🌍72 hours in Zürich, Switzerland

Back in March I got the chance to visit Zürich, the famous Helvetic city. I didn't have a proper itinerary, the only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to visit was the Univeristy library at Law faculty, everything else I jumped into has been planned once I got there...
Quick infos before I start: wifi in Zurich is free, you only have to insert your cell number and they'll send you a sms with a pass code. Plus everyone there speaks English, so it's not a problem if you don't know a word of Swiss German, like me! 

Day 1 - Churches and Zürich Lake

I've been lucky enough to find a really good weather and so I spent my first day walking around the city visiting its churches. These are the two main ones:
- St. Peter church
It's the city's oldest church and, with its 8.7 meter of diameter, the clock tower has the largest clock face in Europe.

- Grossmunster
This enourmus church earned the title of Zurich landmark and it's easy to see why: you can spot it nearly from every point of the city center. The inside also is worth a visit.

Zürich's lakeside is very crowded during lunch time on a sunny day: it's relaxing to just sit on a bench, eating your lunch while watching all the turists coming and going. Both the sides I visited have beautiful parks and I spent a few hours there, sunbathing and reading.

Day 2 - Bahnhofstrasse & Uetliberg

Visiting the churches on day 1 allowed me to visit a big portion of the city, so for the my second day I decided to do some window shopping in Bahnhofstrasse, aka the shopping street. It's nearly as long as Paris' Champs-Élysées and connects the lake to Zürich central station.

It mainly has chocolates and watches shops, two things Swiss are famous for, but you can find also low cost fashion brands like Zara, Mango, Tally Weijl and H&M. The street is 1.4 km long so it's quite a walk, but belive me, you won't feel tired. I also stumbled into a beautiful little street that goes to Lindehofplatz, where there was a fountain filled with flowers! Amazing!

In the afternoon I hiked up to Uetliberg, Zürich's mountain from which you can enjoy an outstanding view! It's a populat trip, it takes almost 2 hours to reach the top, but it's completely worth it! They say it's particulary beautiful in November, when you can see 360° panorama over the fog that often covers the city.

photo credit HERE

Day 3 - Lindehofplazt & Chinese Garden

On my last day I went to Lindehofplatz, a top spot according the sites and travel blogs I checked. It's an huge square/park where you can snap some photos of Grossmunster, the historical centre and Zürich's University from an higher point of view...

photo credits HERE

Then I went for the Chinese Garden. I actually have no idea why I decided to visit in the first place and why I decided to do it anyway after I found it was on renovations...still, it was really cool. It was smaller than I thought after watching some photos, but it's a really quite place (compared to the busy lakesides) and it has a little pond with koi fishes, if you have some spare time I suggest you pay a visit.

a beautiful view of the riverside just after sunset! 💗

Ok, so these were the most particular places to stop by while in town.

Zürich isn't a big city and somehow I managed to get lost countless times...which happened to be a good thing since I found really great places with stunning views. You can easily have fun exploring it on a week end getaway; it's clean, expensive (lesser than I thought anyway) and public trasportations are always on time and reliable. I think the best time of the year to visit is in springtime, but there are some great events and attractions all year long.

Oh, yes...this is the Universitu Library I wanted to visit so badly!

Impressive, uhm?!

Have you ever been in Zürich or Switzerland in general?
Which ones are your favourite places to visit?

If you'd like more curiosities, read here my posts on Niume.com
6 things people do in Zürich, Switzerland - click HERE
6 Similarities between Zürich & Paris - click HERE

🎵Song of the Day: Love on the Weekend by John Mayer🎶

All photos are my own, if not otherwise stated

Duchess of Cambridge's Poland and Germany Royal Tour lookbook

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge just ended their 5 days Royal Tour between Poland and Germany. This was the first European tour as a family of four, since their children went with them. Since the UK is slowly making into Brexit, the royal couple has a busy schedule to mantain friendly international relationships with various EU countries. 

I don't want to keep this post on a sad nor political level, so let's talk about the gowns and outifits that our beloved Duchess wore while visiting the top spots of these two countries.
Enjoy!

Day #1

1) Arrival in Warsaw, Poland and various engagements (July, 17th) wearing a white peplum suit by Alexander McQueen
2) Queen’s Birthday Garden Party (July, 17th) wearing Polish designer Gosia Baczyńska white dress

Day #2

3) Various engagements (July, 18th), including visit at former Nazi Germany Concentration Camp, Stutthof & Visit Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre wearing Erdem floral t-shirt and skirt.

