Winter Holidays Guide: Alta Pusteria in the Dolomites

Ski and mountains lovers great news: the ski season is officially opening this weekend! I am personally off to Zermatt to celebrate with friends (the opening weekend of the ski season is always a very festive (and special) moment!). Apparently a perfect storm has just dropped almost 1m of fresh snow over there and it will be sunny again by tomorrow! Full report on this weekend (including our very hot beach themed after-ski party..) next week. In the meantime, I decided to make some posts to present you a few top skiing destinations. Today: the charming region of Alta Pusteria in the Dolomites!

Friday’s Joke… from Tokyo City!

One extremely funny thing I spotted while in Tokyo last month. The “calories counting stairs”.

Strasbourg Christmas Market!

Have you ever been to Strasbourg around Christmas time? If not, you should. It is one of the cutest and most festive place to be at this time of the year. The whole town is sumptuously decorated. Santa Claus, Polar Bears, Elves all dance together around shop windows, Christmas markets are set up a bit everywhere, the Cathedral is illuminated at night and the wonderful perfume of mulled wine regns over the whole city… a magical experience!

Glam Destination: Le Sereno, Saint-Barthelemy

If you are like me totally in a “resort mood” after looking at all these gorgeous light pieces from the new resort collections this week, then it is time for me to present one “dream destination“: the fashionable Sereno Beach Hotel from Saint Barthelemy, in the French Caribbean!

I reached.. the Nirvana of Sushis!

Last night, we went to visit Omotesando, a very hip and trendy area in Tokyo, to try one of the “Kaitenzushi“, a conveyor belt sushi bar. One of the best moment in my life!

How does it work? Well you just sit, fill up your cup of matcha powder and hot water to prepare your green tea (the bar has boiling water tap at each seat..). And watch the dishes go by as you mentally prepare to eat all of them. Each plate is color-coded. Pink was

Japanese Zen Gardens

I flew to Japan right after China (which is the right way to do it.. don’t ever do China after Japan!) Many things amazed me in Japan: their exceptional food traditions, their crazy perspectives on things, their fashion and style (more on this tomorrow) but, the number one thing which amazed me the most, out of everything, was the incredible beauty of the Japanese Zen Gardens.

Dragon Boating through the Summer Palace of China!

Situated in the Haidian District (a short tube journey from Central Beijing), the Summer Palace was the summer residence of the Imperial Family during the hot summer months and is said to be the largest and best-preserved imperial garden in the world.

A Night at the Beijing Opera!

On our last night in China, we decided to slow down a bit on the party side and to go instead check out the world famous Beijing Opera (also called Peking Opera).

Beijing by Night!

Beijing by Night.. is not at all what I was expecting! It is actually very cool. In parallel to the stylished old tea houses (where you can play games and watch puppet theater.. a real “travel back in time” experience), it is full of super cool young and trendy places. One of them is Houhai Lake. The whole lakeshore is full of restaurants and bars with live singers where you can sit, enjoy the music and gaze over the lake to watch the hundreds of floating candles

The Forbidden City of Beijing!

On our 3rd day in Beijing, we decided to travel back in time a little bit and went to visit the Forbidden City! The Forbidden City is the place of the Imperial Palace of the Chinese Empire, which housed Chinese emperors and their household for almost 500 years. Surrounded by a wall 8m high and 6m deep, people did not have the right to leave the palace without the emperors permission! The story of the Forbidden City is full of danger, romance and politics… even better than Gossip Girl.

Beijing Modern Architect – By Night!

On the second night in Beijing, we took a night tour to visit a couple of Beijing‘s most impressive and most talked-about pieces of modern architecture these last years: the Bird’s Nest, the world famous Olympic Stadium (which let me remind you contains 100,000 seats..), the Water Cube, the Olympic Aquatics Center (which in daylight shines as a translucent blue cube but, at night,

Sliding Down the Great Wall of China ;)

Right after arriving in Beijing, we went to visit the Great Wall of China! Lots of heavy climbing and trekking on top (i.e. everything I love really..) but thanksfully, there was a super cool toboggan to go back downhill..

Street Food Market Atrocities in Beijing!

Evening girls! I am now back from my holidays in China and Japan.. and ready to show you some pictures of this quite fun and a-typical trip! To start with (and to keep along the theme of Halloween horrors going on right now..) I thought I’d start by showing you a few of the absolutely incredible things I saw when visiting a a street food market on my first night out in Beijing.. I mean you really have to see it to believe it.. So clearly, this post is only for the strong-hearted ones. If you are sure you want to look (and only if..), click on Continue Reading.. And don’t worry, the trip got more politically correct right after that first night ;) 

Provence Style!

Provence Style: J’adore! ;)

On the Road in Provence!

The other day we took the car for a little road trip through Provence. We visited the “Pont du Gard“, an aqueduct bridge dating back from the Roman Empire which crosses the gorgeous Gardon River, Baux-en-Provence, one of the cutest Provencal village, perched on top of a hill, Daudet’s windmill.. the whole area is crazily beautiful!