Category: Travel

France

Hidden Gems of the French Riviera – Sainte Maxime, Plateau de Valensole, Verdon Gorge and Gréoux-les-Bains

Author ByRyan Lee

When you search French Riviera, you will often see the search results filled with Nice, Eze, Monaco, Cannes, Antibes, and Saint Tropez.  Actually, why bother searching when I could tell you about my first time going to Cote D’Azur?  Or I wrote again in my blog (2nd time going) about going to Eze and Cannes and Menton and Monaco. So you can check all of them out.  You can see my video clips at https://www.youtube.com/@travelwithabutterfly.  Or if you’re like me, a tourist who wants to visit the off beaten paths and go to less touristy places, you can check out Sainte Maxime, Plateau de Valensole, Verdon Gorge and Gréoux-les-Bains.  It’s so less touristy that most of the people in the region, including the staff in the hotel, that they actually don’t speak English at all.  You can also read about Saint Tropez or places to eat in Nice or things to do in Nice.

We stopped by Sainte Maxime from Saint Tropez because we had to drop off our friend.  He had to go back to Nice to catch his flight the next day.  At first, he didn’t really want to go to Saint Tropez because of the inconvenience of going to St. Tropez and back to Nice and worried he might miss his flight.  But since we were driving to Plateau de Valensole for the lavender fields, we would pass by Sainte Maxime there, which would be easier for him to catch an Uber, take it to Saint-Raphaël, and take a train back to Nice in the evening.  I think the uber from Saint Maxime to Saint-Raphaël costed about €50. Had he taken from Saint Tropez directly to Nice, it would probably costed him €300!!

Continue reading Hidden Gems of the French Riviera – Sainte Maxime, Plateau de Valensole, Verdon Gorge and Gréoux-les-Bains

France

One Day Itinerary for Èze AND Cannes

Author ByRyan Lee

This is my second time going to Èze and Cannes.  To read about my first time experience, you can read about my Cote D’azur blog, the time where I get to see Arnold Schwarzenegger in person as well.  If you want to read about my recent blog post about one day itinerary for Menton and Monaco, click here.  For raw video clips, go to youtube.com/@travelwithabutterfly.

In my opinion, both places don’t actually have much to see as a tourist.  When you visit Eze, you’re mainly going to see the botanical garden.  When you go to Cannes, it’s mainly just shopping, clubbing, and good dining, but not many tourist attractions per se.

 

Èze

Originally, Eze wasn’t part of my itinerary in this trip, and for good reason.  I felt that going to Eze, there wasn’t much to do, as I mentioned, but during an Uber ride from Cremat Castle back to Nice, the uber driver we had suggested as a first time tourist that Eze was beautiful and we should definitely visit, so fine I’ll go again to Eze. Continue reading One Day Itinerary for Èze AND Cannes

France

A One Day Itinerary to Menton AND Monaco

Author ByRyan Lee

This is my first time going to Menton, but my second time going to Monaco (and the rest of my south of France trip).  If you want to read about my experience the first time, you can read about my Cote D’azur blog which I actually saw Arnold Schwarzenegger in person.  For raw video clips on this trip, visit my Youtube shorts.

Menton is often treated as a “second priority” when it comes to the south of France.  When you research about places to go in the French Riviera, it’s always Nice, Saint Tropez, Cannes, Eze, Antibes, and Monaco.  But to be quite honest, despite my limited time in Menton, I actually thoroughly enjoyed my time there and I definitely don’t think Menton should be disregarded, and perhaps should take higher precedence than other places in the French Riviera.

I actually had made reservations for a three star Michelin restaurant called Mirazur, as recommended by Alexander The Guest in his youtube video.  The reservation wasn’t very difficult, as I just went online to make the reservation for lunch.  The only problem was, I decided to cancel it, not because of the price, but because of realising how long the meal would take.  At best, it would probably take at least 2.5 hours, but it could potentially go up to four hours, and given the limited amount of time we had at Menton before we had to reunite with our friends in Monaco, we decided to spend our time elsewhere touring around Menton.  But I’m putting it out there in case you have a whole day and do plan to dine at a fantastic restaurant with magnificent views; you can let me know how it goes! Continue reading A One Day Itinerary to Menton AND Monaco

Denmark

Four Days Itinerary in Copenhagen, Denmark (Part Two)

Author ByRyan Lee

This is a continuation of my 4 days Copenhagen trip, featuring Days Three and Four.  If you haven’t done so already, you can read about Part one for Days one and two right here.  Some of my thoughts and opinions on Copenhagen were expressed in the previous post, so I highly encourage you to read that post before reading this.  Moving on directly – and again I will post extra photos at the bottom to make the flow of the blog post feel a bit better rather than bombard with loads of photos.  For my Youtube shorts for Copenhagen, click here for shorts.

 

Day Three

Our first stop was checking out this bakery place called Hart Bageri (website), which was about a 10 min walk from our Coco Hotel.

Hart Bageri

Hart BageriYou can say that my friend really loves pastries, but so do I (mainly in Copenhagen though). Continue reading Four Days Itinerary in Copenhagen, Denmark (Part Two)

Denmark

Four Days Itinerary in Copenhagen, Denmark (Part One)

Author ByRyan Lee

I came to Copenhagen to explore a new city / country prior to going to Tomorrowland (click here for my tips on surviving Tomorrowland).  As the first Nordic country I’ve ever been to, overall I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed my time there.  Everything was simple, minimal, walkable / bikeable, clean, organized, and civilized.

I came here without any expectations except for the fact that food was supposed to be expensive in these Nordic places.  But to my surprise, it wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined.  Plus, I only knew about Noma, the holy grail of three star Michelin restaurants.  But little did I know that there were a lot of fine dining restaurants and aspiring Michelin restaurants in this city.  My friend even commented that a lot of the techniques used in Michelin restaurants around the world were first adopted here in Copenhagen.  The reason for that was because of its relaxed culture, allowing chefs to take on risks and experiment; compared with many other places in the world, chefs would be scolded for making mistakes.