Day #3

4) Arrival in Berlin, Germany (July, 19th) and some engagements, such as visit at Holocaust Memorial, a private meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel and visit to Strassenkinder, a children’s charity wearing a blu coat dress by Catherine Walker

5) Queen’s Birthday party, hosted by British Ambassador at his home in Berlin (July, 19th) wearing an off shoulder bright red dress by Alexander McQueen

Day #4

6) Arrival in Heidelberg, Germany (July, 20th) for a series of engagements like visits to German Cancer research centre and the stem cell research lab. The Duchess showed up in a bright yellow summer dress by Jenny Packham

7) Partecipating in a rowing race between the twinned town of Cambridge and Heidelberg (July, 20th) in a Hugo Boss striped shirt and Superga shoes.

8) The couple attended an evening at Claerchen's Ballhaus dance hall in Heidelberg (July, 20th). The Duchess wore Markus Lupfer dress, matched with nude Prada sandals

Day #5

9) Arrival in Hamburg, Germany (July, 21st) and visits at the Maritime Museum and the Elbphilharmonie, one of the largest concert halls in the world. Then other events before catching their flight back to London. The Duchess wore a gorgeous Emilia Wickstead liliac dress.

And my favourite outfits of this tour were:

the Erdem total look worn in Poland & the Emilia Wickstead liliac dress worn in Germany

I hope you enjoyed this sum of the Duchess' looks and let me know which one(s) is your favourite!                                 

Photo credits: zimbio.com

🎬 Movie Review: To The Bone

Lily Collins is one of my favorite actresses and knowing that she suffered of eating disorders made super curious about this movie. This particular topic has always been something I wanted to deepen since lots of people suffers about it, in fact...

Famous people who defeated this terrible disorder are:

Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden as well as Precious actress Gabourey Sidibe, Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga, who suffered of bulimia.

Portia de Rossi, Demi Lovato as well as Pretty Little Liars actress Troian Bellisario and singer Zyan Malik, who suffered of anorexia. And these are just to name a few...

The movie starts with Ellen, a skilled artist with a serious anorexia problem, being expelled from a help center because of her negative and bully attitude. Her mother moved to Phoenix, Arizona and so she has to stay with Susan, her step mother, and Kelly, step sister, in California.
Susan is desperate to find a way to cure her, while Ellen is determined to keeping her unhealthy habits.
Their last hope is Dr. Beckham, who's running (with unconventional methods) a community house of cure for young people dealing with the same problem as Ellen, so she's sent there.

Ellen gets to know other realities of anorexia, beside her: there's Luke, a former ballet dancer that stopped eating when he broke his knee, or Megan, who's really trying to get better. Every single girl (and boy) are struggling (or faking trying) to get back on tracks with their lives, but the journey is long and difficult...

My Opinion👍👎

This movie disturbingly portrays the ugly truth about eating disorders in all their sadness and irrationality. I wanted to quit watching it at least three times, some scenes are really hard to bare and the characters stories will make you burst into tears.
Since eating disorders are an huge reality (also thanks to nowadays social exposure of fashion bloggers/influencers/model) a movie like this is an excellent way to teach what would happen if you start to starving yourself and I loved the positive message at the end, that everything can be solved, if you're willing to let yourself be helped.

Raking: 4/5

Related Movies & Books

- Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson (2010)
- Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi (2011)
- Feed (2017) by Tommy Bertelsen. With Troian Bellisario (also screenwriter), Tom Felton and Ben Winchell 

Photo credits: impawards.com & vox.com

📖 Novel of the Week: Salvaged by Jay Crownover

That's a wrap everybody!!

I've reached the end of  the "Saints of  Denver" series. Author Jay Crownover went beyond any expectation I had for this last novel...in a good or bad way? Read my review to find out! 

Ladies and gentlemen here's to you Salvaged by Jay Crownover.

(this review contains SPOILERS!)

Poppy Cruz faced hell last year, literally: her brutal, abusive husband abducted her after she left him and the entire situation ended up with him being shot at, living Poppy alive but jolting whenever anyone (expecially men) tries to get near her. Wheeler thinks Rowdy's little scared sister-in-law is too cute and gentle to have suffered all of that and can't blame her for being so aloof when she's with strangers...that's why he's so surprised when she shows up at his garage with a dog puppy, saying she thought it was perfect for him; but Wheeler has a lot in his mind right now...

