Eat – Never Travel Without My Butler

November 23, 2018February 1, 2019

Weekend in Cape Winelands, Cape Town South Africa

The landscape of Cape Winelands completely blew Napa out of the water! The wines were also really great, looking back one of the wines from our wedding was from South Africa.

We drove from Cellars-Hoehenort directly to our first vineyard, Fairview Wine & Cheese, where there were lots of goats! The wine and cheese pairing was perfect!

Our next stop was my favorite winery, Babylonstoren! It is not only a vineyard but also a beautiful farm and garden, I wanted to go to Babel but there were no more reservations for the rest of the year! So if you want to go there too, I suggest you make a reservation as soon as you book your flight. We ended up getting some snacks and meeting the cutest baby at Greenhouse, food was very good and the greenhouse next to it inspired me to one day make Ross build me a greenhouse just like it!

Here’s a map of the grounds- babylonstoren_garden_map

Cape Winelands has three major areas: Paarl, Stellenbosch, and Franschhenok. We decided to stay in Franschhenok because of the world’s best boutique hotel- Akademie Street Boutique Hotel.

The photos seriously don’t even do the hotel justice, everything about it was absolutely perfect. We had custom made cocktails before dinner and sun downers after dinner.

Don’t even get me started on the breakfast! Breakfast and drinks were served in the amazing greenhouse and in the afternoon they have a fire going in the fireplace!

We were reluctant to leave Akademie Street Boutique but we also wanted to go to other vineyards so we started the day driving up the hill to Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve where there is a beautiful scenic vista.

Our next stop was Delaire Graff because it’s a Relaix & Chateau hotel. We were a bit disappointed because it was a bit more commercial than the other ones we had been to but we did go into the Graff diamond store where I tried on a beautiful pair of diamond butterfly earrings! Our 5 year anniversary is coming up Ross!

My friend Abby had just gone to Cape Town earlier this year and one of her recommendations was to book a picnic at Boschendal, luckily I looked into it earlier since I’m such a planner because you need to book the picnic 24 hours in advanced! We are so glad we booked it because the food and views and photos came out amazingly!

Transportation:

If drinking and driving isn’t your thing, you can take the Franschhoek wine tram. Pricing is very reasonable, only $16.63/adult!

We checked out the town of Stellenbosch before heading to the last vineyard we went to on our way to the airport was Hidden Valley Wines.

Our second favorite meal in Cape Winelands was at Foliage, everything we ordered was delicious! What we liked was that it was a tasting menu but you could select how many courses so you weren’t stuck with a 7 course meal!

For other food in Cape Town, check out our What to Eat in Cape Town page.

Since coming back from Cape Winelands, we have tried many other South African wines in New York!

What’s your favorite vineyard?

XOXO,

Nina & Ross

November 22, 2018December 29, 2018

What to Eat in Cape Town

Usually when we visit a new country, I like to research what are must eats because we love to eat!

Our favorite restaurant in Cape Town was Cod Father in Camps Bay. It’s tucked away a little behind the main road of restaurants. On one side of the restaurant, there was a fresh fish market and on the other side was a sushi conveyor belt. We ended up ordering something from both the fish market and conveyer belt.

If you are staying in Cape Town, Mama Africa has a great atmosphere and ok food. The game meats were interesting.

Another restaurant that we liked in town was Lola’s cafe. Very simple, fresh and delicious fare.

If you are in Simon’s Town posing for pictures with penguins, make sure to stop at Lighthouse Cafe. The food was ammmmazing! I had the seafood stew and Ross had chicken pot pie, both were incredible!

We went to check out V & A waterfront because it is very popular on other blogs as the “safest” area of Cape Town but we found it to be very touristy. We ended up eating at a relatively new restaurant called La Parada, which we later found out is a chain with multiple other locations around Cape Town.

La Parada is a spanish tapas restaurant and obviously wasn’t as good as the tapas in Spain but it was decent. The interiors of the restaurants were better than the food. I did try Savanna Light which is a delicious refreshing South African cider.

At the Cellars-Hoehenord, we ate dinner at The Conservatory because The Greenhouse was sold out. Dinner was delicious but nothing extraordinary, it was a classic 5 star hotel meal.

The cheese souffle was amazing and here’s the recipe for it.

All the breakfasts we had at our hotels were also amazing, some staple items were eggs, stewed tomatoes, and sausages.

The one thing that we LOVED and were craving after we got back was Biltong. Biltong is the perfect mix of beef jerky and prosciutto. We didn’t have this when we were in Cape Town but the safari we went to at Kruger had these during our sun downers and they were amazing!

Since coming back from South Africa, I’ve bought these from Amazon and it’s quite expensive!

To read more about our trip, check out our 4 perfect days in Cape Town.

What are your favorite restaurants in Cape Town?

