Russia has always been a place that I have wanted to go to ever since I was a young child. I was fascinated by how large the country was, not to mention the rich history and famous story of the Russian Revolution. I used to spend hours googling conspiracy theories about Anastasia Romanova, the Russian princess who was supposedly assassinated in the revolution and this summer my family and I finally had the chance to visit St. Petersburg, the cultural capital of the country.

Unlike the other destinations on our Baltic cruise, we actually got two whole days here. Here's what we got up to and 7 things that you can do if you're lucky enough to be able to visit St. Petersburg - enjoy!

1) Visit the State Hermitage Museum

This was our first stop on our trip and it did not disappoint. It's a culture and art museum and is the largest in the world. It was founded in the 18th Century when Empress Catherine the Great acquired many items for her personal collection and it now has over 3 million items - pretty impressive right? It was originally a palace and many events took place in these buildings including balls for the nobility and ceremonies for officials but after the 1917 Revolution was turned into a museum and there are now 5 buildings which make up the 'Hermitage'.

The 'White Hall' in the Winter Palace (pictured below) is absolutely BEAUTIFUL. It's all white (as the name would suggest), and is full of chandeliers and gold details.

2) Drink some Vodka!

What would a trip to Russia be without drinking a little bit of this famous drink? We had our shots with our lunch in between visiting palaces and the jolly Irish man next to me had a biiiiit too much to drink. Fun fact: apparently when the Nazi's surrendered in 1945, the Russians celebrated and partied so hard that the entire country ran out of vodka and Peter the Great (whose palace is listed at number 4) is rumoured to have drunk around 2 litres of the stuff a day... if that's not dedication and a high alcohol tolerance I'm not sure what is!

3) Stroll the halls of Catherines Palace

Our second palace of the trip was Catherine's palace, the royal family's summer residence which has the most beautiful blue exterior the city is famous for. It is absolutely stunning and definitely has more of a palace feel than the Hermitage because that's been converted into a museum.

Think of lavish interiors adorned with gold and an amber room like nothing you've ever seen before. Unfortunately, pictures were prohibited in the amber room, but if you click here you can have a look at it. As with many beautiful places around Europe, the Nazi's destroyed a lot of the palace during WW2, including the amber room, but it was reconstructed in 2003 and is as beautiful as ever.

p.s. This palace isn't technically in the city center, it's around 50 minutes south by car so it's best to book a guided tour.

4) Then go onto Peterhov's Palace

This was our third and final palace of the trip and the exteriors were definitely the most impressive. The palace was built for Peter the Great (the guy who supposedly drank 2 litres of vodka a day) and it has a total of 64 fountains, most or all of which are golden and is known as the 'Russian Versailles' (the historic royal residence in Paris, which is so beautiful if you haven't been you definitely need to go).

p.s. This palace isn't technically in the city center, it's around 50 minutes west by car so it's best to book a guided tour.

5) Eat some Russian food!

There are so many different Russian foods to try, and when you're there you should definitely try some. It can be a little bit of a nightmare for vegetarians or vegans, but I found this soup which had a tomato vegetable base and wheat berries (farro? barley?) which are super popular in Russia - try it! Other stereotypical Russian foods include:

• Borsch / Borscht - a beet and cabbage soup 
• Blini - like a crepe, it's normally made with buckwheat with savory fillings or white flour for sweet fillings
• Pelmeni - Russian dumplings, usually with a meat filling (lamb, pork, beef etc.) 
• Pirozhki - similar to the pelmeni but they're covered in a pastry and even have some sweet fillings
• Beef stroganoff - sautéed beef stew normally with pasta

6) Buy a Matryoshka doll

'Matryoshka', Russian nesting doll or Russian doll are all names given to that famous wooden doll which houses mini versions of it inside itself. The history of the dolls is really interesting - they were originally created (if I remember correctly) to have educational scenes on them, about farm life etc. or fairytales and it wasn't until much later when they became world-famous and highly sought after items with all sorts of images on them. You can get cheaper, machine-made versions for around $5 or they literally go up to hundreds or even thousands like the ones below which are handmade and hand painted.

7) Take a look at the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood

In the typical Russian Orthodox style, this church is absolutely beautiful and filled with mosaics in its interior. The streets towards it are lined with tourist shops and it is a tourist trap however, if you walk a little further you can walk by the canal which is really pretty.

A couple of Travel Tips for Russia

• When I was there I found that not many people spoke English so either learn a bit of Russian before you go or get good old Google Translate out. Don't be an ignorant tourist!
• Russia isn't in the EU so visas are important
• Russia doesn't use euros (see point above), they use rubles (try to find a trustworthy ATM machine before you go)

Other Stops on our Baltic Cruise:

Montmartre. You have probably heard of it as a place of the artists, where Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh had studios and where the infamous whimsical movie Amélie was set.

