TRAVEL GUIDE: Our Honeymoon at Sandals Royal Barbados

      I'm so excited to share a recap of our wonderful honeymoon! Ryan and I went to Barbados the week after our wedding for five nights. Neither of us had been to Barbados or stayed at a Sandals Resort before. We ended up really enjoying both the resort and the island, and I have the most fond memories from this special trip. 

HOTEL GUIDE: Royalton Bavaro Resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

      My dad and I kicked off the month of June by taking a dad/daughter trip to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic! We stayed at the Royalton Bavaro, which is a large all-inclusive beach resort. Years ago, my dad and I spent two of my college spring breaks together in another part of the Dominican Republic (read about that HERE), but we had never stayed at a resort right in Punta Cana before now. 

IRELAND TRAVEL GUIDE: Insight Vacations Irish Elegance Tour Recap.

      I'm excited to finally be recapping the full itinerary of the Ireland trip that my mom and I did in May 2022! We experienced two and a half years of cancellations for this trip, first from my mom having a medical emergency and then for the pandemic. May 2022 was finally our time! I've blogged so far about the nicest hotel that we stayed at in Ireland, a full guide to all of the other hotels we stayed at, and an outfit diary of what I wore on the trip. Now it's finally time to recap the trip in full! I was taking a break from blogging for most of last spring and summer, and as you can see, I'm still playing catch-up from some of the blog posts I wanted to write in 2022.

      We traveled with Insight Vacations for their Irish Elegance tour, and I'll be recapping all of it for you today!

HOTEL GUIDE: All the Hotels We Stayed at in Ireland

       Last spring, my mom and I finally got to take a much-awaited trip to Ireland! We had experienced two and a half years of trip cancellations, first from my mom having a medical emergency and then for the pandemic. May 2022 was finally our time! Now it's finally time to recap the trip in full! I was taking a break from blogging for most of last spring and summer, and as you can see, I'm still playing catch-up from some of the blog posts I wanted to write in 2022.

      I realized that my full Ireland Travel Guide blog post was going to be very long, so I did a poll on Instagram to ask if y'all would prefer one really long post, or two separate blog posts- one about hotels we stayed in on the trip and our tour itinerary day-by-day. More people voted for two posts, so that's what I'm doing. For today's first post, I'll be recapping and reviewing all four of the hotels that we stayed at in Ireland as part of our Insight Vacations Irish Elegance Tour. I'll be sure to link this post for anyone to refer back to when I share the tour itinerary later on! 

HOTEL GUIDE: A Luxurious 24 Hour Stay at Ashford Castle in Ireland.

       In May 2022, my mom and I finally got to take a trip that we had patiently been waiting two and a half years for! We did the Irish Elegance tour with Insight Vacations and spent a full week exploring various regions of Ireland. I will be doing a full recap of our whole trip soon, but first I wanted to do a dedicated blog post for what was not only the best hotel of the trip, but one of the best hotels I've ever stayed at in my life. Spending 24 hours at Ashford Castle was a dream come true, and I am excited to share it with you!

Oh, The Places I Didn't Go (in 2020)!

      Can you believe that my word of the year for 2020 was "wander"? HAHA right! Boy, God must've had a good laugh when I picked that as my 2020 mantra. 😊2020 was the year I had the most PTO I'd ever had in my career thus far, my first year without any student loans, and I had just moved into an apartment with a roommate again in 2019, so I was saving money each month on my living expenses compared to the last couple years. All this to say- I was ready to TRAVEL! And travel I did, for February at least. After March... well, you know the rest!

MONTREAL TRAVEL GUIDE: 24 Hours in MTL Itineraries.

     Montreal is one of Canada's culture-rich gems, and I'm so excited to be sharing a little travel guide to this city here on Southern Belle in Training today!

    Growing up in Maine, I was lucky to travel to the province of Quebec for long weekend trips several times during my childhood, and later high school years. Quebec City is about 6-ish hours from where I grew up in Southern Maine, and Montreal about the same. My mom's side of the family is of French Canadian descent, and I studied French in grade school as well, so I always enjoyed visiting these cities in Canada with my family and getting to see a bit of my heritage. 

       It had been a few years since I'd been anywhere in Quebec when I moved to Vermont, but one thing that I was very excited about with this move was being so close to Montreal! Montreal is just under two hours away from Burlington. It's very doable for a day trip, but if you are able to spend a weekend there you can do so much! My former roommate Ciera was here visiting earlier in July, and I was able to arrange my work schedule for us to spend a night together in Montreal. Originally we were mainly going up there for a concert, but that unfortunately ended up getting cancelled and rescheduled (for this fall) the day of! Since we didn't end up having a show to see, we were able to cram a lot into our 24 hours north of the border!


