest and N'Ombra de Vin in Milan
And lets not forget the hotels like the Buddha Bar in Budapest and the toilet we won't forget :), the views of Seville's rooftops from the Hotel Fontecruz, the modern Eurostars Palace in Cordoba, the comfortable 99 Bonham in Hong Kong, the Swissotel Shanghai and the weird gas mask in the drawer and even the nearby (but great if you have an early flight) Sheraton Malpensa.
But mostly, I will remember 2014 because the blog has finally started to be featured in other websites, newspapers and guides, and I couldn't be happier about this! There were the interviews with ExpatsBlog and Cheryl Howard's blog, my tips on the Radisson Blu Milan's blog, the feature on Die Zeit's Milan guide and my first article published on Matador Network (also in Spanish)!
Happy holidays and a great start of 2015 to you all!
Hugs,
M.