Adding on to that, from stories I hear from other people, Denmark does have a culture of leniency and relaxation and a stronger emphasis on work life balance.  For example, if you’re in United States or Asia, you’re expected to go to school and go directly to university then start working.  In Denmark, it’s expected of you to take a gap year before, during or after college so you can take time off and do what you want.  I even had a friend’s family in law where one of their daughters in Denmark took a total of three gap years, so by the time she was in the workforce she was 25 years old or something like that.  What I’m trying to say is that Denmark has a very relaxed culture, which encourages people to find what they like, discover about themselves, and allows them to experiment and take risks more. Continue reading Four Days Itinerary in Copenhagen, Denmark (Part One)

Mexico

Get Up Close and Personal with Turtles and Dive into Cenotes in Tulum

Author ByRyan Lee

In my previous post, I talked about the accommodations and restaurants of Tulum which you can read right here.  Additionally, if you’re looking for tips on how to avoid scams in Mexico, you can read that right here.  But right now in this post, we are going to be talking about the things I did in this trip that you can also add to your itinerary when visiting Tulum.

I personally think that staying in the resorts is of itself an activity you should spend some time enjoying rather than just treating it as a place to stay.  Not only are there usually different activities to do, but there’s like spa/massage or yoga that you can participate in as well.

But of course outside of the resorts, for this trip, we went to five(!) different cenotes, swam with turtles in Akumal Bay, visited one of the new seven wonders of the world Chichen Itza, and also checked out Tulum Pueblo and took some photos at some touristy spots. Continue reading Get Up Close and Personal with Turtles and Dive into Cenotes in Tulum

Mexico

Taste and Luxe: The Most Amazing Hotels and Most Awesome Food of Tulum

Author ByRyan Lee

Tulum: A Tropical Paradise You’ll Never Forget! -> I’ve been trying a lot of stuff for ChatGPT, whether it’s for writing lyrics, asking history questions, and helping me write blog posts.  So a bit of the stuff you’ll find might be more “ChatGPT” voice, but I’ll include any details where I think it’s missing from my own experience and emotions.  ChatGPT is here mainly to make the language more colourful and to provide more facts and information that pertains to each place of interest where I myself am too dumb to know all of it, that way as a reader I hope you’ll also get more insight to what the place is about rather than just rather I like it or not and why.

This post will focus mainly on our hotel resorts and food/restaurants.  For things that we did in Tulum and car rental, click here.  To read about how to avoid common scams in Mexico (car rental, gas, driving tips), click here.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by Tulum. I didn’t expect it to be as vibrant as it is, but the endless sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters were a sight to behold, not to mention all the water activities this place offers. It reminded me of Bali, a place I cherish very much, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was back in my favorite tropical paradise. As much as I loved Tulum, I was surprised to find that it’s quite pricey. Even more so than what I’m used to paying back in Hong Kong! I was also surprised that it was getting pretty hot at the end of April as well, around 30 degrees I believe. But don’t let that dissuade you from enjoying all that Tulum has to offer.

My trip to Tulum didn’t start that smoothly. I missed my flight to Cancun due to unforeseen traffic on the road the morning after the Coachella festival. This left me with a stressful and frustrating two-three hours of trying to book the next flight at lightning speed. We even almost purchased a flight that departed at 12:30pm/1pm (original flight was like 10:30am) through the phone (since the flight didn’t show up online as it was cutting close to departure) but the man at the check-in counter told us that 5 minutes before check in closes, we had to have paid the flight otherwise it would have been too late and we would have paid and not get on board, so that was another stressful 45 minutes that resulted in us giving up at the payment step.  We ended up missing out on all the flights that day and had to take the one that departed that night at 1:30 am! We had to cancel our first night’s lodging (successful) and rearrange our car rental pick up for the second day. If only we had gone to the airport earlier. Live and learn, right? Continue reading Taste and Luxe: The Most Amazing Hotels and Most Awesome Food of Tulum

Travel

Discover New York in 6 Days: One of My Top Ten Meals I’ve Ever Had! (Part Three)

Author ByRyan Lee

Alright, welcome to the final post on my week long trip to New York City!  You can read about Part one and Part two here for the rest of the itinerary.  Let’s go straight away talking about Day 5 and Day 6 of my time at NYC.

 

DAY FIVE

Flushing New YorkOn my way to Flushing

Flushing New YorkI’ve never been to Flushing before, but in this photo you can see many Chinese characters.  Actually in Flushing it feels more like the real Chinatown, whereas the Manhattan Chinatown Continue reading Discover New York in 6 Days: One of My Top Ten Meals I’ve Ever Had! (Part Three)

Travel

Discover New York in 6 Days: Skip the Tourist Traps and Dive into Genuine NYC Magic Nobody Talks About! (Part Two)

Author ByRyan Lee

Continuing on from our previous post of Day one of New York (which you can read here for accommodation, transportation, and other things I did), here we will keep talking about the itinerary for my other days.  For part three of this blog post, click here– (for Flushing, the real Chinatown, and more Greenwich village and the best meal ever)

 

DAY TWO

Marathon Coffee (website)

Marathon CoffeePassed by this coffee place and wanted to give it a try

Marathon CoffeeCan’t really sit down anywhere, so it had to be a to go

 

FableticsFabletics (website).  Saw it was a tennis shop, but it was actually more than that and they sold activewear / sportswear clothing Continue reading Discover New York in 6 Days: Skip the Tourist Traps and Dive into Genuine NYC Magic Nobody Talks About! (Part Two)