inspired
Scotland. The land of haggis and kilts. At least that’s what most people think of when they hear about Scotland. Unless if you’ve watched Outlander. In that case, you probably think of Jamie Fraser, shirtless, on a horse, galloping through some lushes green forests… Anyway, …
Hall Winery 401 ST HELENA HWY S On this day, my friend had invited me to a wine tasting at one of her favorite wineries. As a member of their wine club, she is allowed to treat us to a free tasting once a year. …
This is the third and finally post on my trip to Moscow. I already can’t wait to go back during winter for a third time (if you missed my first post where I mentioned going as a child, you can read it here). Maybe when I need to renew my Russian passport I’ll go again… Hopefully by that time there is more peace between Russia and the US. Until then, you can read this post where I make you jealous that I was able to go right before the war broke out.
Before our trip, I made a list in my notes app called “things to do in Moscow.” One of the things we hadn’t done yet on my list was try ponchiki donuts. Out of the handful of times I’ve visited Russia, I have yet to try these famous donuts that I was seeing on others travel websites. I told my mom what the two most popular places were to get them and she suggested the one next to VDNH park. That way I could try the ponchiki and we could also see the ice rink and park decorated for Christmas and New Years.
They had just reopened when we came and there was still no line. I’ve seen picture online where it looked very crowded so we got lucky.
The ponchiki donuts were good and very addicting. I could probably eat a dozen, but my babushka reminded me how unhealthy they are and too many would make me sick.
After donuts and coffee, we walked along Park Ostankino towards the VDNH aquarium, Moskvarium. VDNH, also called VDNKh or All-Russian Exhibition Center, is a large exhibition park where people can enjoy nature, but also learn about the soviet union and it’s history. It’s huge with plenty to learn and experience in one park. Just imagine you travel to a city and want to visit their art museum, history museum, aquarium, space museum, and more. Well, in Moscow, you can see all that inside of one park. Make sure to plan for an entire day there.
When I visited in summer, we also walked through the park and the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics across the street. There were lots of cool things to explore and learn about the soviets history with space travel. This time around, we didn’t go inside of any of the museums or buildings. Even though I really wanted to because they looked so cool! Most of them were closing soon since we were visiting in the evening.
In winter, VDNH is decorated for New Years and Christmas (just like the rest of Moscow) with beautiful lights throughout and a massive ice rink! The ice rink was unique because it was shaped like a running track instead of the small oval ones I’ve skated on.
By the time we walked to the ice rink, I was already freezing from being outside for so many hours. We walked across the bridge above the rink, took some pictures, froze my hands some more because I took my gloves off to use my camera, and walked towards the park entrance where we would catch a bus back to the apartment.
On this day, we went back to the center of Moscow to see more holiday lights. I had a bunch of random streets and squares saved in notes app of locations that I saw on Instagram with pretty decorations. We didn’t have it all mapped out, but some how kind of stumbled upon everything while walking down the street because they are all so close to each other.
We walked passed the Bolshoi Theatre towards GUM right behind it and kept walking down that street stopping to take photos of any decorations.
The light tunnel on Tverskoy Boulevard was last on my list and the last of the holiday lights we saw. After taking some pictures and walking through it, we went to a large McDonalds on the other side of Novopushkinskiy Park. I LOVE going to McDonalds in other countries because the menus are different (and better) than America. Moscow had unique pies and desserts which we tried for the first time with a yummy forest berry tea.
My mom was feeling a little under the weather, but I still needed to get some souvenirs for my friends back home, so my babushka and I went to Izmaylovo District on our own.
Izmaylovo has a huge market in the morning with millions of souvenirs to choose from. They’re also much cheaper than stores if you are comfortable haggling. Besides souvenirs, there’s a few restaurants and museums in the park. Plus, it’s just a really pretty place that’s worth going to for the pictures of soviet architecture.
Make sure to buy a Russian Matryoshka Doll while you are here! Some other good souvenirs to get are hand painted wooden spoons, balalaika, jewelry box, fur hat, amber accessories, and vodka. My favorite souvenirs in Russia are always hand painted and wooden. I love looking at the unique designs.
We still had a few more days before our flight home, but we all were feeling sick at this point. We weren’t sure if it was Covid or something else. I just had a fever, headache, and restless legs at first. About two days later I was eating a piece of chocolate and realized I wasn’t tasting it. That’s when I began to panic that I could have Covid when I needed to fly home in just two days! Long story short, we took our 24 hour PCR test that was required before the flight. My mom’s tests both came back negative. Mine…inconclusive and positive. I was stuck in Moscow under house arrest (basically) for two weeks. I was so upset. If you’re wondering, the reason my moms came back negative was because she got sick a day or two before me. I’m sure all of you have had travel plans affected by Covid. It’s horrible. From the extra expenses of taking those Covid tests, to getting stuck inside a room for two weeks. I hope we never have to deal with that mess ever again.
-Ayla♥
Moscow is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The architecture is very unique outside of Eastern Europe. Then add some Christmas lights to it? Absolutely stunning. If you haven’t see my last post yet, absolutely check it out for some of the …
The first and last time I visited Moscow during Christmas was in 2003 when I was 7 years old. Even though I was so young, I had fond memories of my two weeks there. Memories that I thought about often. Nineteen years later, I finally …
Let me start off by saying this was my first time leaving California since 2018. I was so excited to book these tickets and FINALLY go on a trip. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about Covid though. I had so many questions. Do I need to get tested before the flight? Do they check vaccine cards? What do I have to do if I get sick in Colorado? Traveling felt completly new to me again. Someone who got their first passport before they could talk and I had no idea what to expect because I was traveling during a pandemic for the first time in my life.
