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Rome in 48 Hours: Where to Stay & What to Sightsee

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In December of 2018 I was lucky enough to get last minute cheap flights to Rome when Ryanair launched a sale. I travelled to Rome for two days with my mum and sister, and we definitely managed to pack that time and get our value for money.

Where to Stay:

Before travelling we were given a piece of advice  – don’t stay near the main train station, stay in the area near the Pantheon instead. Honestly, this made our trip. We were within walking distance of so much culture, food and shopping. The Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain were both under a 10 minute walk, there are restaurants and cafés everywhere, and its just a very nice area to walk around.

There is also a metro station in this area so you can get to any other places you want to go very easily.

We stayed in a lovely little Airbnb – it was a mini “hotel” with a few large rooms, and breakfast vouchers for a nearby cafe included as we were the first guests and they weren’t fully set up yet for breakfast.

 

Sightseeing:

There’s so much to do with your time in Rome. I already mentioned the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon – both of these are definitely places to have a wander, but you wouldn’t spend a whole afternoon there.

If you’re in Rome obviously the Colosseum is a must. There are student deals offered here, and entrance into the Colosseum will also get you into the Roman Forum. If you’re looking for the best place to get pictures, halfway around there’s a platform where you can see the whole place and it’s perfectly symmetrical and balanced.

Inside there’s also a lot of information about the history of the Colosseum to follow. Depending on how much time you have you could spend minutes or hours here.

I would also recommend going to the Vatican. We also travelled there by Metro, however we got off at the wrong stop and ended up walking up a much longer back way. Inside the Vatican there are so many different buildings you can go to – we spent most of our time in St. Peter’s Basilica. Unfortunately we never actually made it to the Sistine Chapel as we just ran out of time, but we still managed to see a lot in the Vatican.

The area around the Pantheon/ Trevi Fountain also seems quite lively at night. Although we weren’t looking to actually go out, we wandered around the streets later in the evening and it was a really nice time to just soak in the atmosphere.

Where to Eat:

If there’s somewhere you won’t be stuck for food, it’s definitely Rome. Walk down any street and you’ll find an abundance of restaurants, cafes and ice cream shops. You do need to accept that you are in the land of pizza and pasta, other than that your choice is mostly salad. However, the pasta and pizza are freshly made in most restaurants, and it shows. It is some of the most divine pasta you’ll have in your life.

When it comes to breakfast, if you don’t want pastries every morning your best bet is to find a shop and stock up on breakfast biscuits/cereal. For coffee, it’s definitely some of the nicest you’ll come across but for the best value look for the smaller, authentic Italian coffee shops. Here you’ll pay €1.50 for the nicest coffees Rome has to offer, instead of €3.00 in the tourist areas. Limoncellos is somewhere I would definitely recommend for good coffee.

Where to Shop:

Rome has shopping to fit every budget. Every designer/ brand has a store in the area surrounding the Spanish Steps, if you are looking to spend more money. If, like me, you’re on a lower budget, this area offers Kiko Milano makeup, Sephora, Zara, Bershka and loads more. I always find these shops have a much better selection abroad than they seem to in Ireland!

There are also many smaller Italian shops around this area too – it’s definitely one to explore.

That’s all of my advice about Rome. I’m working on some more exciting content that’s different from these travel guides so stay tuned for that!

 

 

London in 48 Hours: Where to Eat, Going Out & the Best Coffee

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WHERE TO: GO OUT

This is by no means a definitive guide – London has so many places to go out. Almost so much that it’s overwhelming trying to decide where to go, especially in comparison to the minimal choice we have in Cork. The main two areas I’ve been out in in London are Soho and Shoreditch, which both offer very different but equally enjoyable nights out. The average price of cocktails in London is £10-£12 pounds in most of the places I’ve been out, which is definitely steep and most of these places also have entry fees so beware of this when planning your budget/nights out!

Soho:

Soho is the perfect area to go out if you’ve just been to a show and aren’t ready to let the night end. My favourite place to go out in Soho is Mahiki (actually in Mayfair but about a 10 minute walk from Leicester Square) – if you’re looking for cocktails so insta worthy you’ll be taking pictures of the ones on the neighbouring table, and maybe some C-list celeb spotting, this is the place for you. The music is pure pop, perfect for when you’re in the mood for a dance.

Another place I’d recommend in Soho is Be At One – its location is very central, just around the corner from the Prince Edward Theatre, and less than five minutes from Piccadilly Circus. If you’re looking to save money on drinks, download their app from the App Store and you can use the “Appi Hour” for an hour any day from Sunday – Thursday before 10PM and they have a very exotic choice of drinks. I’ve also been recommended Zoo Bar on Leicester Square – but I’m yet to make it there so I can’t give my two cents yet!

