Naibalebale village, Viwa Island, Fiji

Viwa is a coral island in the Yasawa Island, Western Fiji. There is only a small resort (11 'bure', for 22 guests) and three villages,  Naibalebale, Yakani and Najia, total population about 500. There are no cars on the island, or roads, only tracks. We visited Naibalebale, at the end of this beautiful long beach. 

Vata's House

The ladies' market, set up for the resort's guests during our visit

The village Bure, really beautiful

Keep both doors open for amazing views

Rebuilt after the cyclone 

Viwa Island School

The highlight of the visit was the local school, the children performed for us to raise money to help repairing the school, damaged after the latest cyclone. A part from the school and the resort five more houses were destroyed by the cyclone, but fortunately there were no casualties.

Children singing and dancing

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Hiking in Coromandel, New Zealand

 A four day hiking trip in Coromandel with friends

Arriving at Crosbies Hut

Days spent in the bush among bird songs and pretty fungi

Convivial evening with fancy hut cooking and entertaining...

… and everything vegetarian and vegan!

Returning home

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

First photos from New York

This is my second visit to New York, the first one was over 20 years ago! In fact I still have a photo of me with the Twin Towers in the background, so visiting to the World Trade Centre Site was quite an experience.

The 9/11 Memorial remembers the victims' birthdays by placing a white rose on their names. There are almost 3,000 names, and the victims of the 1993 World Trade Centre Bombing are also remembered here.

It was a cold and cloudy day.

We had a sunny day too (albeit still cold!) perfect to visit the Empire State Building, and the view was great!

Other highlights were the big Xmas tree and skaters at the Rockefeller Centre...

shopping in Saks Fifth Avenue,

visiting the Central Station,

… and discovering my own coffee brand!

I also liked the Xmas decorations in NY, much more subtle that the ones in Los Angeles. 

On the third day it snowed! This is the view from our window, we stayed in a wonderful place in the heart of Manhattan, a convent turned into a guest house, The Leo House. Highly recommended.

The skyscrapers are great, but there are also a lot of lovely 'shorter' buildings around, I liked this cute 'attic' on the right, with the green roof, next to MOMA (which is so good to deserves a post by itself, later on).

Arantxa was feeling at home, I am sure that she would like to live in NY!

This is all for now, I'll talk about the food another time!

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©