The 18th arrondissement is one of the most diverse in Paris, with some of the most beautiful sights in the city located in 'the village' (the area that I will be focusing on here), and with some more ethnically diverse areas such as Château Rouge.

Historically, Montmartre was simply a quiet village on the outskirts of Paris - it only became part of the city in 1860 and apartments here are generally larger and cheaper than other areas of the city (or at least they used to be). This is why so many artists lived and breathed here, because it was cheaper, and probably because the winding little cobblestone streets and the beautiful view of Paris were sources of inspiration for them.

When I first moved to Paris I lived in the cutest flat in Montmartre. During my time there I got to spend quite a lot of time wandering the streets and soaking in the atmosphere. You get a real village feel here and although it's now very touristy, it's definitely worth visiting to see a bit of the 'classic' Paris that is always portrayed in films.

Things to Do and See in Montmartre

Visit the Sacré-Coeur 

Finished in 1914, the Sacré-Coeur is a Roman Catholic church which is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It's a popular landmark which is on butte Montmartre, the highest point in Paris which you can see clearly from some parts of the city - particularly when you climb to the top of the Arc de Triomphe.

Entrance to the church is free, unless you want to climb up to the very top and into the dome in which case it's under 10 euros.

Sit on the Steps and Watch the Sunset 

The view from the Sacré-Coeur is absolutely incredible. It's a little hard to spot the Eiffel Tower from here, but if you go all the way to the right (if your back is to the church), you should be able to spot it over Paris' rooftops.

Watch the artists at Place du Tertre

This whole square is full of colourful artists sat at their stalls on the cobblestone streets. This open-air art gallery is full of locals and (mostly) tourists, surrounded by buildings straight out of the 1900s: restaurants, crêperies and cafés. If you want a real souvenir from Paris, have your portrait drawn.

Stumble across la Maison Rose

This is probably the cutest little house in the whole of Montmartre, if not Paris. The romantic rose coloured walls and the cobblestone streets on either side of it make for the most picturesque scene, apparently Picasso spent quite a lot of time here!

It's a café and a restaurant but I have never been inside - every time I walked past it was shut. According to google it's 'permanently closed'(???) but according to a couple of people it was overpriced, mediocre/bad food anyway so stick to admiring it from the outside.

Location: 2 rue de l'Abreuvoir

Visit the Musée de Montmartre

Now a museum, 12 rue Cortot was where many artists lived including August Renoir, Suzanne Valadon and Émile Bernard. The permanent collection includes paintings, posters and drawings which show Montmartre's history. You can also take a look into an artistic studio-apartment and there is even a whole room dedicated to the can can in the museum. Full price entry is under 11 euros. For opening times please visit their website (here) as this varies seasonally.

Location: 12 rue Cortot

Go take a look at le mur des je t'aime 

The love wall! "I love you" is written 311 times in 250 languages. Apparently, the red bits on the wall represent a heart that's been broken, all the pieces together form a perfectly shaped heart - how sweet!

Location: Square Jehan-Rictus

Where to Eat and Drink

I don't have that many recommendations for traditional French food, for that you'll have to stroll the streets and you'll stumble across something for sure - Montmartre is full of traditional French cafés and restaurants, how cute and quintessential is the restaurant in the picture below?! Here are some places that are a little bit different that you are less likely to stumble upon.

Brunch & Lunch: Hardware Société 

The Hardware Société is, in my opinion, hands down the best brunch place in Paris. In fact, it only serves brunch - a restaurant dedicated to brunch. The restaurant was originally opened in Melbourne, Australia and made its way to Paris earlier last year, incorporating both Australian and French breakfast favourites into their menu.

They have it all: eggs, croissants (which come with incredible jam from la chambre aux confitures), bircher muesli, pain perdu, duck, salmon - you name it. The dishes are indulgent and should be savoured with every bite - the pain perdu that I had was raspberry and passion fruit flavoured and was honestly the best french toast I have ever had. If you would like to read more on the restaurant please click here. A lovely place to eat if you are not set on eating something traditionally French - although I'm sure that pain perdu counts?!

10 rue Lamarck, 75018 Paris
Monday, Thursday & Friday: 9am - 4pm; Saturday & Sunday: 9.30am - 4.30pm (closed Tuesday & Wednesday)

Rooftop bar: Terrass-Hotel

This is a great rooftop bar if you want to have a spectacular view of Paris, including a view of the Eiffel Tower. Drinks are somewhat on the expensive side, but that is to be expected due to the location, view and vibe up there! During summer it is very, very popular so try to get there early-ish to avoid queueing. They also have a restaurant if you would prefer to dine up there.

