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Robb Frost

Blog At The Beach: Takeaways From A First Timer

After eighteen months of blogging I finally got invited to my first blogging event. Ok, so I could have…

August 10, 2015

About Me

About Me

Hi I'm Kiara, the travel blogger and photographer behind Gallop Around The Globe.I can usually be found hiking up mountains, getting lost in the cobblestone streets of my favourite cities, making friends with a furry feline or two, photographing cacti, or grazing on olives and cheese.

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When Gloria and I went in search of the Cathédrale

When Gloria and I went in search of the Cathédrale Saint-Nicolas in Nice (it was on one of the must-see lists we'd quickly scanned over prior to our visit), we did not expect to find ourselves standing in front of a very grand Russian Orthodox Church!We felt like we'd turned a corner in the lesser-visited suburbs of the city and inadvertently walked through a portal to Moscow or St. Petersberg!Nice's St. Nicholas Cathedral is actually the largest Eastern Orthodox cathedral in Western Europe.In the mid 19th century, Nice became a popular winter retreat for Russian nobility - much like it was for English aristocracy. The cathedral was built between 1903 and 1912 on the grounds of the former Villa Bermond, where the heir to the Russian throne, Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich died in 1865.The cathedral served the growing Russian community on the Côte d'Azur and remains an active place of worship today.It's definitely worth a visit while you're in Nice, even though it does feel very out of place in the city!

✨️Mont Boron✨️ On the opposite side of Nice's por

✨️Mont Boron✨️On the opposite side of Nice's port to Castle Hill, you'll find access to Mont Boron.Getting up here requires a bit more effort (Mont Boron rises nearly 200 metres above the city, compared to 92-metre-high Castle Hill), but as a result, you'll see far fewer people around. And, of course, the views are just as spectacular, if not even more so.Up on Mont Boron, you'll find:🔸️Parc de Mont Boron - a hilltop forest that features 11km of hiking trails, picnic areas and recreational spaces. I saw locals up here playing games of pétanique.
🔸️Fort de Mont Alban - a well-preserved 16th century fortress that was built by order of the Duke of Savoy in response to the Siege of Nice.
🔸️Some prestigious residential areas. The area is known for its Belle Epoque villas and luxury apartments.I couldn't say I preferred either Castle Hill or Mont Boron as they've both got quite a different vibe, so, if you get the chance, make sure you check out both 😊

✨️Castle Hill✨️ Castle Hill ('Colline du Château'

✨️Castle Hill✨️Castle Hill ('Colline du Château' in French) is a 92-metre-high park in Nice, offering some incredible panoramic views of the city, the Promenade des Anglais, and the Mediterranean Sea.Despite the name, there is, unfortunately, no longer a caatle up here - it was destroyed in 1706 by command of King Louis XIV.When you need to escape the crowds of Old Nice, this is one of the closest and easiest places to get to that will make you feel like you're a million miles from city life 😊

✨️Museums of Nice✨️ Although the one museum I was

✨️Museums of Nice✨️Although the one museum I was most excited about visiting (MAMAC - the city's modern art museum) was closed for refurbishment for the entire duration of our stay in Nice, my friend Gloria and I still made full use of our €15 4-day Museum Pass.Pictured are the following:🔸️Musée Masséna, located along the Promenade des Anglais (photo 1)
🔸️Musée des Beaux-Arts Jules Chéret (photo 2)
🔸️Musée de la Photographie Charles Nègre, located in Old Nice (photos 3 and 4)
🔸️Palais Lascaris, also in Old Nice (photos 5, 6, and 7)
🔸️Musée d'Art Naïf Anatole Jakovsky (Naïve Art Museum), located between Nice and the airport, so is a good one to visit when heading home (photos 8 and 9)
🔸️Musée Matisse, located around 3 kilometres north of Old Nice (photo 10)My favourites were the photography museum and the museum of naïve art, with Lascaris Palace coming a close second 🙂Have you visited #Nice? Which museum was your favourite?

✨️Day 10 on the Camino Portugués✨️ ➡️Padrón to Sa

✨️Day 10 on the Camino Portugués✨️➡️Padrón to Santiago de Compostela (25.6 kilometres)I made it to the cathedral 🥳🥳Not the most interesting day on the trail and there were too many pilgrims around for my liking! So, I just powered on through and made it to Santiago around 1:30, pleasantly surprised to discover that i'd literally just received a message from my hostel to say my room was ready 🙌I didn't have anything specific on the itinerary this afternoon, because I just wanted to wander around, soaking up the vibe and the sunshine 🌞Doing this made me realise just how much of the city I've already seen and photographed (I really must get that guide written soon!)Total Camino stats:➡️ Actual distance walked: 300.50 kilometres (186.72 miles)
➡️ Days of walking: 10
➡️ Average daily distance: 30.1 kilometres (19 miles)
➡️ Blisters gained: 5 (this is a personal record; was zero up until now. Top tip: don't wear old shoes!)
➡️ Number of days it rained: 0
➡️ Number of days the sun shone: 10 (unfortunately, i didn't keep a record of the temperature, but on several days it was still 23 degrees in the shade at 7pm!)
➡️ Favourite day on the trail: Ponte de Lima to Tui. This was also the longest, but that is most definitely not the reason why it was my favourite 😂#caminoportugués

✨️Day 9 on the Camino Portugués✨️ ➡️Vila Nova de

✨️Day 9 on the Camino Portugués✨️➡️Vila Nova de Arousa to Padrón (36.1 kilometres)Today's stage is an interesting one: most people get the boat.This boat journey replicates the one taken by the disciples of St. James (the Patron Saint of Spain), to transfer his body from Vila Nova de Arousa to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, so pilgrims are not required to walk this section in order to obtain their compostela.However, firstly, I've never been one to do what most people do. And, secondly, as a personal challenge, I wanted to be able to say that I'd walked all the way from Porto to Santiago.So, I walked...Clearly, not many other people do so as the path was quite badly maintained and overgrown in parts, and I saw a total of two other pilgrims (two Spanish girls who I spoke to briefly at a cafe in Vilar) throughout the entire day.The stage gets quite bad press online, but I found that, apart from the beginning and end bits (the former follows main roads through the suburbs of Vila Nova de Arousa and Vila Nova de Garcia, and the latter follows the railway tracks for what seems like forever!), it was actually quite a lovely, peaceful section of the Camino.#caminoportugués

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