I haven't visited very much of Spain, having concentrated my holidays in France, Italy and along the Adriatic coast over the past few weeks. Two years ago I visited Barcelona and loved it. I hadn't gone abroad this year and was in need of some heat and sunshine so booked a last minute trip to the Costa del Sol. I was pleasantly surprised with this part of Spain. Transport was so easy and inexpensive. We spent a day exploring the beautiful city of Malaga and Muelle Uno with splendid views of the port. The sun shone every day and the heat did me the world of good. I love the heat so this holiday suited me with temperatures ranging from 23-26 degrees compared to 11 degrees here at home in Ireland. We also visited Gibraltar for a day and spent the rest of the time relaxing and exploring the coastline between Benalmadena to Torremolinos. In total we spent 5 nights away and it was just perfect!

Last Sunday we visited family on the outskirts of Dublin city. It was a nice sunny day so we ventured off for a walk to the local park where there was a local community festival taking place. There was a nice buzz with lots of people out and about enjoying the good weather. Here are a few photographs of our walk to the park, you will notice that I love heritage and architecture.. some of the old red brick houses are lovely...

Back in September, I visited Barcelona for the first time. It is such a lovely city and I never realized that the beach was so close to the city itself. We spent a day around the beach area, it is very modern but very accessible to everyone. The weather was glorious too. Below are just a few of the photographs I took of the Mediterranean Sea. This was my first time to Spain and I was well impressed with it. Have you been to Barcelona? Did you enjoy the beach?

Next stop on our holidays and the third country we visited was Italy. We stopped off in Rome- the Eternal City. It is absolutely beautiful, no matter where you look the architecture and heritage is amazing. We decided to take the red bus tour to see as much as possible in a short space of time. Hope you enjoy my photographs and if you have time do check out my previous posts from Palma De Mallorca in Spain and Marseille in France.

As a follow on to my post on Palma de Mallorca, the next stop on our holidays was the
city of Marseille in southern France. I have visited the south of France before taking in Monaco, Nice and Cannes so it was nice to explore further along the coastline. Marseille is France's oldest city and as a result it is steeped in history. The weather was lovely when we visited and we spent a lot of our time around the lively Vieux Port (Old Port).

I hope you are not getting fed up with my holidays posts, just one more this week and it is Athens. Athens and Greece overall really surprised me, I didn't think it would be as nice as it is. I was blown away with it. If you haven't visited Greece you really should, I love it now! Athens was very warm around 35 degrees the day we visited. There was a lot more trees and landscaping than I expected and wow what can I say about the heritage particularly the archaeology- it is amazing! After all, Athens is one of the oldest cities in the world- the cradle of western civilization. We visited the Acropolis, the Hellenic Parliament, the Olympic Stadium and Plaka the oldest historical neighbourhood in Athens. Here are a few of my photos.

This weekend I met up with some friends in the city and came across these sand sculptures at Dublin Castle. They are truly works of art! We also visited my friends exhibition in the Civic Trust and the National Museum for a short while. Then tea and cake in Avoca :) Hope you are having a nice weekend. It is a long weekend here in Ireland so I am looking forward to my day off tomorrow.

 

 

All images courtesy of my friend D

As most of you may not be aware, my background is in urban and regional development, I have also worked in heritage related posts and in rural development. I am a qualified planner and did some teaching too. I am also a farmers wife, may I add. So today I would like to introduce to you, The Urban Nexus Initiative. This initiative was initiated by two of my  friends whom I met when we pursued a Masters Degree in University College Dublin. While we have gone our own ways career wise since, we are still in contact and enjoy meeting up every so often.

For those of you who are not from Ireland or are not aware of the Initiative, it is a design and research based programme developed in 2010. It's main aim is to explore cities using alternative techniques and methods in order to inspire creativity and originality in the city design. It is all about more holistic approaches to how the urban realm is designed in the modern day city.

In order to put this into practice, they have developed the XXI Century Liffey Project (The Liffey being the main river which flows through Dublin City). This is an urban design project to re-vision and re-imagine the Liffey Quays for the XXI Century. It is basically about the River Liffey and its quays- an iconic space in Dublin City, but a space that seems to have been left behind. Through the project they aim to re-imagine the role the quays play in the XXI Century Dublin by considering design as the vital element in the creation of dynamic and interconnected spaces. They have began to stimulate discussions and debates through various methods including a number of exhibitions, lunch time talks and seminars prior to any proposed plans for the area. Ultimately they hope to initiate new ways of thinking which can be applied to the wider urban areas of Dublin and other cities alike.

{All images from Urban Nexus Initiative}

Some of my blogger friends have reminded me of my holidays in Paris. Here are a few of my holiday photographs from Paris when I was there a a year and a half ago. It really is a truly enchanting place, with something nice to see around every corner. I went on holidays with two of my friends and saw lots of the lovely sites which I had visited before. I'm not a great photographer but I really like these photographs. It is such a wonderful city