     Something to keep in mind- you do of course need a passport to visit Montreal! If you're from Vermont of a handful of other states with the Enhanced License program, you can also cross the border by land with your Enhanced Driver's License (which I now have). However- not all states offer an Enhanced License, so be sure to check on what you have and make sure your passport is valid before planning your trip! 

Stay:

     My dad kindly booked our hotel stay at the Residence Inn Marriott Montreal Downtown! Ciera loved the hotel... I thought it had a few pros and also a few cons. Pros: GREAT location! Very walkable to a lot of the downtown attractions, and it was located near several safe residential neighborhoods as well. This hotel also had one of the best free breakfast buffets that I've ever seen! The selection of food was unbelievable, and everything was so delicious. Our room itself was a full suite and even included a mini kitchen, so it was definitely more than big enough for the two of us!

     One major con to this hotel for me though were some serious noise issues. I was awoken at 3 am from a large group of people shouting in the hallway outside our room and slamming their doors. When that noise finally calmed down, someone in the room above us started showering (despite it being 3:30 am?), and the pipes/shower sound was so loud that I couldn't fall back asleep until that all ended. Ciera is a really deep sleeper so she slept through everything, but even after putting earplugs in I was still bothered by the hall noise and the shower sounds from upstairs. I'm not sure I'd want to stay here again after dealing with the noise, but the location, room itself, and breakfast were all great, so if you're a deep sleeper (or bring earplugs and a white noise machine 😉) you could love this hotel!

Eat:

     Being the second largest city in Canada and the largest in the province of Quebec, Montreal has no shortage of delicious food options! Coming from Vermont, where ethnic food options can be few and far between, I like to take advantage of diversity in restaurant choices when I travel! Here are just a few tasty suggestions:


     Bier Markt (1221 Rene-Levesque Blvd. W): If you're looking for beer and Belgian food, this is your destination! I actually ate here with my friend Mercedes when we were in Montreal for an evening a couple months ago for a concert. This restaurant is just a couple of blocks away from the Bell Centre, so it's a great choice for a pre-show or pre-game meal if you're in town to catch an event at the Bell Centre. Bier Market is not surprisingly known for their vast beer selection, but they also have a pretty big menu of Canadian, American, and of course Belgian favorites! I decided to branch out and tried fondue while I was there, and I really enjoyed it!


     Nos Thes (1609 Saint-Catherine St. W): This is a Taiwanese restaurant and tea bar! I am obsessed with most Asian foods, and especially love bubble tea. It's one of my favorite treats to try and find when I travel. Nos Thes did not disappoint! Ciera and I found this place when we were strolling along Saint-Catherine Street, right around the time that we were ready for an afternoon pick-me-up. She ordered a bubble tea, and I had a strawberry bubble tea. We took them to go, and both were just fantastic! The atmosphere of the restaurant part of Nos Thes was very cute and modern- I'm sure it's a great place to enjoy a full meal also.


     3 Amigos (1657 Saint-Catherine St. W): Montreal is probably not a city that you would associate with Mexican food... however Vermont has a real lack of authentic Mexican food, so when Ciera and I walked by this delightful looking restaurant, I knew that my quesadilla cravings needed to be satisfied! We ate there on a weeknight, and it was actually very busy! Both the indoor and outdoor seating areas were bustling. Ciera and I were both so impressed with the food. Both of our entrees were delicious (not surprisingly, I ordered a quesadilla!), and we also split a small pitcher of sangria, which was refreshing and the perfect summer drink. However, we were not impressed with the service. 3 Amigos seemed to be very understaffed for the amount of patrons that they had eating there that night, and our dinner experience took almost two hours. Near the end of the meal, our waiter seemed to forget about bringing the bill to our table, and that is always a frustrating experience. I would definitely recommend this restaurant for the food, but try and go when it's not as busy!


      Tim Hortons: Basically the Dunkin' Donuts of Canada! Is it even a trip North of the Border if you haven't gone here? I had to ensure that Ciera tried her first Tim Hortons during our 24 hours in the city, and there are no shortage of Tim Hortons in Montreal to pick from!

