chelsea in bloom. rhs chelsea flower show 2024: floral designs of london

my favorite time of the year in london is definitely spring! starting with magnolia’s in mid march, follow by cherry blossoms in late march early april and in late april to early may we have wisterias. may is different tho, it is the time for the legendary rhs chelsea flower show which brings blooms to the street of chelsea! i have been following the show very closely in past 7 years, and for some reason, i decided to blog about it this year! so the theme is floral feasts and great florists and stores of chelsea brought a great feasts to our eyes! so i captured my favorites! hope you enjoy as much as you do! and you can always vote for your favorite one from here!

chiswick, london's hidden gem by the river thames

on a very hot summer day, chiswick riverside, around kew bridge (i believe they call it the strand) towards east, one can feel like they are in southern france.. the whole ambiance of the neighborhood is not only so pretty but also so peaceful to wander. great architectural elements meets with english lifestyle and good old history and river thames’ wild nature. i love this city even more with all these little wonders that pops out from every corner of it! if you wanna experience some local london experience, i urge you to stroll by the riverside of this neighborhood and move on to kew gardens later.

hope you enjoy the visual stroll that i hand picked for you!

santorini , oia travel guide

probably one of the most visited island of greece, santorini provides the infinite feeling of the beautiful mediterranean. on a very hot june weekend, while visiting for a wedding, i get to discover the colorful northern part of the island, oia. this small island welcomes so many tourists that it is very hard to find empty spots to enjoy. but yet i have managed to find my way into this cute town and manage to experience both the hot morning and the breezy afternoon with great sunset view. being a volcanic island, the dark texture of nature meets beautifully with the neat pearl like man made architecture. the one and only pedestrian street of oia is enough to discover the iconic view of the island. blue domed churches, rustic bells, the colorful cliff view and the sunset.. 

because it is a very popular island i highly recommend you to do all your reservations way earlier than usual. the airline fees are very high, hotels are relatively expensive compared to what they offer and restaurants are always packed during dinner time. so plan very ahead. i stayed at family own the flower pension at the very entrance of oia which was walking distance to the main street with a parking lot! which is a lifesaver! i have always liked greek food and the restaurants we have been were also very nice to dine at. candouni, a very small restaurant with live music and nice atmosphere, is in the inner side of oia streets but if you wanna have the view and dine strogili was also a good choice to dine with the sunset. santorini is a destination for everyone. a bit harder with kids with strolling reasons but it can be romantic, adventurous, calming, artsy... you name it. if you give at least of 2 days you'll get to see plenty. but i highly recommend to stay 3 days to see the most of it. 

i hope you'll enjoy the photos as much as i did while taking them! more of the greek island photos to come soon too! and also big thank you to dilara&gokalp from puciwed for taking my portraits too! <3

dreamy amalfi

october is one of my favorite time of the year for vacations to seasides. not too cold not too hot not full of too much tourist at least. everything is moderate. landed to napoli airport as the sun was setting down and by the time i got my rental car, which by the way ofcourse was a black 500, it was pitch black dark. anyways, hitting the road with crazy, i mean even crazier than some turks, italian drivers i had to travel on those bendy roads! climbing the mountain to get to my hotel in amalfi. i stayed at the cutest b&b called world center hotel with amazing staff. antonio, the manager, was worried about me since i arrived a bit late and welcomed me at the parking lot. that was the kindest act that i had witnessed for a long time that made me so happy! i picked the hotel because it had a free parking lot, cause i already knew that parking fees were crazy expensive in the area! and if i have had checked better i would have known that they were also offering airport pickup for a very reasonable price and yet along can drop you to the near by locations like downtown amalfi or ravello. so i am letting everyone know that you don't need a car to get there just book a room from world center hotel and message them that you need a ride and antonio will help you out with everything! plus they really have good cappuccino compare to the ones i had at the other places in the area. to my luck, i got to wake up to a sunny morning the next day with church bells ringing at 7 am with cannon balls firing. really not good way to wake up especially when bombs are exploding everywhere in the world right now. it turned out it was a holly day for their saint and the churches were ringing their bells for the announcement. it was a good welcome! having your breakfast with an amazing view is just priceless. you do feel like you are in the center of the world nothing beyond you. you do wonder about how and why people chose to live at the edges, by the cliffs but you know why, it is just amazing to live to. 

