I’m super stoked to post about my recent trip to Greece! While we couldn’t go during the summer because of work commitments, going in the fall was actually one of the best off-season trips we’ve been on! Flights and hotels were super cheap, large crowds of tourists were sparse and best of all, the weather was ahhh-mazing! Blue, super sunny and it was hot enough to wear t-shirts and shorts everyday!

(Although locals didn’t think so - in fact, I had to go shopping when we arrived since I didn’t think it would be hot enough to wear shorts or skirts and was surprised how most shops only had jackets and sweaters in stock!).

During our weeklong trip, we went to Thessaloniki, Meteora, Athens and Santorini. The latter three I’ll be posting about in the upcoming days.

Now let’s talk about Thessaloniki!

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Having spent the past 3 Christmases in Germany, I’m super excited to be spending it at home in Toronto this year! Things I can’t wait for:

The good - being able to spend it with family and friends that I haven’t seen in over a year.

The bad - oh how I’ve missed the commercialization of North American Christmas through overplayed Christmas music, mall Santas and The Christmas Story on constant replay.

And the ugly – apparently the last few winters in Toronto have been -40 degrees!

Ok, well the -40 degrees temperature I can do without, especially since winters in Europe have been fairly mild. While I may be able to walk around Germany unscathed by the -10 degree winters, in Canada, I’ll definitely have to find ways to keep warm.

Since my German boyfriend will be coming this year as well, I’ve started to put together a fun to do list of things happening in Toronto this winter. For those who will also be having a Canadian Christmas this year, Expedia.ca asked me to share my list to spread the holiday season cheer and keep everyone toasty at the same time.

Here’s what made my top 6 of things to do!

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I’ll never forget the first time I went to Paris years back when I packed nothing but pretty heels to wear since all the movies and fashion bloggers made it seem like that’s all any girls ever wore in Paris! Then fast forward after a day in Paris, I couldn’t get my blistered feet fast enough into an H&M to buy a pair of flats. Why didn’t anyone mention that cobblestone is impossible to walk in heels with?

Since living in Europe, a lot of my travels involve exploring big cities and with that also means a lot of walking. However being in fashion-conscious cities like Paris, London or Rome, there’s also the problem of finding shoes that are not only comfortable, but are also stylish. Over the years, I’ve had some pretty horrible shoe experiences while travelling.

Some travel shoe don’ts:

• heels - no, just no.

• ballet flats - while they’re flat, the ones I owned offered no arch support and become really painful after a while. Unless you have great quality ones that offer arch support and padding, I would stay away

• flip flops - admittedly, I wore them almost everyday when I backpacked around Australia, but unless you’re going on a beach vacation, they can get painful walking on concrete in, and when it rains, they can be super slippery. (Although they are the ultimate must-have if you’re staying at hostels!)

• new boots - new boots can take a while to break into. The biggest mistake I had was wearing a pair (albeit they were super nice) on a day where I was intensively walking around. Later that night when I took them off, my feet were blistered and bloody!

Luckily through trial and error, I’ve also discovered some really great options for stylish, comfortable travel shoes.

Here are some of my favourites!

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