Shoreditch:

If anywhere in London has a lively nightlife, it’s Shoreditch. It has an abundance of themed bars like you’ve never seen before. The first place I must mention is Ballie Ballerson – multiple ball pits in a bar, what more could you want? As well as that it has good music (any bar that plays Amy Winehouse has me won over), a neon mural on all the walls for the perfect insta background, and, once again a very exotic cocktail menu. If you are going here make sure you book online first as some of their sessions do book out!

Also in Shoreditch is Dinerama, which is sort of an outdoor but covered over foodcourt combined with a bar. It has a very lively atmosphere and good music, but that is definitely secondary to the amazing street food. I had a halloumi kebab here and it was some of the nicest halloumi I’ve had in my life. I’d definitely recommend Dinerama as a good place to start the night!

 

Last but not least in Shoreditch is Nikki‘s, which is a Quentin Tarantino inspired bar. It has a very 80s inspired vibe which is incorporated in the music, decor, and colour schemes. Although it wasn’t packed, it was a very enjoyable place to explore – and to have an impromptu photo shoot on the Tarantino inspired bed which has definitely appeared in many insta posts!

WHERE TO: EAT

 

Obviously, you’ll never be at a loss for food in London. I mentioned Dinerama under going out, but their street food really needs to be emphasised here – it was honestly so good. The best idea to save money on food is find somewhere cheap for breakfast – and maybe lunch too depending on where you are – and stick with that for your whole trip unless you have brunch out instead of dinner that day. Or, you could even go one further and stock up on the likes of rice cakes and not buy breakfast out at all. Prêt à Manger was very useful for cheap enough breakfast, surprisingly good porridge and very dependable coffee. My one gripe with there was that everything comes in single use plastic, even cutlery had only a plastic option – however if you bring a reusable cup you get 50p off your coffee!

Another place I would recommend eating is Yo Sushi – although it is a chain, it’s one we don’t have in Cork and the sushi so good. The advantage of Yo Sushi is also that not only are the prices reasonable, but there are many across London so you usually won’t be far from one.

One place I wouldn’t really recommend is Rum Kitchen – we were so excited to try it out as everyone gives it rave reviews and recommendations, but our whole experience was a little bit disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, there was nothing specifically bad about it, but the service was a bit slow, the food was a little expensive for what we got, and we felt a little bit like we weren’t sitting in a restaurant bit in an outdoor foodcourt style area (which I guess we were) but being served restaurant food.

Café Rouge and Côté Brasserie are two more restaurants I’d definitely recommend in the Tower Bridge everywhere, perfect for brunch or lunch. (Just don’t get extra hollandaise sauce in Café Rouge – they tried to charge us £2.50 extra!) London really has an abundance of places to eat so you won’t be stuck – just have an idea of where you want to go before you start looking around or you will end up hangry on the streets of Soho after an hour walking around.

WHERE TO: COFFEE

 

This is probably one of my favourite things of any trip I go on – discovering the best coffee. London really has some gems in this area, walk down any street and you’re guaranteed to find a coffee shop. Some of my favourites include Bar Italia, Shoreditch/ Soho Grind, and Joe & The Juice. If you’re looking for quality coffee definitely try Soho Grind. London is also full of coffee chains if you’re just looking for something familiar – every area has at least one Starbucks, or Café Nero which in my opinion is a step up from Starbucks. All that said however, some of my favourite coffee I’ve tried in London has been random cafés I’ve just wandered into that I couldn’t even tell you the name of – don’t be afraid to try the random, small, hipster coffee shop – I haven’t been disappointed yet. Camden is also such a nice spot to do this, as there are some really nice spots which also often have events such as poetry readings.

That’s it for my London recommendations for now – feel free to DM me any questions!

London in 48 Hours: Where to Sightsee, Shop and Stay

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Recently I was lucky enough to grab a few days free and fit in a quick trip to London. Since London has almost become a tradition of mine at this time of year, I thought I’d share some of my favourite spots to go – be it for shopping, coffee, going out at night or just a spot of brunch. London can also be quite an expensive city, (a lesson I learned specifically after leaving my purse on a National Express Bus only hours after arriving) so I’m also going to share some of my favourite ways of saving money in all aspects of your trip you’ll want to plan. Also, as London is such a big city, and I’m much more familiar with certain areas than others, I’ll be focusing on the Soho, Shoreditch and Camden areas primarily but may mention some others.