Once I got to Colorado, everything seemed much more relaxed.
Before my trip, all I knew about Glenwood Springs was there were hot springs. Which I was excited about because I have very fond memories of going to hot springs with my family in Costa Rica. Hot water is so therapeutic and I was beyond ready for a spa retreat.
For this trip, we took a very relaxed tour. Tours get a bad rep in the travel community. I personally don’t mind tours, but a lot of other experienced travelers don’t like the restrictions and having the whole day mapped out by someone else. This tour company wasn’t like that. They gave us a time to be picked up at the Denver airport and drove us a few hours to our Glenwood Springs hotel. Other than that, we had total freedom to use the admission tickets whenever we wanted, skip group tours, and eat lunch with the group or get $10 back to have lunch anywhere else. We only skipped a few of the day trips because they weren’t interesting for us. But most of them we went on simply for the convenience of not having to figure out our own transportation.
The hotel we stayed in was the Silver Spruce Inn. Actually, it was more like a dutch style motel than a hotel. It had very pretty flowers all around and was a short walk to the Glenwood Hot Springs. It’s also walking distance to the main part of town where all the restaurants and souvenir stores are. I was thrown off by the souvenirs at first. I completely forgot what a big deal recreational weed is in Colorado. Weed is common in California too, but we don’t sell weed souvenirs like they do in Colorado. It’s actually kind of funny to think about what symbol or item places use to represent them and sell as souvenirs.
For this post, I decided to list off the most popular things to do in Glenwood Springs and give my own personal insight on each of them. I always find lists handy when planning a trip so I hope some of you find this useful.
Starting off, the number one reason anyone visits Glenwood Springs, Colorado. You guessed it. The hot springs. The Glenwood Hot Springs Pool is the world’s largest outdoor mineral hot springs pool. I’m a sucker for anythings “world’s largest,” “world’s tallest,” “world’s most famous.” You get the idea.
Our trip included 8 day passes to the hot springs, so obviously we went everyday, sometimes twice a day. A few other people in the group tried out the Iron Mountain Hot Springs as well when this pool was closed for maintenance. Iron Mountain has multiple small pools instead of one big one. As for which they preferred more, there were mixed opinions.
September was a wonderful time for us to go. There wasn’t that crazy, busy, family crowd that usually comes in the summer. Weekends were still busy with kids and birthday parties of course. Weekdays we always had space to swim around and nights were peaceful.
The second most popular thing to do is the amusement park. When I hear amusement park, I usually think of Disneyland, Six Flags, California Adventure, Universal Studios… you know. Those massive attractions we have in California! Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park was way more chill than any of those places. It had an old west vibe throughout the park and much smaller in scale to the ones I’m used to. But I mainly went to check out the famous fairy caves since I feel too old for small rides these days.
You can’t go to Colorado without doing a little hiking. Hiking is probably the number one activity people do in the state (besides…you know…that other recreational thing), but for Glenwood Springs specifically, I would say it’s the third most popular thing to do.
I remember seeing MANY places to go hiking before we left on the trip, but the one place we ended up going to was a walking & biking path at Glenwood Canyon. We went before sunset which made for a nice calming walk along a river. The river would be full of rafts but there was a major mudslide that still wasn’t cleaned up. I love river rafting, but hiking along an empty river was a solitary experience.
Yampah Hot Springs isn’t ranked as high in popularity as the other places around Glenwood which is shocking to me. How many chances do you get to sit underground surrounded by hot steamy rocks??? As far as I recall, this was my first time doing something like this. The Russians in our tour group loved it since it’s like the very popular banya. It was an experience I would never forget. That’s for sure. And I hope you all try it at least once in your lifetime.
For my US History buffs, make sure to check out the historic Hotel Colorado located right across the street from the hot springs pool and spa. The hotel has done a great job at preserving the hundred year old history that you can see just walking around the first few floors on the hotel.
Our tour guide mentioned the history of the hotel and how Teddy Roosevelt stayed in his own special suite during his hunting trips. But I’m glad we took the time to walking around and see the history for ourselves. They put up little signs and historical displays all around the lobby.
Did you know the Teddy Bear was born in Colorado? I thought that was a cute piece of history the kids might enjoy. 😉
As far as food goes, I was pleasantly surprised by the Mexican restaurants. I live in California, so I never think anywhere else will have Mexican food as good as ours. Not only was the Mexican food in Colorado good, but the portions were huge! An Indian restaurant we went to located in the heart of Downtown Glenwood Springs was also a favorite of mine. The lassi was delicious, curry was the perfect amount of sweet & spicy, and the dessert naan was amazing. I’ve never seen a dessert naan in any other Indian restaurant I’ve been to! Definitely going to keep an eye out for it next time I’m ordering Indian food.
-Ayla♥
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I wanted to share with you pictures from my day in an area of San Francisco many of you may not know of. Mission District is a part of San Francisco that even I rarely find myself in. I am a major foodie, so the …