Best places to go! Spain Edition, Nº DOS.

Hello world!
So here is the long awaited second part of my "Best places to go! Spain edition."
The previous part included all the best places to visit in Málaga, the town where I currently live.
This one is all about my favourite hotspots in Madrid. The capital of Spain and one of my favourite city trip destinations. If you have an oportunity to go there even if it'r only for a few day, take it! It will defenitely be worth it. Madrid is a very big city but if you get a hotel/apartment in the centre you can get everywhere easily.
First I want to start with a couple of tips before getting to my Hotspots.

Accomodation:
A place to sleep in Madrid doesn't have to be expensive, It all depends on the confort and quality you want. There are a bunch of very fancy, chic expensive hotels. But if what you want is something cheap but not to bad, I reccomend looking at Airbnb, it is an amazing website where you can rent hostal/hotel rooms or apartments for generous prices. I have used this site several times and have never been dissapointed. It allowes you to find good accomodation in the city centre for a fare price.

Transport:
Of course you can rent a car, but parking in the city centre is a lot of trouble, so if you are staying there, especially if it is only a couple of days, it's not worth the money. the easiest way to travel would be by Metro (underground/subway). You can buy a single trip card or a 10 trip card, which is generally cheaper. You can use this card with more than one person. Making it even cheaper. You should remember however that when you leave the airport they tell you to buy a ticket that costs 3 euros, this will be necesary to enter the airport once you return, so don't lose it! Apart from the metro there are a variety of busses and of course there are taxies (cabs). But because the metro network is so extensive, most people use that.

Now on to my favourite hotspots:

Musea:
Now I know not everybody likes musea but I do, so I am putting a few in my hotspot list.
- Museo Nacional del Prado.
I don't think there is anyone who has been on a holiday to Madrid and hasn't visited the Prado, but if they have, It's there loss. Entrance is free for people under 18 and students up to 25 years old. They tend to have special exhibitions which are free of extra charge, you should know that these sell out quickly. For more info check out there website  (available in english),
https://www.museodelprado.es/en

-Navy museum.
I really enjoyed this museum as I like all things that have to do with the ocean and it's navigation. The museum is quite small but great. With a great variety of things on display, from old maps to things found on ships or even parts of the old ships. In the museum shop you can buy all sort of things, I bought a print of two dutch ships from the 16th century and this picture no hangs on my living room wall.
/http://fundacionmuseonaval.com/

There are of course many more beautiful musea but these two where my favourites.

Restaurants:
You can't go on holiday and not eat, I mean it is kind of an essential, so here are some of my favourite restaurants. All of them are fair priced in case you are on a budget holiday.
-Tommy Mel's:
This is mine and my sisters all time favourite restaurant. There is no Tommy Mel's in Málaga so we always go there when we are in Madrid. It is an american 50's diner. Complete with the old classic music and the interior. if you have read my post about Madrid you can find some very nice pictures I took on my last visit, and there I explain a little more about the food and service. They serve all kinds of typicall American dishes but my favourite are of course the burger. There are many diferent burgers and they are all equaly as good. You should defenitly check this place out. You can find them on different locations, but I have only been to the one on the Gran via ( The main street of madrid).
http://www.tommymels.com/

-Wok to Walk:
Now this is a comletly different restaurant then the previous one. But it is defenitely worth it. As you probably guessed from the name, it is a wok restaurant. You get your food in the typicall chinese take away cartons although you can eat your food there. You have some basic ingredients and then you can chose everything else you want, such as the type of noodles you want, what you want in it (vegetables, chicken etc.) and finally what sauce you want. They are very affordable which is one of the main reasons I like it so much and the portions are big, like I can never finish mine. Ever. It is a little harder to find but still very central.http://woktowalk.com/es/localizacion/restaurante-en-madrid-puerta-del-sol/

Apart from these two restaurants madrid obviously has a lot of other good ones. Close to the Prado museum in a side ally you can find "La cocina de neptuno" A cute small restaurants whit amazing food such as pizza, but not your oridnary pizza, no they have strange but nice combinations. The best way to find nice new places would be to just walk around and go into any restaurfant or bar that looks nice.

Shopping:
No anyone who thinks Madrid, thinks Gran Vía and who thinks Gran Vía thinks the new giant Primark that has opened up recently. It is a massive primark that counts 5 floors and is designed in a circular way so that you can just walk your way around the shop. My sister and I obviously visited it and bought a bunch off stuff.
madrid is also one of the few cities in which they have a lush store and nyx. Now I don't own anything from nyx but I know from friends that it is good. I do however own a few products of lush and absolutely love all of them. Apart from these stores, Madrid has a bunch of small shops and boutiques that are defenitely worth a visit. Some are even open on mondays.