12-14 rue Joseph de Maistre, 75018
The bar is open every day from 3.30pm until 1am

Secret bar & restaurant: Hotel Particulier Montmartre 

Perhaps not a traditional 'secret bar', this establishment is a whole secret hotel with both a bar and a restaurant which is probably one of my favourite places in Paris. Walk up to the gates and press the intercom, stating that you're there for the bar. Walk down the little passageway and on your left you should see a beautiful private courtyard adorned with greenery, but make sure to spot a view of the Eiffel Tower before you go in. Then proceed to spend hours in the serene garden, drinking copious amounts of wine.

23 avenue Junot, 75018 Paris
Every day, 6pm - 2am

How to Get to Montmartre

• Metro line 12: Abbesses
• Metro line 2: Anvers

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Estonia is a small country in Eastern Europe, along the Baltic coast. Tallinn, its capital, is extremely rich in history and its first settlements date back to over 5,000 years ago. Although we didn't see anything that was 5,000 years old, Tallinn is one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe, full of winding cobblestone streets and beautiful buildings, including a medieval pharmacy! It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site as well as being dubbed the 'European Silicon Valley' - it has the most startups per person in Europe and is where Skype was born... bet you didn't know that!

This was another one of our stops on our Baltic cruise so once again we only had around 6 hours to explore... luckily for us the city isn't that big so we got to see quite a lot of it. Here are 8 things that you should do if you're lucky enough to go to Tallinn, Estonia - enjoy!

1) Visit the Raekoja plats, Tallinn's Town Square

This beautiful square is the perfect place to start your visit to Tallinn. Bordered with little houses, the town square dates back to at least the 14th Century and is often home to the cutest little market stalls.

2) Find Tallinn's Old City Walls

Tallinn used to be a medieval fort. The city walls were originally 2.4km long and it's so well preserved that there is still 1.9km of it, complete with 20 observation towers.
They're pretty easy to find and will pop up when you're walking around the city... some of them even have some interesting names such as Fat Margaret and Kiek in de Kök, which is where you can learn all about Tallinn's defence history.

The picture of the statue of the soldier with the Danish flag is supposedly where the Danish flag was born.
Legend has it that the Danish were almost about to lose during battle (in 1219) when a flag dropped from the skies which the King then used it as a sign from heaven to lift his troops and lead them to victory.

3) Visit Saint Nicholas' Church

4) and then head to the St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

5) Get carried away with the Medieval things that Tallinn has to offer

In case you haven't already read, Tallinn is a medieval city and it is full of little stalls, shops and cafés etc. which play on this. These are most likely mainly for tourists, however it is charming, interesting and very different from what I have seen.

6) Buy some Powdered Unicorn horn at Raeapteek, Tallinn's Medieval Pharmacy

Continuing on with the medieval theme you will find all sorts of quirkiness at Tallinn's medieval pharmacy, powdered unicorn horn being one of them. The pharmacy is one of Europe's oldest and is definitely worth a visit.

The pharmacy sells not only mementos of the past, but also modern medicine in case you need to pick anything up on your trip there.

Make sure to walk all the way through to the room at the back where you will find lots of different little bottles and vials containing everything and anything you could imagine (which all comes from the 17th to 20th centuries).

7) Go up to the Toompea Loss, Toompea Castle

8) Take in the Beauty of the City from Toompea Hill

From Toompea Hill you can look over at pretty much the whole of Tallinn, from the old city walls and the medieval churches complete with red roofs and spires to the newer parts of Tallinn also known as the 'European Silicon Valley'.



Whatever your reason for visiting Tallinn, I hope that you have a wonderful time. And remember, if you come across any chimney sweeps dressed in the traditional dress, make sure to touch their brass buttons... it brings good luck!

Other stops on our Baltic cruise:

• Copenhagen, Denmark
• Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm is the capital of Sweden and the most populated city in the Nordic countries. It is actually a little bit unusual - it stretches itself over 14 different islands which meet the Baltic sea.

My family and I actually lived here for three years when I was a very young child (my brother was born here) and they have been wanting to go back to show us around ever since we left. This was the second stop on our Baltic cruise, so once again we didn't have that long to explore, but luckily my brother and I had two personal tour guides with us who were very familiar with the city: our parents! This is what they recommended us to do so that we could make the most of our day in Stockholm.

1) Stroll around the Gamla Stan 

Gamla Stan means 'old town' in Swedish and it is one of the largest and best preserved medieval city centres in Europe. Lined with little shops and restaurants, the narrow winding cobblestone streets and beautiful colourful houses are picture perfect - Stortorget is the famous square which you will have undoubtedly seen pictures of (the second picture below).

The Gamla Stan is home to many beautiful churches and museums including the cathedral and the Nobel Museum. It is also home to the Royal Palace which is one of the largest in the world (over 600 rooms), but we will get into that later down the list (scroll down to #5). Naturally, the district is known to be touristy and is therefore full of tourist shops, however there are less-touristy areas of the Gamla Stan so it is worth strolling through the streets and getting lost for a while.