This post was getting far too long so I’ve decided to divide it into two parts – part one: where to sightsee, shop and stay, and part two: where to go out, eat and go for coffee. I’m also coming from a point of view of advice I’d give someone who’s never been to London, so if you have I hope you find something here you haven’t experienced before.

WHERE TO: SIGHTSEE

This will by no means be a comprehensive guide, as London is so big that I could write a book and it wouldn’t even cover it, it’ll be more of a look at some of my favourite things I’ve experienced there. Some of my trips to London have involved Work Experience and London Fashion Week and have therefore involved being a tourist at night instead of during the day – seeing shows at the West End and exploring Soho at night offered the perfect tourist experience in these instances. Other trips I’ve been a pure tourist the whole time and have had more time to explore museums and areas such as Camden during the day.

Shows:

 

By far my favourite thing to do in London is to see a show – the most recent show I saw was The Phantom of the Opera in Her Majesty’s Theatre and it certainly didn’t disappoint. The music gave me goosebumps in almost every song, the actors were amazing and the set and stage were breathtaking. We got our tickets at the TKTS stand in Leicester Square, which allowed us to pay £35 for tickets that had a value of £45. If you don’t mind what you see and want to save money this is the way to go, you can get tickets for as little as £5. However if you want to see a show with a lot of hype that isn’t a permanent West End fixture, buy them online from the show’s own website for the best value.

Shows I’ve seen include Dreamgirls, Aladdin, and Kinky Boots as well as The Lion King in Dublin, but with the West End cast and none of them have disappointed at all. The buildings themselves also add to the experience – they’re all beautiful! If you’re looking to see a show that’s sold out and you didn’t get tickets, such as Hamilton, many of their websites have daily ticket lotteries that you can enter or you can use the Today Tix app to enter front row lotteries for certain shows – still not over winning front row to Dreamgirls but only seeing the email after my time to claim them ran out! Don’t plan your evening around a lottery though because so many people enter these so there are no guarantees.

I’m yet to get to get to the National Theatre – however I’ve heard rave reviews about Cate Blanchett’s current play there, When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other. It is fully sold out, but a certain amount of cheap day tickets go on sale at the box office every day. This one does contain adult themes and violence though, so if you’re with your kids stick with Aladdin!

Museums

All of the museums I’ve been to in London have been free, which is such a bonus when it’s such an expensive city. My favourite is definitely the V&A museum, which honestly has exhibitions to suit whatever your interests are. I always love the photography and musical theatre exhibitions, and the fact that they’re always being changed and updated means there’s always something new to see. It’s so big that you won’t be able to see all of it, so when you enter get a map and plan the sections to see so you don’t get overwhelmed! I also love the fashion exhibitions, and seeing how style has changed over the last few hundred years. Other museums to spend an afternoon are the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum, both also in the Knightsbridge area, and the British Museum in the Soho area – I’d recommend seeing the mummies in the Egyptian exhibition here.

Soho

This one speaks for itself really – its such a nice area to wander around, from Piccadilly Circus, to Leicester Square, to the West End, to China Town. If it’s your first time in London, have a walk around here and just admire the buildings, visit M&M world, the Lego Store, just explore the tourist spots in general – this area has an abundance of them!

Camden

Camden is the perfect place to spend an entire afternoon. Whether you’re looking for quirky shops with cool slogan tees, or old school record stores, coffee, food, or just an afternoon out, Camden offers all of this. The street food here is so good – the further into the markets you go, the better the finds in my opinion. Check out the Dr. Marten Store – there’s a really cool hall with Docs signed by members of My Chemical Romance, No Doubt and loads of other musicians and bands. Around the corner is Cyberdog which is like shopping combined with a rave. When you’ve had enough, there’s a really cosy coffee shop across the road here that you can relax in. Honestly, once you reach the markets in Camden you don’t need much guidance – just explore!

Tower Bridge Area

This is also such a nice area to explore, especially if you get a nice day. As well as having Tower Bridge itself to offer, there are really cute market stands, a hidden little marina which makes for a lovely brunch spot at Café Rouge or Côté Brasserie.

Warner Bros. Studio Tour

This one isn’t free, but is very much worth the money. Tickets are around the £40 mark, and if you are or ever have been a Harry Potter fan, you won’t regret it. It’s amazing to see what’s behind the magic and really experience how it all happened. If you are planning to go to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour, the one thing I will say is book in advance – when, or even before, you book your flights. It’s currently booked out until April so you really need to book around 3 or 4 months in advance. They also always change the exhibitions so check online what they have on – since I went they introduced the Hogwarts Express, and they have displays relating to the season too. Gringotts is opening in April so that should definitely be worth checking out.