XOXO,

Nina & Ross

November 21, 2018January 17, 2019

Cape Town, South Africa – The Perfect 4 Day Itinerary

South Africa has always been on our bucket list so as soon as we saw a flight deal for $700 round trip on Virgin Atlantic, we booked it immediately! Cape Town completely exceeded our expectations and is now our favorite place that we’ve traveled to.

Before we get started on the itinerary, here’s a *PRO TIP: South Africa use different outlets that are not a part of international converters- we bought ours on amazon.

Day ONE.

We started our trip in the city of Cape Town. we stayed at PepperClub Hotel & Spa for the first two nights. The rooms were large, breakfast was great and location was superb! We were exhausted after our 23+ hour journey so we took a little nap then started the day!

Our first stop was brunch at Lola’s Cafe where we had an egg croissant on Long Street which contains lots of bars and two streets up was Bree Street where there are cuter cafes, restaurants and shops but a lot of them were closed because it was Sunday.

Ross was already wearing his safari hat, nonstop.

For dinner we went to check out the V&A waterfront but we found the area to be very touristy and we were very glad we didn’t stay there.

For more food recommendations visit our what to eat in Cape Town page.

Day TWO.

We woke up around 6 AM to get the day started. (Also because we were super jetlagged) After breakfast at the hotel, we headed out to conquer Table Mountain. The lift area was only about a 10-15 minute drive from our hotel, we parked at the lift area and walked around 20 minutes to the start of the hike. The hike took about 2 and a half hours, make sure to bring plenty of water! The only thing keeping me going were these cute motivational quotes someone had written onto the rocks! (You got this! etc.)

The views along the entire hike and once we reached the top were incredible, because as Miley Cyrus puts it: it’s about the climb.

After grabbing some celebratory beers, we took the cable car down (with a great view of Lion’s Head) and headed to lunch.

We also wanted to hike up Lion’s Head for Wally’s Cave but unfortunately that trail was closed due to a recent death. Life is more important than doing it for the gram!!

We drove down to Houts Bay in search of fish and chips from Snoekies but we weren’t in the mood for fried fish and chips after our glorious hike. We did drive by a restaurant with Africa’s Favorite . com written across the facade, which we thought was hilarious!

We ended up at Camps Bay, Ross found a great hidden gem called Cod Father. The menu is freshly caught seafood and a conveyer belt sushi.

The drive down from Camps Bay to Hout Bay was gorgeous, we wanted to keep going to Chapman’s Peak Drive but saw there was a toll and we were planning on going down to Cape of Good Hope the next day so we headed back to town.

*PRO TIP: We found out the next day that if you just want to go to Chapman’s Peak and not go all the way through you don’t have to pay the toll

Before heading back to our hotel, we stopped by the Ellerman House for some drinks and because we love all Relaix & Chateau hotels.

For dinner we had Mama Africa with awesome live music but the food was ok.

Day THREE.

We started our day at the amazing buffet breakfast from PepperClub then stopped by Bo-Kaap (which was walking distance from our hotel).

Onwards to Cape of Good Hope!

The toll for Chapman’s Peak is only $3.26 and so worth it!

We took the scenic route through Noordhoek which has lots of horse farms and you can do a beach horse ride with a company called Dirty Boots.

Before getting to the entrance, we stopped by an Ostrich farm that had baboons across the road!

The entrance fee to Cape of Good Hope is pretty expensive, instead of charging by car the fee is $21/adult and $10.53/child. There was also quite a long line to enter so try to go earlier in the day.

Once we were in the park, we stopped by the information center were there were pamphlets on many hikes you can do. We wanted to do the Cape of Good Hope Scenic Walk but our legs were still too sore from Table Mountain. We did climb up to the highest point at the Cape of Good Hope start of the walk and saw orcas in the water!

We drove over to the lighthouse but didn’t go up because we were hungry for lunch!

After we left Cape of Good Hope, we drove to Simon’s Town and ate at Lighthouse cafe. It was sooo delicious and cute inside!

Time to find the penguins! We ended up turning into the first penguin sign we saw which led us to the Institute for Maritime Technology where we saw about 40-50 penguins and it was free! Unless you are SUPER into penguins, that was good enough for us. For penguin lovers, you can drive a bit further to Boulder Beach where the entrance fee is $2.50/per person.

Before heading to our new hotel, I wanted to go to one last stop: St James Beach. We ended up parking the car but it was really windy and there was a ton of traffic so we decided to skip it, here’s a photo of what could have been.

I’m glad we didn’t spend too much time there because our next hotel was AMAZING! We stayed at the Cellars-Hohenort, another Relaix & Chateau hotel. The hotel sits on 4 hectares of absolutely stunning gardens. We wanted to go to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden but we were already staying on such beautiful gardens we decided to explore our 4 hectares.

