Banff National Park, Canada

Wild and temperamental like a dark and brooding storm, we met Canada for the first time and what a wonder she was. We spent five days gasping, completely awestruck and dumfounded at the scenery that was before us. Highlights included getting to know our hostel caretaker who spent 40 years managing hostels around the world and now was retiring and going to get his Santa license, walking/slipping and sliding up and down a mountain to see one of the most magical views I've ever witnessed (The chateau by Lake Louise with a side of snow covered pines), being stared at by deer & elk and hearing the sound of raging waterfalls become closer as we hiked up mountains. 

Here are some photos that don't quite do it justice but hopefully encapsulate some of the beauty this place holds,

Carla

Marseille, France

Marseille brought about some good things and some not so great things. First of all, we started this leg of our trip by screaming in the airport running towards Cassie welcoming her to the travel life. Super good thing. Second we made our way to our accommodation which was basically Rapunzel's tower and met our crazy frenchman host. We found to our dismay that the "apartment" was a little room with a bunkbed and a couch with a bathroom that was separated by a mere shower curtain. There was also a moment where we thought our host was going to deny Cassie staying with us when we had previously received his permission. Bad things.

After laughing at our misfortune for a while it was shopping time. By this time we had a routine going on when we arrived at a new destination. We bought the classic essentials, yoghurt, chicken, cheese and many other items concluding to 30 euros worth. Why am I telling you these mediocre details you ask? Because at around 5pm the power went out! Things could only get worse. After calling our host numerous times and failing to get our power back, Jacks european credit on his phone ran out. By then our phones were running out of battery but on the plus side the wifi wasn't working so...

We went into survival mode. Which meant eating a tonne of yoghurt and other various chilled items.
The night dragged on as Cassie snapchatted our depression and "how great her first day was going" and randomly listening to music on one of our iPhones to block out the sound of someone going to the toilet.

I probably could go on forever about everything that went wrong in that time but in the end we got power once again (after a whole 24 hours) and continued our life in Marseille.

Highlights included bike riding along the turquoise oceanside, swimming in chilly waters, watching Cassie eating a whole round of Brie as her first "meal" in France, laying in green pastures and roaming the streets of our pastel paradise neighbourhood.

Post bike riding mood.

Tanned much?

Cassie's first crepe on the trip.

Breaks called for editing your next instagram post

Carla Dibbs Photography

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Venice, Italy

So the time has come to finally dig into my photos from last year. If you don't know, I spent most of 2015 in Europe, four months of which I was travelling with my sister and friends. If you know me I take alot of photos and I have a phobia of deleting them so it's quite an overwhelming experience when I finally decide to take the plunge and start editing.
Here we go. Venice, Italy.
The first 2 hours we spent in Venice were not the best start. We got dodgy directions from a policeman and found that there were no bridges on this certain route that could take us to our accommodation. It was quite a frustrating moment when we were literally across from the street that we needed to be on but the canal was a clear obstacle. I think we all thought about hijacking a boat at that point. Our AirBnb host was pretty annoyed as he stepped out of his personal gondola when we finally arrived but it all ended well.

This was my second time in Venice but for me, it's uniqueness and beauty hadn't faded. Our days were filled with the autumn palette, pizza, illegally riding the really expensive gondolas to see the famous glass blowing island (heads up: they don't glass blow on a Sunday, a fact we learnt quite sadly), getting lost and shooing away pigeons. 

Below are some shots from our stay.

Carla Dibbs Photography

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