Play:


      I cannot stress enough that there is SO much to do in Montreal! It is definitely a great destination to visit. As I wrote earlier, Montreal is the second largest city in Canada. Its population is actually similar to Houston or Chicago, making it much larger than a lot of Americans think. I had also been to Montreal with my mom when I was in high school, so I'll be sharing some ideas of things to do from what I did during that trip as well! There are so many fun options that you'll want to stay for much more than 24 hours, so if you only do have one night you'll have a hard time deciding what to do! 😉
   

     Explore the Underground City (RESO): Montreal has one of the largest "underground cities" in the world. Meaning that in addition to their metro system, they have tons of other things underneath the city! Everything from malls to restaurants to nightclubs, and even a library! Montreal's underground network is called RESO, and it is 32 km in length. Ciera and I didn't have a chance to go into RESO at all in our overnight trip, but there really is so much to see below ground as well! My mom and I explored a little of this when I went in high school. I think this would be a great thing to explore if you are visiting Montreal during the harsh winters! This website has some great information about Montreal's Underground.


      St. Lawrence River Cruise: This was something else that my mom and I did on our trip several years ago. I love boats and being on water, but I do get seasick so it's hard for me to be on boats in the ocean. That's why I jump on any chance I get to be on boats in rivers or lakes, as there is much less chance of seasickness! Doing a daytime river cruise up and down the St. Lawrence River was such a fun way to take in the Montreal skyline, and enjoy a beautiful day (My mom and I went in mid-August). Here is the website with information about river cruises!


      See a concert or hockey game at the Bell Centre: This was the reason behind my two recent trips to Montreal! Vermont doesn't have any large concert venues, so Montreal is the closest destination to see large-scale shows. A big pro to buying concert tickets in Montreal is the current Canadian-American dollar exchange- it's currently in our favor, so you will save about 20-30% buying concert tickets to see your favorite artist in Canada vs. what you would pay in the US! And if you're more of a hockey fan, you can catch a home game for the Montreal Canadiens during hockey season!


     Shopping on Saint-Catherine Street: I love shopping when I travel. Not just because I love to shop, but because I really think checking out a city or town's local mall or shopping district gives you such a feel for the area! Plus, it's always fun to find some local treasures or new stores that you don't have in your home area. Anyways, Montreal's main shopping street, Rue Saint-Catherine, does not disappoint! You can find everything here, from Canadian department stores, luxurious international brands, familiar American stores, to bargain chains. It's a hub of all kinds of good shopping, with a true city chic feel! When we found out our concert was cancelled, Ciera and I spent most of our night shopping and exploring Saint-Catherine. She picked up some goodies at Canadian store Roots, and I was delighted to find a big location for one of my favorite stores, Zara!

     Visit the Montreal Botanical Gardens (and Biodome!): I am a lover of visiting botanical gardens. It might actually seem a bit ironic as I have approximately 0% of a green thumb myself and tend to kill any plants that I come into contact with, but I definitely appreciate beautiful plans, and love visiting gardens that are full of them! Out of all the botanical gardens that I've been to, the Montreal Botanical Gardens are by far the most fantastic! My mom and I first visited there on our trip several years ago, and I knew that Ciera and I had to go back to explore this amazingly beautiful place. The Montreal Botanical Gardens features over 20 different themed gardens, and is recognized as one of North America's best gardens. If you do only one thing in this whole travel guide, make this the stop that you visit! I promise it will not let you down. Also located very close to the Botanical Gardens is the famous Montreal Biodome. This is a unique nature-based museum that features replicas of four different ecosystems. I did visit the Biodome on my past visit to Montreal and it was great as well, but if you're only in the city for a short time and don't have time for both, I would recommend the Botanical Gardens over the Biodome (if the weather is good!).

   
      And that concludes my 24 hours in Montreal travel guide! I am hoping to make even more trips to explore Montreal while I still live in Vermont! Being just under two hours away from this city definitely is a great perk of living in Burlington.



     To finish off today's post- I have a little blog survey about upcoming travel content which I would be so grateful if you could take! I promise it will take less than five minutes to complete! 😊 I want to make sure that you're all finding the travel content that I write to be interesting and beneficial. Before starting travel posts about my new home in Vermont and some new posts about my hometown in Maine, I would love to hear your thoughts on what type of travel content you would and wouldn't like to see here on Southern Belle in Training! Here is the link to the survey- thank you in advance!!



     God Bless,



     xoxo Annaliese (or Charlotte XO on the radio!)

Italy's Hidden Gem: The Amazing Colors of Burano.

     

   Over the past four and a half years of blogging, there's been a lot of blog posts that I've been excited to share with y'all. (Expanding on that - if I'm not excited to share a post, why even share it right?) But out of the hundreds of blog posts.... this might really be the one I've been MOST excited to share! These pictures were taken in a place that can only be described as an Instagrammer's ultimate dream come true. 

