Another year is coming to an end, damn how time flies… But we are very happy, 2016 has been very good to us. We were able to enjoy a few months at home, working from home and improving the website, but we also had time to travel, both alone and with family and friends. Here is a summary of our 2016 in 12 photos, a little glimpse of our lives during the last 12 months…
| January #homesweethome
We had no idea what 2016 would bring us. We started the year in Sigüenza and a few days later we went down to Vera, close to Cabo de Gata, our little office when we are still. We returned from Sri Lanka a short time ago and we wanted peace, routines, work and living in Andalusia, which, as you can imagine, is not a bad place. Bike rides enjoying the sun and deserted beaches, tapas here, creative challenges there (like my beloved #100daysofnormality)… Buuuut… two weeks later we had already booked a new trip. We are addicted, there is nothing we can do to avoid it 😛
| February #capitalhopping
After celebrating our last birthdays in Hue (Vietnam), Dambulla (Sri Lanka), Queenstown (New Zealand), this time we had to blow out the candles (or rather eat pizza) in Rome, one of our favourite cities. And the gift didn't end there: we spent 2 weeks touring the capital of Italy, the capital of Greece and the capital of Germany. If Rome had already made us fall in love, we had no idea of the love at first sight that awaited us in Greece: Athens is... Athens, incredible, simply incredible. Berlin, however, didn't manage to make a dent in our hearts (maybe because it was a little bit cold, because my goodness, it was cold!). However, the currywurst was a hit with our stomachs.
| March #hitthekeyboard
We returned to Vera, once again, with the idea of staying put for a while. We needed to write, fix some things on the blog, we also started working as copywriters for other portals, in short… we needed to hit the keyboard. And we did. Only, once again, we booked another trip. Ops, we did it again!
| April #weeatitaly
If Italy calls us, we go to see it, that's all there is to it. And of course we went. We visited (for the umpteenth time) Venice, where we discovered its richest and most low-cost gastronomic world, we enjoyed the town of Lety (eh, one of the 100 most beautiful towns in Italy. Fagagna we love you), we rediscovered Udine and we returned to Trieste, the least Italian Italian city. April was a time of reunions: one of my best friends from university got married and we shared a great time with many of our classmates from Padova.
| May #tuscanymylove
Tuscany was the star of our May. We walked around Florence, miles and miles of statues, facades, colorful cars, birra moretti, breathtaking views, markets and sandwiches that, wow, are so delicious that they fatten your soul. And then we rented a white car that took us on a road trip through the Chianti, Val d'Orcia, Maremma and Pisa areas. Tuscany was a little traveler's dream that turned out to be a tremendous destination just a flight away. We will definitely be back.
| June #housesittinglife
Now, let's be honest: we're pretty lucky. In general, I mean (although, if I can say mine, Roberto is even luckier, this boy was born with a flower in his bum). After the housesitting experiences in New Zealand, we knew we wanted to do it again. Where? One of the destinations that most caught our attention was the south of Portugal, the Algarve. And… yes, you guessed it. A housesitting came up, we asked for it and after two weeks we were in Algoz, very close to Albufeira, to take care of two very nice dogs (and some birds that we discovered by chance looking on top of the fridge, those birds are also lucky). They were 2 intense weeks, of walks with Tom and Pegs, trips to amazing beaches and typical villages, swimming in the pool and new travel projects.
| July #istriawithdaddies
The new travel project was a trip with Lety's parents. The destination? Croatia. When we visited it during our interrail through the Balkans, it seemed like an interesting, beautiful country with lovely beaches. Then we thought: "Laura (Lety's mum) will love Doriano, because Doriano has a traveler's soul and loves everything that is more than 10 km from his home (although for him Cavarzere, the town where he was born, is the capital of the world)."
We spent 10 days in Pula and thanks to the recommendations of our Airbnb host we were able to discover the best beaches in the area, as well as incredible towns like Rovinj and the so-called Croatian Tuscany. Come on, if you want a complete European destination and quite low cost… Croatia! Don’t hesitate.
| August #twobackpacksonacruise
One day in August we received an invitation to go on a cruise that would go from Venice to Rhodes. Us? On a cruise? Hey, why not? So, almost without thinking twice, we embarked on a little trip that took us to Venice, Split, Corfu, Santorini, Heraklion and Rhodes. We had some prejudices about cruises and, wow, inexplicably we loved the experience, so much that we wouldn't mind repeating it at all. (If it could be in the Caribbean, even better XD).
| September #madridesmuchamadrid
On September 1st we were walking around the streets of Madrid, a city that never really caught our attention. We visited it several times, but Barcelona is Barcelona. This time, however, we had a lot of feeling for the capital. We even felt like spending a little time in an apartment in Malasaña, but… on the 25th we got on a plane to Bangkok. With the Valerianos, Rober’s parents.
| October #thevalerianosforasia
We spent a whole month with them. We visited Bangkok, Sukhothai, Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Kuala Lumpur, Melaka, Bali and the Gili Islands. Angelines and Valeriano had a great time (even though we ran around a lot) and we have some great memories of this trip, like when Valeriano opened a little box in a hotel thinking that what was inside was candy and no, it wasn't candy XD, or the sunsets from the Gilis, the afternoons at the pool in Kuala Lumpur, the first pad thai in the most seedy beach bar on Rambuttri Road, the crazy taxi drivers in Bangkok, the radish soup... For the fifth consecutive year we set foot on the Asian continent. Will we manage to set foot in America in 2017?
| November #digitalnomads
We left the Valerians on a plane to Shanghai (and we made the poor things go through a difficult stopover XD) and we got on another plane to Chiang Mai. We spent all of November (yes, we experienced Loy Krathong again!) in this city in the north of Thailand and we felt so comfortable there that leaving our little apartment was hard. Well, leaving the apartment, and the motorbike, Moha (a friend from Tokyo while we were working away), the cafes, the markets, the food court at Maya. Buaaaah, I want to go back. Chiang Mai, when you visit it as a tourist, is cool, but when you experience it from within… it’s even cooler!
| December #ThailandWithColleagues
We left Chiang Mai for one reason only: Soufi. This little bastard is one of our best friends and he finally decided to pay us a visit in Asia. With him we explored areas we didn’t know like Buriram, in the centre-east of Thailand, where there are some awesome Khmer temples and where, besides becoming wholehearted members of their football team, we ended up riding 3 police motorbikes (mind you, they didn’t take us to jail, we just did “motostop”), or like the island of Koh Mook (+ an excursion to the beautiful Koh Kradan… hopefully it will still be like this in a few years, although we have our doubts). We also visited Bangkok (this time we took the days in the capital very calmly) and Ao Nang (ugh, the tourist circus is getting bigger every day there… we’ll tell you more about it later :-p).
It was a great trip, but with Soufi it couldn't have been any other way. We'll always remember the cold Changs, the 5am alarm clock, the coiled snakes, the "they tricked you" and the street fight (with a lock of hair even torn out) between the crepe lady and the upstairs neighbour 😮 (Felipe, every time we meet something strange happens haha).
Yes, Christmas at home. From where we are writing now. Rober in Sigüenza and I in Fagagna. Looking forward to family, relaxation, work, returning to Vera to resume our routines. And to book the next flight as soon as possible. Of course.