Touristy stuff:
One of the things I love about Madrid is the amazing architecture,Literally all buildings in Madrid are beautiful, even the modern ones. allthough the old ones are the nicest. Especially with nice weather it is great to just stroll around the city and take in everything. One of the nicest places for me in Madrid is the Retiro park, a big park in the centre of the city, it is very big and has some very beautiful places, such as 2 palaces and a rose garden. The last time I went to Madrid on the last afternoon, my sister and I spent maybe 2 hours just lying on the grass under a tree enjoying the weather and watching people walk by. There is also a big lake in the middle with boats and other things. The best souvenirs to buy are probably on the big street infront of the Prado museum, which by the way is also a very beautiful street with lots of trees, very tumblr worthy ;)

So that is all for this post, next one in this series will be Valencia.
Hope you enjoyed and let me know if you want me to adress anything specific.

have a nice day/night wherever you are.

Simoneexx
 

Summer favourites!

Hello world!

So summer has come to an end, or atleast here it has. And if apart from this blog you are also following my youtube channel  ( the same name as my blog) you will know that at the end of winter I did a winter favourites. I really enjoyed doing that video so I decided to do a blog and a video this time.

So here are some of my summer favourites:

Kiko Body Spray:

 I love this spray, especially in the summer as you can spray it on your whole body, not just your neck or wrists. It has minimall alcohol so it's very fresh oposed to the heaviness other perfumes tend to have. It also has a very summery sent and it's in a metal bottle, making it easy to take away and minimalizing the risks of it braking. It's by the brand "Kiko Make up Milano" and this particullar scent is called Coral Reef.

Rituals Body Butter/ Cream:

I love to keep hydrated, especially during the summer, as my (and most people's skin) dries out fast due to all the chlorine and salt at the beach or pool. I do prefer to put it on at night or early morning as it's cooler and absorbs easier. Bodycream also helps preserve a tan which is a win win in my books. This on in particular ( the biggest jar) has little flecks of glitter inside giving your body a nice shimmering efect. It makes your body shine and look better. These body creams are by Rituals and are called "Mandi Luhur" (big jar, alltough this on e was part of a summer collection from 2 years ago, so I'm not sure if they still have it)  & " rituals of shakura" ( small bottle).

Dry shampoo:

As it is summer, your hair gets dirty easier. Especially if you swim and tan a lot, or like me, work out 3 times a week. To prevent washing your hair every day, something I don't do ( it's better for your hair). You can use dry shampoo, I guess everyone knows how to use it but if not it says so on the can. This one in particular is from a dutch brand and apart from keeping your hair clean an extra day, it also gives you volume and in my case extra wavy hair. resembling a beach look. It worked so good I went back and bought another spray before going back to Spain. 

Hair serums:

Staying on the topic of hair, with the sun and swimming comes easily damaged hair. To keep my hair shiny and nice, I put in a serum everytime after I was my hair. i airdry it first, to then brush it and apply the serum, especially in the roots and the ends. This serum has been my favourite for over 4 years. I bought it, once again, in the netherlands (you can only get it there, and it's cheap). Alltough I have found one in Spain that is also very good called "Kinessences, oil cream".

 Roses de Chloé:

 

















Now I have been in love with nearly all chloé scents for ages, especially the original one called "chloé". Recently I went shopping with my mom and while we where in one of the shops looking around. We walked past the Chloé counter and I smelled all the scents again ( Yup not obsessed at all). I had heard of this Roses de Chloé scent but never tried it. Once I smelled it, I fell in love. It smells like the original Chloé only fresher with a hint of roses and maybe herbs or something. I finally got the perfume, as a graduation present. ( If not I probably wouldn't have bought it). I got the 30 ml bottle which is the smallest one, as I don't use a lot of perfume. They wrapped it up in a very cute wrapping paper ( Paper under perfume bottle), making it complete. So yeah this is defenitely one of my favourite summer favourites.

Whish mud mask:

I love facemasks in generall, and all year trough. Especially at night, I just take of my make up, put on a face mask and relax. Normally you have to leave face masks on for at least 15 minutes. This one however, you leave on for short periods of time. At the most 2 minutes, making it easy to use if your in a rush or if you hate the itchiness of long on face masks.
This one is called " renewing mud mask" by an american brand called Whish. This is the sample size, it is paraben free and has naturally sourced and organic ingredients. The products are all tested dermatologically, so NOT on animals, something I find very important. So yeah I find it a very usefull mask fro a quick bit deep cleanse.

H&M nailpolishes:

I love a good nail polish, ( actually I am obsessed with nail polish and nail art) but this summer especially I have been loving the polishes from H&M. All the ones I bought where in the sales, so extra cheap. They had very special colours, with or without glitter. Alltough I prefer with glitter as the reflextion of the sun gives it a a very nice shine. The summer is also a very good time to paint our toe nails, making us girls look even nicer, especially in sandals or heels. 

Lastly I want to talk about the beautiful flowers I bought. I love having flowers around the house, they make the place look brighter and make it smell nice. In the summer with the heat however it is hard to keep them looking nice for a long time. but as it is cooling down now here, I bought these flowers the first uportunity I got. And I love them, especially the double coloured ones.

 











So I hope you enjoyed this list of summer favourites.
Have a great day/night wherever you are.
Let me know if there is anything in particular you wanted me to talk about.
 See you next time!

xxSimonee