WHERE TO: SHOP

This is something I haven’t been as focused on when I’ve been to London, as I’ve either been working or broke when I’ve been over there. However I have managed to find a few gems, depending on what you’re looking for. If you want a full afternoon hitting the shops hard Oxford Street is the place for you. This is where you have you Topshop, H & M, Gap Store, Miss Selfridge and all of the similar high street fashion stores as well as my personal favourite Kiko Milano for €3.99.

Alternatively if you’d prefer more of a bargain one off shopping experience, Camden Market Stalls are my absolute favourite for this. I’ve found some absolute gems here, such as vinyl records for €5, slogan tees, hoodies and wall prints of iconic art. This is just a tiny sample of what you can find here.

For the ultimate tourist shopping experience, Harrods and Hamleys are what you’re looking for. Both worth a visit, Harrods is a 6 floor luxury department store with halls for everything you can think of, from food, to homeware, to kids toys, to a book store. Especially if it’s raining, it’s the perfect place to pass a few hours and within walking distance from all of the museums in Knightsbridge. Alternatively, Hamleys is the childhood dream of toy stores. Also 6 floors, with displays of different toys, games and magic tricks everywhere from the moment you walk in. You won’t leave without being sold a magic bubbles set or the likes that you didn’t even know you needed in your life, but its definitely something to experience whether you have kids or are a big kid at heart.

 

WHERE TO: STAY

The final thing I’m going to discuss in this post is what your options are to find accommodation. If you’re trying to save money, a hostel is probably the way to go. I stayed in Wombats which is somewhat near to Shoreditch, and it was definitely good value for money, however the only fault I’d have of it is it was a bit out of the way to get to. It was such a lively hostel though, particularly the bar which had the likes of jenga, beer pong, darts and pool to play. The music played by the bar staff was equally lively, and at one point we were even given a fully choreographed rendition of a song from Sister Act by the girl behind the bar and her friends. Definitely somewhere you could spend a good portion of your night. Hostelworld is a really helpful website if you’re going for this option.

I’ve also stayed in Soho, which was more expensive but much more central and so handy to walk home after a night out. We paid about €300 for a three person apartment for two nights, which wasn’t a bad deal at all for the location. We found this apartment through Airbnb, which is your best bet if you want to stay in a central location – you won’t easily find a hostel around here. You can also find options for apartment rentals on Booking.com.

That’s it for my recommendations of where to sightsee, shop and stay – stay tuned for part two!

Zoë x

 

My Dream 2019 + I’m Back!

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Sit down, get comfortable, get a cup of tea. It’s been a while – and I have a LOT to say.

 

Is it too late to say Happy New Year? Probably, but I’m saying it anyway since this is basically one of my “non resolutions”. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m back! I made a decision since I’m relaunching my website with more of a videographer’s touch, that I’d bring back the blog to go with it.

 

Those of you who have been here since day one may remember I used to post about fashion, beauty, books and music with a bit of lifestyle thrown in there – this is where the main changes are going to be. God knows there are better people than me to tell you how to do your makeup, or what products to buy these days – or where to buy their outfits for that matter. I’m not going to attempt to teach anyone how to do a cut crease! I had reached a small – moderate amount of success, but I stopped because the nice community which existed in 2014 slowly morphed into an industry of people only looking for money and PR packages, and who didn’t really care what they were writing about. But that’s a discussion for another day.

 

Instead I’m going to focus on writing more about my experiences and journey as a beginner two – three years ago, to a somewhat more experienced freelance videographer. You can expect it to be a combination of lifestyle, opinions, reviews of equipment and resources that I have found extremely helpful over the past year. It won’t be purely focused on videography/ photography/ freelancing – I definitely have some things I want to talk about under the lifestyle heading – but I do have some exciting projects coming soon here in those areas. I also have some things I’d like to share about environmentalism, minimalism and intentional living.

 

I also decided to do this because I want to move away from the pressure of instagram – matching, coherent feeds, posting at peak times, not “double insta-ing”. Everything seems very focused on instagram, which is already very oversaturated, and doesn’t really leave much of a gap for creativity. I’ll be sharing my posts on my stories on “ZoeCocoMedia” – but I’m not going to go for the constant self promotion this time. I’m hoping to build more than that. I’m also not doing this purely for the views – I want to hold myself accountable for my goals and give myself motivation, and by putting it out in the universe I hope to be more incentivised to take action.

 

Now, on to the second part of this post. Yes – I did take the idea from Retro Flame, and it was in part what inspired me to restart posting. She posted about her aspirations for 2019 here last week, and I really liked that idea so I’m going to give it a try. If you’ve read her post, you’ll know she’s done it in four sections – travel, career, relationships and wellbeing. I really like this categorisation so I’m going to do it that way too! (If you haven’t and you want to read it, click here).

