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. …
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 most stunning churches and light displays.
This day of our trip was a “big religious holiday.” I put it in quotes because my mom says that almost every other day. Big religious holidays are a regular thing in Russia. This religious holiday in particular is every January 19th, the day Christ was baptized. You might know it as Epiphany or Baptism Day, but in Russia, it’s called Krescheniye. It’s famously the day when Russians line up to take a dip in an ice hole. It’s believed that on this day, the natural springs water is holy. If dipping your whole body into a frozen lake isn’t your thing, you can do what we did. Go to church and drink the holy water.
We went to the Church of St. Nicholas in Khamovniki. It might be my second favorite church in Moscow. After St. Basil’s in Red Square, of course. The design is beautiful and I love the red and green Christmas colors. Inside, the church had large gold drink dispensers where everyone was getting the holy water. Think of a vintage Apothecary beverage dispenser, but as tall as you. People came to church with bottles and jugs, so they could use/drink the water until the next Krescheniye.
After church, we took the subway to the Crimean Bridge and walked across to go to Gorky Park. This was one of the things I was most excited to see while in Moscow for Christmas. Not for the bridge or the park, even though they’re both great, but the ice sculptures.
I remember being 7 years old, walking through a square or park at night, watching maybe a hundred ice sculptures being made. It was beautiful, exciting, and a magical memory. I’m not sure now if I was in the Red Square or Gorky Park when this happened. But I told my mom I wanted to see those ice sculptures again. I didn’t get to watch them being carved like when I was 7, but I was happy I got to at least see them again, in Moscow, around Christmas, like I did as a child.
After looking at the ice sculptures for a bit, we got a hot coffee and walked around the park to see more Christmas lights. It was very cold, though, so we didn’t walk through the entire park.
The next day, my mom, babushka, and I went all the way to the Tekhnopark subway station in the south of Moscow. My mom saw a new theme park on the news, so we decided to check it out while we were in Moscow. I didn’t know what to expect, but when we got there, all I could think about was the, “It’s a Small World,” song and ride at the Disneyland Park in California. The outside looked like a Disney castle. Inside was a mall with a theme park in the back.
The mall was very clean and not busy at all. Maybe because it was a Wednesday and most people wait to go on the weekends with their kids. I actually enjoyed the emptiness, but it was weird to see such a large, nice-looking mall, with hardly anyone around. My favorite part of the mall was the international section will all the buildings that looked like different places around the world. But they were actual stores on the inside, like H&M and Zara. Some of the stores and restaurants are ones me have in every mall in the U.S. so they weren’t a big deal to me, but probably cool to try if you’ve never been to The States.
The theme park, called Dream Island, is the main attraction and why everyone goes here, but I ended up not going instead the amusement park. My mom was sore from walking around the mall and I didn’t want to go into a kids theme park alone. What was I going to do? Go on rides alone? Just look at the rides? I’m also not too sure if the rides are only for small children or all ages. Either way, it wouldn’t be fun to go in alone.
Day 6
The next evening, we decided to visit Arbat Street in the Arbat District. It’s another shopping street, and one of the oldest streets in Moscow, that we wanted to see decorated for Christmas. It’s a popular place to buy souvenirs too. Although, the souvenirs on this street will be a little more expense than the markets. I wouldn’t say this is a MUST-see street in Moscow during the holidays, but it is close to the red square, and has LOTS of souvenirs and Russian candy to buy for your friends back home. Even if you don’t need souvenirs, the one’s in these shops are extravagant and fun to look through.
Sorry it’s taken me a month to write this post after publishing the last one. I have one more post about Moscow that I will try to get up. Hopefully quicker than this one!
-Ayla♥
P.S. If any of you have been to Amsterdam, I would love some recommendations or leave me a link to your old posts. I’m going this Spring.
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 …
Around Halloween last year, I went to the city of Columbia for the first time. For those of you who don’t know the geography of California, it’s located about an hour outside of Yosemite. Most of the area is populated with different campgrounds and hiking …
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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A Fairytale Village in Northern California Location: Spruce Street and Hearst Ave Normandy Village, also known as Thornburg Village, is a neighborhood in Berkeley that resembles a French Village. As someone who adores European Architecture, it’s definitely my favorite continent, I HAD to see this …