We had dinner on the property because the Cellars-Hohenort was a bit more remote than the last hotel and there were two amazing restaurants on the property. The Conservatory and The Greenhouse, more details on our where to eat page.

Day FOUR.

Breakfast at the Cellars-Hohenort was also incredible, there was a mini bloody mary bar- so cute!

After breakfast, we set off to explore the Cape Winelands! Check out our weekend in Cape Winelands post to continue reading.

Overall, we absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVED Cape Town.

What are your favorite things to do in Cape Town? We would love to hear your feedback!

XOXO,

Nina & Ross

October 21, 2018December 26, 2018

One year anniversary in Nantucket

On our one year anniversary, we went back to our favorite island Nantucket! We stayed at the Wauwinet where we got married and got to stay in the Coatue suite. The Wauwinet is a magical retreat away from everything, even though Nantucket is just on the coast of Massachusetts it feels like you are in another world!

And the sunsets are incredible!

Our goal is to back to Nantucket to celebrate our anniversary every year and try all of the restaurants on the island. So far we have tried the following restaurants and we’ve ranked them in the order of our favorites:

Toppers – $$$$ in the summer you can take a boat from the White Elephant to the Wauwinet or a 30 minute shuttle ride from downtown Nantucket
Black Eyed Susans – $ best breakfast on the island (CASH ONLY and BYOB!)
The Nautilus – $$$ best tapas and most inventive menu
The Proprietors Bar & Table – $$$ we had our rehearsal dinner here and everything was amazing!
The Pearl – $$$$ came here one of the first times we were on island, incredible fresh seafood
CRU – $$$$ great scene, food is very expensive!
Dune – $$$ great food and atmosphere
The Club Car – $$ great food and also great cocktails
LoLa 41 – good sushi
Fifty Six Union – $$$ family owned, delicious food!

When shopping, we stumbled upon James Cromartie’s gallery and met James! We loved hearing all about his stories of Princess Diana and his other patrons. We ended up going home with one of his famous 007 paintings.

If you’re going off season, make sure to check to see which restaurants are open because some are closed during off season. Here’s a great website to check which are open all year round.

Another great time to visit Nantucket is when they have annual events such as:

Daffodil Festival ~ end of April

Cranberry Festival ~ mid October

Christmas Stroll ~ beginning of December

How to get to Nantucket:

Having our wedding in Nantucket, we researched all of the different ways to get to the island.

Option 1: Fly via Jetblue from LGA, JFK, Boston or DC to Nantucket

Option 2: Fly to Boston and take CapeAir directly to Nantucket

Option 3: Drive to Hyannis and take the ferry
Two types of ferries go from Hyannis to Nantucket
– Hy-Line fast speed ferry – $ 77/round trip takes 1 hour each way
– Steamship Authority fast ferry – $ 69/round trip takes 1 hour each way
– Steamship Authority slow ferry – $ 37/round trip takes 2 hours and 15 mins
each way
*TIP- if you plan on going to Nantucket more than once or are traveling with a larger group, you can buy 10 one-way tickets on Hy-line for $275.

Next time we want to try doing some hikes. Does anyone know of any hikes that we can try?

October 27, 2017January 24, 2019

Honeymoon in Mykonos Greece, Part Two

After an amazing 4 days in Santorini, we flew to Mykonos on Aegean. During the summer you can take a ferry between the islands but since we went a bit off season we had to fly.

Day ONE.

We stayed at Bill & Coo with the most amazing staff because it was the last weekend of the season. We even got a beautiful blanket for being the last guests of the season!

Here we rented a small Fiat 500 from a local rental company through our hotel. Mykonos is a larger island than Santorini so we were happy we rented a car but the roads were very narrow similar to Santorini. Our hotel was not in town, it was about a 5-10 minute walk but you can read more in our Where to Stay in Mykonos post.

We loved walking through the old town of Mykonos, we got lunch in the old port area. This is where the ferries come in during the summer.

Lots of different options by the water and we ended up going to Kazarma because it had the most people but the food was just OK. Check out our Where to Eat in Mykonos post.

We explored the windmills and walked to the top of the town for more windmills.

Day TWO.

We rented a car just for the day and drove around the island, we stopped by Cavo Paradiso.

The weekend before was the last party and the evidence was everywhere!

A must visit when in Mykonos is this tiny tiki hut called Kikis, the food and atmosphere is absolutely amazing! We went with a couple that we had met on the Santorini Yacht Sailing tour.

We drove around to different beaches and Ross even went for a swim! I was too cold!

Day THREE.

On our last day, which was also Bill & Coo’s last day of the season the hotel staff kept on bringing more and more food out. I definitely wasn’t complaining!!

After the amazing breakfast, we walked around the old town. We loved all the white washed walls and doors in different shades of blue.

We even ran into a local celebrity! Petros the Pelican!