 

Travel:

 

Over the past year and a half I’ve been incredibly lucky when it’s come to travel opportunities and I’m so grateful for these experiences. There’s been a combination of family holidays, festivals, dancing trips and work which have all brought me amazing places, and I can only hope that I get to continue that this year. I only have one trip in concrete, but there are definitely others that I’m hoping I can make happen.

Actual Plans:

London – I’m heading at the end of this month and I’m so excited, it’s my favourite city.

Budapest – Hoping to get to Sziget festival here, or if not another festival closer to home.

Barcelona

Majorca – Possible family holiday destination

 

“Ideal” Plans:

Croatia – Can’t say much about this one yet other than it looks like a beautiful place to spend time!

Manchester 

Edinburgh – €5 Ryanair flights I’m looking at you

Ireland – And by that I mean travel around other counties more, even if it’s just day trips. Irish people are the worst for forgetting to appreciate what’s under our nose.

USA – This is definitely more of an “in my dreams” place, as I had such a good trip there this year and I probably won’t get back until 2020 at least. I’d love to go back to California and see more, or do the East Coast, or so many other places really!

France – This one also probably won’t happen just because I can’t go everywhere and I’m not made of money, but I’m conscious of forgetting my French which was decent enough when I was in leaving cert.

 

Career:

 

I have a lot to say under this one, but I’ll try to keep it brief-ish for the sake of this post.

  1. Be Focused

I’m putting some work into defining my goals at the moment, and while I’m at an early stage and I definitely want to keep trying a range of things my main focus at the moment is building my own brand and to keep working hard at editing and camera skills.

I also have a tendency to forget what I’m working towards and panic when I have time off, so I’m hoping that more focused goals to motivate me will help with that. I definitely want to get better at using time not working for clients to my advantage, even if that just means sitting down and doing paperwork I’ve been putting off.

2. Build Up More Clients

 This is my next task after my website revamp – to step outside my box and start promoting myself directly. It’s a daunting task but all I can do is make a list and put myself out there. I’m delighted with how the past few months have gone in this regard but I’ve still had some free time that I could have been shooting so my aim is to fill this time this year. (If you’d like to see some of the work I’ve shot over the past few months click here.)

As well as videos and work for clients and building that side of things up, I’d love to shoot some stuff that I won’t earn money from but feel there’d be a benefit to anyway. For example I have a few ideas for environmental projects, and some short films that I hope to finally motivate myself to write.

3. Keep Learning and Up Skilling

I’ve learned so much over the past year, and I definitely plan to actively continue that both through seeking projects that will allow me to learn through practical means, and through finding youtube channels and blogs to follow and books to read that will allow me to learn more about the areas I’m pursuing. Some skills in particular I’m hoping to utilise more are speed ramping and colour grading.

4. Scriptwriting

I’m such a sucker for procrastinating scriptwriting and waiting for “the perfect idea” which really doesn’t exist. This kind of goes with my last point, but I hope to put my foot down and just sit down and get over this block instead of waiting for someone to put a gun to my head to do it. I’m not in college anymore so there’s really no one who’s going to do that for me, I need to work on doing it for myself because I want to.

 

Wellbeing:

Readjust sleep patterns:

This one speaks for itself. I really need to focus on resetting my sleep, putting down the book (or the phone) and swapping the 2AM sleep time for a more productive cycle.

Be Tidier:

Ah yes. The floordrobe strikes again. I really want to put some focus into getting my space the way I want it, fully decluttering and decorating the way I want, and picking up what’s on the floor at the end of the day. This may sound small but its really an issue. 

Workout Regularly:

I’m hoping to get to the gym/exercise classes 3 times a week – it’s slipped to once a week and there really is a big difference.  I’m also hoping to push myself into going to the gym on the days I’m not feeling it, and even if I do a shortened workout, don’t count “reps”or go for a swim instead, it will all help towards building a habit and keeping a good mind set.

Stop Online Shopping:

I went overboard with this over Christmas and in the sales, and I was horrified by the amount of plastic it brought into the house. I’ve decided that as well as only shopping in physical shops where I can limit packaging, I’m going to try a month not buying anything unless its from a pre approved list which I’ll talk more about in a future post.

Let Things Go

It’s a matter of minutes before I have this quoted back at me, but the final goal I have for this year is to not get bogged down in things. I want to just focus on the bigger picture, and remember that most things aren’t actually that big of a deal and won’t have as big of an impact as it feels they will.

I applaud you if you made it this far, that was long but I’m done – for now.

It’s good to be back

ZOËCOCO.