Hudson Wheeler has been abandoned by his own mother when he was just 4 years old, hopped from a foster family to another until he met Kallie Carmichael (Dixie's younger sister) and fell in love with her, even if she was (and is) a spoiled egocentric princess. They were supposed to get married, but Wheeler called the engagement off when he found out she cheated on him...with a girl. She told him so, right after saying she is pregnant!

Poppy and Wheeler's lives are complicated (not to say messed up!) and their own pasts are holding them back, but they find out they're very similar and, surprisingly, ready to give love once last chance...

What I liked 👍

The differences compared to the previous novels are: 
A) the protagonists' characters and personalities are similar, while in all the other book they were opposites. 
B) Jay's usual scheme goes right out of the window: Poppy and Wheeler are happy together and don't want to leave each other, it's a third person that tries to separate them (and in the worst and cruelest way) while in all the other novel is one of the two that goes away, coming back to his/her steps eventually. I really like this change and the love story is sweet, with a twist of sexy, as always!

What I did not like 👎

For book length reasons, of course, Poppy's journey to trusting people again had to be reduced (even if there's no chapter with her thinking about her past and the huge progress she made), still I think she should have played safer and been a bit more shy and introvert...Plus everything concerning Kallie is too complicated and the relationship that between her and Poppy unnecessary.

One thing I have to say, Jay knows how to write dedications at the very beginning of the novel, they always let me speechless! 
This book is about survivors and people that don't let obstacles and bad things jeopardize their future and everything good it might come with. I was in tears every time Poppy's descriptions of her years with an abusive husband came along, those were quite intense. 

The perfect ending for a well made spin off of Marked Men! 

My vote: 8½/10

Saint of Denver tetralogy:

1. Built - my review HERE

2. Charged - my review HERE

3. Riveted - my review HERE

4. Salvaged

My favourite couple of the series is the one from Built:
 Sayer Cole & Zebulon "Zeb" Fuller.
Which is yours?

Photo credits: goodreads.com

👗Charlize Theron vs Mirolasva Vavrinec

Garbine Muguruza is the new queen of this 140th Wimbledon championship! 

Even if the main matches are played on the green courts, another kind of "battle" is fought on galleries...

Actress Charlize Theron wore was pretty in purple wearing this Gucci foral dress at Focus Features Luncheon at CinemaCon, in Las Vegas, back in March. She went minimal for both make up and accessories.

Mirolasva Vavrinec (aka Mirka Federer, Roger's wife) donned the same outfit at his husband's second match at Wimbledon, last week end. Given the place, she sported silver sunglasses and a golden shoulder bag.

Who do you think wore it better?

Charlize Theron or Mirolasva Vavrinec?

Photos credits: hawtcelebs.com 

👗Emily Ratajkowski vs Renée Stewart

There's always a first time, for everything: today isn't the first time on #WWIB for the American designer Michael Kors, but surely is for both the "contestants": Emily Ratajkowski vs Renée Stewart.

Emily Ratajkowski wore the assemblement first, while attending Michael Kors F/W 2017 fashion show in New York, last February. She opted for a pair of black boots to complete the look, a natural make up and simply left her hair down.

Rod Stwart's daughter, Renée Stewart wore the same outfit at the Tatler’s ‘English Roses 2017’ exhibition, in London, a few days ago. She went for a more chich look, matching to the crop top and skirt a pair of black sandals and showing up with a messy updo.

Who do you think wore it better?

Emily Ratajkowski or Renée Stewart?

Phot credits: zimbio.com

👗 Karen Fukuhara vs Rachel Zoe

American actress Karen Fukuhare wore this splendid Valentino light blue gown first, at the New York premiere of her movie "Suicide Squad", back in August, last year. Given the eye catching dress, she went minimal on jewelry and opted for beach waves hairstyle. 
Stylist and fashion designer Rachel Zoe must have loved Karen's outfit so much she had to wear it as well! Back in November, she showed up at 5th Annual Baby2Baby gala with the same Valentino dress, the only difference between her and Karen is that Rachel is blond and her hair were a bit curlier.

Who wore it better?

Karen Fukuhara or Rachel Zoe?

Photo credits: zimbio.com