so i met with lovely punica films for the first time that day after really nice breakfast with good omelet and italian tomatoes and basil. elif and utkan also joined me to shoot a lovely wedding in ravello. antonio drove us to downtown amalfi for us to catch the ferry to positano. which was i guess 8 euros for round trip. not that bad.. the boat ride was nice with great view of course. you get to see the whole area from the sea. very fascinating to see positano from a distance. well unfortunately american tourists made the area super popular that everything is over priced. especially the hotels. if you plan a trip to the area no need to stay at positano unless the budget is not a problem for you. boats don't run late after high summer season so taking an early boat and coming back with the late boat was actually enough to discover the whole town. even later we had time to wander around the downtown amalfi as well. the next day we drove to ravello i switched hotels which i regret the most! but since the wedding was going to be held in ravello it was actually better idea to stay close by especially on the wedding day. but staying in amalfi was also a good idea. anyways, ravello is a tiny town with a lot to offer actually. i couldn't take a lot of photo of the town cause it rained a lot when i had the time to discover it. but one thing for sure dragging luggage is pain in there. there are no cars allowed only pedestrian area so there are tiny golf cart looking cars around for tiny streets that takes you to your hotel from the place where the vales take your car.  well it was also another reason why i regret staying there. so i learned my lesson i am sharing with you all! arrange accordingly!

i love the colors of the whole coast. bright vibrant and natural. those potteries. oh i wanna take them all! really cannot get enough of them! i am so in love with that big fat amalfi lemons and all the art that comes along with it! one day i'll come back and grab those big bright colored plates. i can feel that happening! but until than here are the photos of my lovely trip. elif takes the credits of my lovely photos! thanks to her i do get to have some proper photos at a trip! hope you all enjoy it as much as i did and if you do don't forget to leave <3's at the end! have a great time!

alacati, izmir travel diaries..

when it comes to alaçatı, it has been one of my favorite travel place in turkey. this time it was a nice april day that i got to see this beautiful town in the spring time. i have been there many times in the summer time where it sizzles with lots of tourists. but this time it was quite quite. but it didn't stop me shooting colorful nature of it!

i highly recommend everyone to visit alaçatı at least once and have their vacation time around that area where the beaches are amazing with crystal clear blue waters. and of course to taste some amazing food! 

so here is the colorful little fashionable town of alaçatı. enjoy! 

travel dairies: ghent, belgium

after being to belgium three times it was the time to visit ghent finally! and with luck it was a great sunny day! and my lovely friend carina was my guide! ghent is a lovely small artsy city where you can enjoy it in a day. having a canal ride then have a walk around and definitely stop at saint bavo's cathedral to see the famous ghent altarpiece by hubert van eyck, which was stolen during the world war II by hitler's army and was brought back from the mines of austria later at the end of the war. if you wanna know more about the story i recommend you to watch the movie the monuments men.

next time i am hoping to visit brugge to see another marvelous city of belgium. hope you enjoy this picturesque little city! oh and big thank you for carina for taking my portraits ^_^ <3

oxford, united kingdom in february

so it was a great february day and i took a walk in this beautiful city! on a sunny day like this, oxford gets even more beautiful! all the history and nature together is just peaceful.. 

the city offers you wonderful ranges of shops, antiques, cafes, parks, gardens, colorful houses, nice people and many more!

start with new college lane with the famous bridge of sighs (hertford bridge that connects new college and hertford college) and follow the st. helen's passage to reach to the hidden beautiful historic turf tavern. then walk through holywell street to see houses with colorful doors and windows! from there you reach to the high street where you can enjoy shops and cafes with both great interiors and exteriors. like my favorites sweaty betty, toast, podarok (where everything they sell is handmade or designers) and many more. take a round tour at radcliffe square.. if it is a sunny day like mine you can enjoy a take away coffee or a little bite on the banks of the square and watch people passing by. and then definitely get lost in covered market and have a cookie from famous ben's cookies which was originally from oxford! you can also eat at different and traditional pies at cute pieminister!

oxford is a university city where there is no one big campus instead the whole city itself serves as a one huge campus! there are 38 colleges around the city in which you can see most of the historic buildings. i haven't been into any buildings yet but to their parks or yards. museum of science and history is also a great stop to see einstein's blackboard that he used during his visit to oxford and archeology equipment of lawrance of arabia (t.e lawrance) and many more historical scientific tools. there is also the famous castle in which you can experience the old. this town is more than 1000 years old there is no chance for you to miss a history there.. 

i just love this city and i still have more to explore.. polite people riding their bikes, enjoying sunny weather outside; the nature.. everything about it is just magical.. i hope you all enjoy it as much as i do!