Ms. Parmita Shakya, the Director of Hotel Ambassador shares with us the experience of spending her three-week-long honeymoon in Italy, Greece, France, and Monaco.

My husband and I got married back in May–April of 2014. Of course, after the wedding, every couple dreams of going to exotic places for their honeymoon. We had a very hectic wedding that lasted a full month, so we were both very tired by the time everything was done. Our intention for the vacation was to just relax and unwind. 

I have always loved travelling. I am someone who is willing to travel anywhere at any time. For our honeymoon we decided to travel to Italy, Greece, France and Monaco. We left Nepal around June/July. Although both of us had travelled to a lot of places before, this was the first time we were going to travel together. We were both very excited. I and my husband obviously love each other very much, but the honeymoon period is where the love is at its peak! It's the rosiest period of our lives, if I may say. And to travel to all these amazing places all at once! I don’t think there is anything else more fun for a girl.  

I believe that the holiday is where you get to see the best of someone, where you get to really understand the other person because you're just so relaxed. We had no other intention than to do just that! Relax, unwind and enjoy each other's company. Our trip was three weeks long, which meant that we had all the time in the world.

We first flew to Abu Dhabi from Kathmandu. From Abu Dhabi we flew to Rome, the capital of Italy, from where we visited Florence and then Venice. We also went to this amazing little island off of Naples called Capri. In Greece, we decided to skip Athens and head for Santorini instead. In France, we didn’t go to Paris but rather to Nice and Cannes. We also went to Monaco, a tiny independent city-state on France's Mediterranean coastline. We flew to almost all those places, but took train while travelling between Nice, Cannes and Monaco because all these places are just about an hour apart from each other.  

Monaco was very posh. It was there that I wondered to myself what the locals did for a living. It felt like it was a world of its own. It looked like a fairy tale town. Everyone was so beautiful and was wearing beautiful clothes. We saw the famous Casio de Monte-Carlo. We ate in a café right in front of the casino and watched as people go in and come out of it. Monaco was absolutely gorgeous.         

All my life I was educated abroad. I have studied in India, Hong Kong, America and Thailand, so I am comfortable when it comes to traveling. I have come to accept and understand that it's natural to experience new language, culture and even culinary barriers while traveling. Because of my experiences, I am comfortable navigating through foreign countries. I have friends from all over the world. Once you really know people from all these countries, you realize that, even though you might not speak their languages, at a human level, we're pretty much all the same. Besides, these days we have Google to help us with everything. You just need to type what you want and where you want to go to get the directions. Thanks to technology, the world has increasingly become a small place and it's become much easier to understand people. You're also not going to have an existential conversation with someone in a foreign country. You're just going to be ordering pizzas, asking whether the dish in the menu has ham or chicken in it, or whether the restaurant serves Coke! The primary conversations you have in a foreign country generally sound something like "Excuse me! Where are the Spanish Steps?" or "Could you point us towards the Coliseum/Beach!" So these issues are not very complicated to navigate through. Even simple gestures and sign language do the trick just fine. A first time traveler could face these problems, but seasoned travelers like my husband and myself were well accustomed to these issues. Besides, we knew that traveling to these countries was not going to be as difficult as visiting a country like China, where the majority of the people don’t even speak a single word of English. Italy, Greece and France are very tourist friendly countries, and the awareness and education level in those places have reached a point where most of the people understand exactly what you're talking about or referring to.

For our travels, we didn’t even use a travel agent. We did everything ourselves, and to be honest, we didn’t find anything very hard to overcome. Whether deciding which train to take or which hotel to stay in, we handled it all by ourselves. In fact, in Santorini, we booked a car and travelled all around the town using only Google Map. Our generation is very comfortable traveling thanks to the internet.

Speaking of Santorini, it is a very beautiful place. It was so beautiful in fact that it was extremely hard for me to absorb everything in; especially when there was so much of it. I didn’t get culture shock, but was rather awestruck by everything around me. I suppose I could have gotten used to a place so beautiful if I had spend all three weeks there, but since we were on a trip, it was just one amazing place after another.

As for activities, we didn’t do a lot of adventurous things since it was never our intention in the first place, But when we were in Santorini, we sailed to the Amalfi Coast, a 50-kilometer stretch of coastline along the southern edge of Italy’s Sorrentine Peninsula, and in Venice, and we did a Gandola ride. We mostly walked around towns and enjoyed the cities rather than having a packed itinerary with things like hiking and cycling. Maybe now that we have a child, we'd like to be more adventurous. But since this was our honeymoon, we went seeking leisure rather than adventure.

I confess that I ate my way through Italy, or should I rather call it, "Eat- ily "!

I will say this that the trip was obviously not cheap, but without a shadow of doubt, the experience was worth every penny. The Italian cuisines were amazing. Having had authentic Italian food in Italy, you'll not want to have Italian food anywhere else because the dishes were so authentic and the ingredients so fresh that nothing else compares to it. The pizzas just melt in your mouth and the pasta gives you such a euphoric feeling. I confess that I ate my way through Italy, or should I rather call it, "Eat-ily"! Like there are "Pan Pasals" around every turn in Kathmandu, in Italy, they have Gelato (Creamy ice-cream) shops around every neighborhood.

I would have spent an entire month in Italy if I could. Scenery aside, what really draws you to a country is the people and the food. If you were to dislike the two, you'll never want to go back to that country again. Italy is absolutely stupendous when it comes to the two. I would love to take my daughter (along with my husband) to Italy when she is a little older to roam around. As she is just eight months old now, we still have some time to plan this out.

As an endnote, I would say that many Nepalese are afraid to travel to foreign countries because they are afraid of the aforementioned language and culture barriers. I would tell them that traveling is very essential in life. It really opens up your mind to the world. All of us are so preoccupied with the little things in life, but when you travel, you realize just how petty or miniscule those things really are compared to the grand scheme of the world. So you need to rise above yourself, above your pettiness, and just open up your mind and realize that there is so much more to life. I know that I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to live the life that I am living, and to have experienced this trip. I feel very grateful for all of this, and I know that not everyone is fortunate to receive the same opportunities. So I'll end by just saying that anyone who can travel should travel.