Our stay in Mykonos was amazing, we cannot wait to return to check out some other islands.

Some of the islands that are on our list are:

Milos
Crete

Let us know about your experiences in Greece!

Xoxo,

Nina & Ross

October 25, 2017January 17, 2019

Honeymoon in Santorini Greece, Part One

After celebrating our wedding, Ross and I took off from Nantucket to Santorini. From our favorite island to another amazing island, we were on cloud nine.

Day ONE.

Once we arrived from Santorini airport we rented a car from a local company called Motor Inn. Luckily Ross knows how to drive manual so we are able to rent cars wherever we go. We rented a little smart car because we read the roads were narrow and we were inspired by Just Married with Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy.

This trip is also where @nevertravelwithoutmybutler started because Butler is Ross’ last name and he’s such a great butler!

Since it was our honeymoon, we decided to splurge and stay at Andronis Luxury Suite in a gorgeous suite with a private Jacuzzi. How amazing is this view?

For other hotel options check out our Where to Stay in Santorini page.

After checking into our amazing hotel, obviously we relaxed for a bit on our private terrace with fresh fruit and free booze! Usually I’m a travel bully and I try to pack as much in our itinerary as possible but since it was our honeymoon and we were exhausted (with happiness) from our wedding we just relaxed!

Ross was in HEAVEN, this was his type of vacation!

After what I thought was enough relaxing, we sought out the famous Santorini sunset and dinner because I get hangry! Even though we went during “off season” there were still lots of tourists in the Oia area.

In Santorini there are two main cities that you can stay in: Oia and Fira. We decided to stay in Oia because the area is a bit more “luxury but more touristy.” Both towns were very cute and in our opinion both a bit touristy. We stumbled upon a really cute bookstore called Atlantis Books then went to dinner at Lotza.

Day TWO.

Every morning we got to select unlimited options from an extensive menu of amazing greek breakfast items such as greek yogurt, fresh fruits, pastries, and egg dishes. Our favorite dish was Kagiana. (Side note, we tried this recipe after we came back with fresh oregano that we bought from Greece and it was AMAZING!)

We ate amazing food in Santorini, some of our favorites were the greek salads! The tomatoes were so fresh and the oregano! To die for!! Check out our what to eat in Santorini post for more food information.

The weather in Santorini changed drastically between daytime and nightime. During the day the weather was sweltering hot (89 degrees) and at night there was a cool breeze (50 degrees).

We tried so many times to do a jumping photo but this is as close as we got to a good shot, you can see the frustration in our faces! Ha!

After hanging out by our private pool we drove to Domaine Sigalas Vineyard for some wine tasting. We had the most amazing tomato salad called Ntakos with the most amazing cheese which we found out later the recipe just calls for local cheese.

After tasting some delicious wines, it opened up our appetite for dinner! Who are we kidding, anything will open my appetite!

We decided to check out the the Ammoudi Bay area to do some research on sailing tours and fresh seafood! We ended up eating at Sunset Ammoudi because of all the celebrities that ate there but we weren’t impressed with the food. We heard good things about Ammoudi Fish Tavern but we didn’t have time to go back down to Ammoudi to try it. The views from the water were gorgeous though!

Day THREE.

We woke up to another amazing breakfast and relaxation session in the jacuzzi. We could really get used to this life!

Today we decided to check out Fira, we heard that the hike from Oia to Fira was amazing but since we didn’t have that much time we just drove there. Fira was cute, we got the best gyros from Lucky’s Souvelaki!

We finally saw a good sunset when we were wine tasting at Santos.

Day FOUR.

For our last day in Santorini we booked the Santorini Yacht Club morning tour. I bet the sunset ones are beautiful but since we were 1 for 3 on the gorgeous sunsets and the weather gets a lot cooler in the afternoons we decided to get a little tan and do the morning tour.

The yacht company comes to pick you up from your hotel and we did the semi-private tour for 140 euros per person.

The cruise consisted of three stops: volcanic red beach, white beach, and volcano hot springs. We didn’t get to stop at the beaches, you just see them from a distance.

*PRO TIP: do not wear a white bathing suit if you want to swim in the volcano hot springs because the minerals will stain your suit!

The excursion also came with delicious greek food and the scraps were dropped into the water, I almost died taking this photo because all the birds were flying around and I’m glad I didn’t fall into the water because the photo was not as epic as it looked in real life…

After the sailing, we spent our last hours wandering the small streets of Oia.

Reluctant to say goodbye to Santorini but excited to head to the next stop on our honeymoon: Mykonos. See our Honeymoon in Mykonos Greece, Part Two to keep reading.

Some of the islands that are on our list are:

Milos
Crete
Corfu
Paros
Patmos
Rhodes

Did you know there are 6,000 greek islands but only 227 are inhabited?

Let us know about your experiences in Greece!

Xoxo,

Nina & Ross

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