We were invited to attend a wedding in Montichiari over the weekend and this ended up being the perfect opportunity to explore Lombardia a little bit for the first time.

I flew in to Milan and had planned on doing some sightseeing, as well as seeing an work friend at Spotify’s Milan office before taking the fast train to Torino.

Little did I know when planning in advance that it was going to be around 34 degrees that day in Milan… Safe to say I was soaked to the bone by the time I had to head to Torino.

After an evening in Torino we jumped in the car and drove 2.5 hours to Montichiari where Luca was to marry his beautiful Nicoletta.

We left our stuff in the bed & breakfast that they were kind enough to host us in, freshened up a bit and headed over to their home for drinks and nibbles before the festivities could begin.

The ceremony took place in the cathedral (!!) and it was probably one of the most breathtaking experiences ever – they even had a choir singing, just like in Love Actually <3.

Not to mention the ‘football choir’ they had through the day, and by that I mean Luca’s entire football team that sang chants and caused mischief.

(I’m not crying… you’re crying!)

The reception was held in an old country estate that also had a vineyard at the back.

As we arrived they served loads of different delicious appetisers and bubbly in the front garden, but we were then asked to walk through the grounds to have dinner sitting in the actual vineyard!

The mood was on an all time high, people were chanting and singing, the wine was lovely and the food was out of this world. All in all it was definitely one of the best weddings we’ve ever been to!

After a few hours of sleep we got up to have breakfast with the rest of the guests and prepare for our day trip to Lake Garda.

We also found out that Nicoletta’s family actually manages the B&B where we stayed, so if you ever find yourself in the area, we can highly recommend staying there – it’s super nice!

After having said our goodbyes we drove about 30 minutes to the lake and had a walk around the little town of Desenzano del Garda that was very idyllic.

Alberto had booked us lunch at a seafood restaurant, so we tried out a few different dishes before continuing our adventure.

We drove out to the peninsula in the hopes of being able to explore Scaligero Castle, but it was full with people and no parking spaces, so we decided to head up to Castello di Drugolo instead and catch the nice view.

All in all a lovely weekend – I just need to brush up on my Italian language skills and I reckon I’d fit right in ;)

]]> http://www.orsii.com/2019/05/that-time-my-other-best-friend-got-married/ Tue, 28 May 2019 07:39:58 +0000 http://www.orsii.com/?p=12552 One of the best days ever <3

Let’s do it all again next year please!

We arrived in the afternoon, took a taxi to our Airbnb and wasted no time heading out to explore the sunny and colourful city.

We strolled across the old town, took a walk along the beach in the slight breeze and ended up on a big hill that overlooked the seafront.

After a long day we started to feel tired and by this point also starving, so we decided to head back into the old town and try to find a local tapas place.

Thanks to Google Maps I found a super lovely local shack that filled up with people after 8pm.

After quite a few glasses of Vermouth and small plates of delicious bites, we said goodbye to the man behind the bar and went off to have dinner at another tapas restaurant around the corner.

We had quite a few seafood tapas dishes, including our favourite the grilled octopus, and shared a bottle of local white wine.

All in all it was a great one day break that I would highly recommend!

I thought this would motivate me to keep training and stay fit ahead of the wedding but it didn’t quite turn out that way…

Due to the lack of hard training all hopes of maybe achieving a PB were out the window and I just secretly prayed that I’d be able to complete the race without any major difficulties.

Despite smiling on all the pictures I was in incredible pain. For the first time in my ‘running life’ I managed to develop a HUGE blister in the middle of my sole of my left foot after around 10km.

In the beginning I could cope with the pain but after around mile 11 I felt like crying every time I put my foot down.

I could feel the water inside the blister being pushed around every time I stepped down and I was forced to stop quite a few times after mile 9 to adjust my socks and my show laces to some how change the position of my foot slightly.

Despite this I made it to the finish (sprinting!) and managed to get my now quite standard time of 2h:15min which I was pretty pleased with considering the circumstances.

Although before the gig in the evening we obviously had to go on a mandatory tourist walk around London with a yummy pit-stop at the Social Eating House to refuel.

The view from the Tate Modern never gets old I tell ya!

It was a bit of a stressful gig for me to be honest since we could only use one turntable… Although in between all the moaning I did really enjoy myself :)

Spent most of the Sunday walking around and enjoying the sunshine.

We had lunch reservation at a cute restaurant in a hidden courtyard by Covent Garden and then explored some bits of Dulwich before it was home time

]]> http://www.orsii.com/2019/04/easter-with-friends/ Tue, 23 Apr 2019 07:37:10 +0000 http://www.orsii.com/?p=12546

We spent Easter with the usual suspects (minus 3 key group members) at Cata and Dave’s place. The food was super yummy, the wine kept on coming and we had such a blast!

The highlight was definitely this little cheeky monkey :) But then again, she always seems to steal the show these days (for good reason!)

Cata had made roast lamb, a delicious roast broccoli and beetroot salad, whilst Dave and Anna brought the hasselback potatoes. All topped with a yummy gravy (of course!) made from the meat juices. I can feel my mouth watering just typing all this out again!

After all the food we decided to burn off some calories playing and running around in the park.

We also managed to catch the sunset out by the seafront later in the evening as we went out for a little walk.

Oh Malmö, how can you be this pretty!?

]]> http://www.orsii.com/2019/03/girls-trip-to-barcelona/ Wed, 20 Mar 2019 19:02:31 +0000 http://www.orsii.com/?p=12527 Part of my bridesmaids duties involved organising a secret weekend for my BFF Anna in Barcelona with my fellow bridesmaids and I was blown away by all the funny, strong, talented, smart and beautiful women that showed up to celebrate this truly remarkable person <3

We kind of agreed that whatever happened in Barcelona would stay in Barcelona, so I can’t reveal too much… But hand on my heart I couldn’t have wished for the weekend to be any better – we had so much fun!