Saturday 16 August 2014

Nails on Tour

Hey everyone! So I've just (a week ago) got back from a wonderful holiday in Italy, which you may or may not know from a few of my previous posts. I decided whilst I was there that I wanted to do some holiday pictures on my blog, but I also wanted to include my nails, so I decided to take a photo (or two/three) a day with my nails to document what I did. I also wanted to document how well my nails fared. I was wearing Red Carpet Manicure - Red Carpet Reddy*, as I've been trying out gel manicures recently (post coming soon), and it fared brilliantly. I got a teeny chip on the side of my thumb on the last day (you'll see why below) but apart from that they were pretty much perfect until I took them off. 




After relaxing on the Saturday, we went to Pompeii and Herculaneum on the Sunday. As a history student it was amazing to finally see, and made even better by the fact that we got free entry! I actually think that Herculaneum deserves more attention because it's so much better preserved due to it being covered in mud rather than hot ash like Pompeii, but unfortunately houses have been built on top of most of the site and they can't excavate anymore at the moment, so it's only around 25% excavated.


The next day we spent the day relaxing by the pool after walking for hours and hours through Pompeii and Herculaneum. Unfortunately I got sunstroke later in the day and ended up asleep for a few hours, but it was good whilst it lasted!


On the tuesday we decided to explore Sorrento a bit more, we wandered down the cliff (through a cave for about half a mile) to the nearest beach only to discover that it wasn't really worth visiting, you had to pay to get in and it was tiny so we decided to skip it, and walk all the way back up again! On the way back up we saw this gorgeous view of the Sorrento coastline and I just couldn't resist taking a photo!


The next day, on the Wednesday, we went to Rome for the day. This was taken as we walked out of the Metro, completely astounded that the colosseum was right in front of us, and real! Unfortunately about 2 minutes later we €10 each by two guys dressed as gladiators (rookie mistake). Turns out we were quite lucky really though because a girl on our flight and her boyfriend got scammed €40 each by the same guys, I guess we look poor!


Everywhere you turn in Rome it seems like there's an amazing historical monument, this is taken outside the Pantheon, one of many amazing things we saw in Rome!



Another amazing thing in Rome is the Roman Forum, right next door to the Colosseum. We were told before we went that the best way to avoid the queues to the Colosseum was to queue at the forum instead. The first picture is taken whilst we were queuing, and the second is taken 30 minutes later once we got through the gates. The ticket was only €7.50 for a joint ticket for the Forum and the Colosseum, and both really are beautiful. 





I didn't taken any more photos at the Colosseum because my camera wouldn't focus and my friend's phone wouldn't work (I didn't take mine) so instead you can have lots of photos of the forum! It really is amazing and I'd definitely recommend going to see it, even if just to skip the 3 hour queues to the Colosseum! And thankyou to Blythe for the photos!


On our final day we decided to relax after a tiring day in Rome (we had got up at 5am and didn't go to sleep until gone midnight) so in the morning we went and did a bit of gift shopping in Sorrento, and then we spent the rest of the day playing the travel monopoly we bought in the airport, which I won, entirely! At the end I had everything on the board and pretty much all the money in the bank, even if it did take almost 4 hours. Weirdly enough, this was the day that I got the one and only chip on my nails. As you can see in the left hand side of the picture, we were holding out money down with houses to stop it blowing away, but before we did that I had to jump over a wall to our neighbours balcony (we were on the ground floor) a good few times, scratching my nails in the process!

I really did have an amazing holiday, and I was really sad to come home, especially since it's rained none stop since I got back! I'll definitely be going back next year, Italy is beautiful and I really loved Sorrento!

If you like the look of my gel polish, you can buy it here (Red Carpet Reddy) for £12.95

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!
Alice

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9 comments:

  1. Beautiful pictures! Italy looks amazing and so does that red gel x

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  2. Lovely to see your holiday like this! I visited Rome, Pompeï and Herculaneum 19 years ago (now I feel old) during secondary school on a school trip. I absolutely agree that Herculaneum is so much nicer, but a lot of the lovely artefacts from Pompeï are in the Napoli museum (which I unfortunately did not see as the staff was on strike the day we were supposed to go there). I loved seeing all those places I learnt about during my school days (I attended a gymnasium).

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  3. I love your idea of your nails' selfies around Italy. Put a smile in my face, especially since I recognized some of the places that you visited :)

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  4. It's great to hear that you enjoyed your trip!
    I loved Rome and was hoping to see it again this August (with Pompeii and Herculaneum - student of classics here :) !), but my boyfriend couldn't get the time off. Bah.

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  5. This is such a sweet idea for a post, and the colour is so stunning... not to mention the backgrounds!

    Sam xosjmcdf

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  6. Love how you've taken all the pics with the nails, such a fab idea!! That red is so lovely and shiny, and it sounds like you had a great time :-D xx

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  7. Love this post! So glad to see that you had such a lovely and relaxing vacation.
    The nails held up pretty well, too!

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  8. Awesome pictures! I can't believe another person has that pesky crooked pinky! Mine curves a lot more than urs, but it makes it soooo hard to do many normal hand poses (for me anyway). I love ur blog n ur work....uve inspired me many many times!

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  9. Great post! It was brilliant to include your nails and all the information about where you went. I loved all the details. I've heard that the sheer volume of people visiting Rome can make for a very hectic, shuffling, hot and, ultimately, not fun holiday. I'm glad you were forewarned with tips about where to queue to make the wait less. And how great to see it while you're so young and nimble (jumping over to your neighbors balcony and back several times), and to be fresh from learning about what you were visiting. Thanks!

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