Photography by my mom 😊

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Southern Belle in Training.

Sweater {old, similar here} // Jeans // Shoes // Purse {this style not online, similar here} // Pom Pom c/o // Earrings {old, similar here} // Necklace {Christmas gift, similar here} // Scarf {from street vendor in Italy, similar here} // Lipstick 

      I consider myself to be a self proclaimed geography nerd, so I was SHOCKED upon beginning our tour to learn that I didn't actually know where in Italy the island of Burano was! I had heard of this colorful little place before, but I'd always thought it was in the Amalfi Coast, near Capri. That is the one region of Italy that our tour didn't venture near, so I just assumed this wouldn't be a place I'd get to visit on this trip to Europe. Imagine my surprise to learn that Burano is actually an island off of the main islands of the city of Venice in northeastern Italy, and was easily accessible as a day trip from Venice. And Venice was the last stop on our tour! Burano itself is a small island with few restaurants and hotels, so most tourists opt to stay in Venice and make a day trip out like our tour group did. 

      Our tour guide organized a day trip excursion to Burano, where we traveled by boat to the island, and then our entire group had a late lunch of local seafood cuisine at a restaurant there. We only had a couple hours in Burano, and unfortunately most of the time seemed to be taken up in the restaurant! I asked my mom if we could cut out of the lunch a little bit early so that we would have more time to explore. Burano and its beautiful colored buildings are a once in a lifetime experience, and I didn't want to spend the majority of my time there in a restaurant. 

     We had maybe 20 minutes to ourselves to explore, and we walked down one of the first streets that we came upon, which is where these photos were taken. As we walked down the sidewalk, following the canal, I was so in awe of how beautiful each house was! Each one became more beautiful and vibrant in color than the last! We didn't have much time at all, but I was able to get a few outfit pictures, and then my mom and I both took the rest of the time to take scenic shots. 

     .... I mean, how BEAUTIFUL?! Below, I had some fun playing with the colors and edits on a few of my Burano photos. 

      

     Despite the fact that our time in Burano was way too short, and that it was a bit cold and cloudy on our day there, this was by far the highlight of my time in Italy! I didn't think anything could beat visiting the spots from the Lizzie McGuire movie... but I guess I was wrong! I only hope that I'll be lucky enough to return to Burano someday!

     Thank you so much for following along with all of my Italy blog posts! I feel so blessed and lucky to have gone on such a memorable adventure before moving to Vermont and starting my new job (in which I don't get much vacation time for my first year at work!). 

     God Bless,

     xoxo Annaliese (or Charlotte XO on the radio!)

      

Visiting Italy With Insight Vacations (And My Florence + Venice Photo Diary).

     Today I am beginning to wrap up my blog posts from my March trip to Italy with my mom! As I previously mentioned, we chose to travel to Italy through Insight Vacations tour group instead of going completely on our own. This was not our first time traveling to Europe with a tour company- back in 2013 both of my parents and I went to the UK over the holidays on a tour with Trafalgar, which I believe is a sister company to Insight.

      Since tour groups are a unique way of vacationing to a foreign country (or even in the US- many tour companies do offer domestic vacations as well!), I thought I would use today's post to talk a bit our experience with seeing Italy via Insight Vacations, how it compared to our Trafalgar experience in 2013, and if I would do another tour in the future. (Just to clarify- our vacation and this blog post isn't sponsored/comped at all by either of these companies! I just want to give an honest review of our vacation experience for y'all.)


      I'm also going to be sharing a lot of my favorite photos from Florence and Venice, the other cities that we visited in Italy! We were in Rome the longest so I was able to write a detailed travel guide blog post, but since we were only in Florence and Venice for a couple days each and most of our time was spent on guided activities, I don't have too many recommendations for those cities to share. But I still wanted to share all of my photos!

     And if you would like to catch up on my previous Italy blog posts, check out:

• Rome Outfit: Floral Midi Skirt
• 4 Places to Visit in Rome From The Lizzie McGuire Movie
• Navy and White Outfit in Florence
• TRAVEL GUIDE: Rome, Italy

      The Insight Vacations Italy tour that my mom and I went on was called Easy Pace Italy. "Easy Pace" meant that this tour offered more free time and more optional excursions then some of their other tours, so that you feel more in control of your vacation. (To compare: the Trafalgar tour that my family did in 2013 was NOT easy pace. Most excursions were mandatory, we had to be on the tour bus most mornings by 6 am, and there were many long days of travel in the bus.) Our Italy tour focused on three cities: Rome, Florence and Venice. There were also day trips and rest stops in other Italian cities and towns, including Pisa, Verona and the amazing island of Burano (I'll be sharing photos from there in Monday's post!).