2) As always, try local food!

Swedish Kanelbullar (Cinnamon Roll)

If you, like me, love cinnamon rolls you should definitely try a traditional Swedish kanelbullar. Sweet, doughy and (if you're lucky) warm straight out of the oven, this pastry is one of Sweden's favourites. It's not hard to see why -  they even have a day dedicated to the popular sugary treat called Kanelbullens Dag. It's on the 4th of October and Swedish bakeries sell around three times as much of them as usual on the day!

All things Lax (Salmon)

Lax, aka salmon, is one of the nation's favourite foods and I'm sure that you have all heard of gravlax, a Nordic dish which is raw salmon cured in salt, sugar and dill. There are many wild salmon rivers in Sweden and if you like the fish you should try one of their dishes when you're here. The salmon is super fresh, yummy, full of Omega 3s and my brother and I were practically raised on it when we lived in Sweden as young kids.

3) See the world's best preserved historic warship at the Vasa Museum 

If you make your way to the Vasa Museum you will have the possibility to see a 17th Century warship. 98% of the original ship is still there today. Why? Because the ship sank in the harbour only 30 minutes after it set sail. Yep, you read that right. 30 minutes after it set sail.

So here's the story: the 17th Century was a period of great power for Sweden. Gustav Arnov the 2nd was very ambitious, successful and had great plans for his country and the Vasa was commissioned with two other ships in 1625 as Gustav wanted to strengthen his fleet against Poland.

The King wanted a royal warship for himself which is where the Vasa came in. She was a bigger, more ornate ship and carried more canons which were a symbol of opulence and power. When finished, she was 69 metres long and weighed 1200 tonnes when fully loaded. She carried 64 canons spread across 2 gun decks which was a huge amount for the time. After 2 and a half years, the Vasa was finished and it was time for the King's ship to set sail.


This was quite an event for Sweden and many people gathered at the harbour to watch her set sail. What essentially happened is that as the ship sailed out to sea, there were a series of large gusts of wind which made their way through the ship entering via the canon portholes. The number of canons and portholes on the ship paired with some badly calculated measurements meant that the Vasa capsized, after having sailed less than one mile out of the harbour.

The King was in Poland fighting the war at the time and, as you can imagine, was less than pleased to find out about what had happened (via letter)! He wanted someone to pay for the embarrassment but in the end no one was prosecuted as everyone kept blaming it on someone else. Rather conveniently, the blame was finally placed on Henrik Hybertsson who was the original master shipbuilder (and long since dead and buried).

Honestly this was just a summary of what happened - the museum is fascinating and our tour guide (included in the price of a ticket) was excellent. Very knowledgeable and told the story in such an interesting way. (p.s. These pictures don't quite do it justice but this ship is massive, you must see it in real life - highly recommend!)

4) Buy a Dala Horse

I'm sure that at some point you have seen the image of the Swedish horse - especially if you have ever shopped at IKEA (who hasn't!?). The famous wooden horses that we see today were originally sold in the 17th Century at markets in small towns and villages in Dalarna, in the middle of Sweden. A few hundred years later the wooden horses were carved by men who worked in the Swedish forests and were brought back to the village children so that they could play with them.

It actually wasn't until the World Exhibition in NYC in the 1930s that the wooden horse became world-famous, becoming a symbol for Sweden. The most famous Dala horse is red, however nowadays you have many different types and colours depending on the region that they are from. Don't be surprised at the price of the horses - a lot of them are handmade products, however you can find cheaper "Made in China" ones in many of the tourist shops.

5) Stroll the halls of the Royal Palace

Otherwise known as the Stockholms slott or Kungliga slottet in Swedish, the Royal Palace is one of the largest palaces in the world with over 600 rooms. There are many beautiful reception rooms as well as interesting museums which showcase royal costumes and armour. It is in the Gamla Stan (#1 on this list) and the offices of the King and other members of the Swedish Royal Family are situated here.

If you don't want to visit the inside of the Palace you could always witness the changing of the guard which happens at the entrance (around noon/1pm, don't miss out)!

6) Walk alongside the harbour 

Once again, such a beautiful part of the city. We actually stopped to have lunch here at a restaurant called Kajplats 18 - I would highly recommend it. Really delicious food (fresh salmon), lovely exterior decoration and reasonable prices. Please remember that Sweden is very expensive!




Stockholm was absolutely beautiful and the food was delicious - if a city has beautiful buildings and equally as beautiful food I'm a pretty happy girl. It was also really sweet to hear my parents reminisce about life 20 years ago when we were in nappies and pushchairs. If you ever get the chance to go to Stockholm, definitely go! Although I would probably recommend waiting until it's a bit warmer in the Spring/Summer months, otherwise you will be met with ice cold winds and piles of snow which are probably best to be avoided... although to each their own!