     Rome was the city that we were in the longest, and we chose to fly in an extra day early as well to kill of jet lag, so we really had a full taste of Rome. Next we headed to Florence and lastly Venice, and we were in each of those cities for three days. Below are a few photos from Pisa, which was one of our first day trips! We stopped there en route from Rome to Florence.

      Immediately one of the biggest pros of traveling to Italy with a tour group that I can think of is the added feeling of security. It's no secret that safety is currently a top concern with destinations all over the world, but especially so right now in Europe. If you travel with a tour group, your guide will be a local (or at least very well seasoned visitor) to the regions that you're traveling through, so that if God forbid there is a threat to security or some sort of attack, you will be able to find some sort of safety amongst your group instead of just fending for yourself in a foreign country. The added safety bonus applies to smaller situations too, such as pick pockets! Theft is a huge concern in Italy, and I always felt more secure when visiting the museums and monuments to know that I was in a tour group with local guides rather than just my mom and I fending for ourselves (where we would probably still out like sore thumbs so badly as Americans!).

      Another big pro of traveling to a foreign country with a tour group is for some of the benefits related to excursions and day trips. For one, your tour guide will organize visits to places that you might never have thought to see on your own. The above picture is from when my mom and I got to visit an Italian winery and attend a wine tasting (which was in the same day that we went to Pisa, en route from Rome to Florence), which is something that was super fun, but my mom and I probably wouldn't have done on our own if we were in Italy without a tour group!
     And as far as visiting major attractions- being there with a tour company will help speed up the process majorly! At many of the museums and historical sights that we visited, such as the Colosseum in Rome and Galleria d'ell Academia in Florence (where the famous David sculpture is), our tour guide had already pre-purchased tickets for the whole group, so all 40+ of us were able to bypass the long lines that many tourists were stuck in.

     Above are a few photos from museums and sightseeing during our days in Florence! A highlight of Florence for my mom was getting to spend time during our free day in the city visiting the famous Uffizzi museum, which is one of the best art museums in the world for renaissance art.
     The last and most important pro that I can think about to traveling abroad with Insight Vacations or another tour company is for the relationships that you make with other travelers on your tour! This didn't happen quite as much on my family's UK trip a few years ago, but my mom and I got very lucky and had the nicest tour companions and tour guide on our Italy trip. We made new friends from all over the US and all over the world! Our tour guide, Julie, was absolutely fantastic, and she knew so much about Italian culture.

 
    As far as cons to traveling with a tour company, there are a few. I definitely think the pros outweigh the cons - at least for the needs that my mom and I were looking for in our Italy trip! But I will still be honest and address the few cons anyways.

      Since a tour is a a more expensive price up front (since you're paying for lodging, ground transportation, some meals, and most excursions), you will feel more compelled to take advantage of everything offered since it a lot of it was prepaid for, and probably not cheap! I was actually not crazy about all of the meals that were included on our trip. A lot of the restaurants that our whole group ate at for dinners a few of the nights of the trip did not have the best food, which was disappointing. My favorite meals in Italy were definitely the ones in smaller restaurants that my mom and I discovered ourselves. One group meal was a pizza dinner in Florence... and the pizza was terrible. I hate saying that since I was in Italy and Italian pizza is supposed to be the best in the world (and I did have the best pizza in the world in Rome!), but in this case it was just not good food! Of course the company and conversation was enjoyable since we were with our whole group, but on repeated occasions I remember not enjoying the food at restaurants that were apart of group dinners.

     Another con is that on travel days, your time is very constrained to the group agenda. Most of the travel days have a very early start, and the only thing that I remember being very frustrated with in Italy is that I kept trying to rest in the bus, but every time that I was just on the verge of napping, we would arrive at a rest stop and our tour director would ask everyone to get off the bus so that the bus driver could also rest. (Which is totally valid! There were just a lot of rest stops so it was impossible to rest  much on the bus). Since our Italy trip was considered easy pace though, we only had a couple of long travel days. When my parents and I went to the UK, the focus of the trip was seeing England and Scotland in as short of a time as possible, so a lot of that trip was spent on the tour bus.


     Alright - I think about sums up the rest of our Italy trip! I have one more blog post for the trip about a very special day trip excursion that my mom and I got to go on... that post will be live on Monday! (As well as all of the video that I filmed while there that I need to find the time to edit into vlogs... hopefully I can do that soon!)


     Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to email me if you have any specific questions!


      God Bless,



      xoxo Annaliese (or Charlotte XO on the radio!)