From Place To Space: Sleepless In Seattle

A tad belated but still on a beautiful autumnal Monday, I am inviting you to a new travel adventure in my weekly 'From Place To Space' blog series. Today's destination: Seattle in Washington, the Evergreen State. And if you think 'Sleepless in Seattle' is a mere reference to the most famous movie playing in the the Pacific Northwest metropolis, then think twice: I hardly slept there indeed. There's just too much to see!

Seattle Views
First and foremost, there is one big advantage in Seattle: You get to see the city from a bird's eye perspective quite easily. Either you rocket up the famous Space Needle and enjoy a 360 degrees view from its top platform, or you enter the Columbia Center, the tallest building in Seattle and Washington State, whizz up to the observation deck and marvel at the city from the highest top possible. Oh and since we're in Seattle, you'll find a Starbucks in either tower. After all, this is the birthplace of the world famous coffee.

Pike Place Market
If you had enough of vertigo triggering high flights, you might be in the mood for something more stable, something more grounded. What's better than hitting the renown Pike Place Market with fresh fish and seafood in abundance, fruit, veggies, delicatessen and flowers galore. Look out for local, organic produce such as excellent honey or preserves, handcrafted souvenirs and some delicious treats for the little hunger in between. If you've seen the acclaimed movie as suggested in the headline, then you might recognize the 'Athenian Inn' restaurant. But if you're in the mood for really good food, I'd suggest you go a few steps further and turn into one of the little alleys in the market hall and climb up to the 'Place Pigalle' restaurant for excellent French food, fresh local seafood, impeccable service and astonishing views of the Puget Sound without packs of tourists all around.

Nature and Design
Speaking of the Puget Sound one can not ignore the multiple waterfronts. Take a trip on Puget Sound or set over to nearby Bainbridge Island or sail on the Lake Union. A walk along the waterfront is pretty entertaining, too. You will encounter many restaurants and shops, but also rather quiet corners such as the artsy Olympic Sculpture Park with great artworks of local and international artists. If you are into architecture don't miss the fantastic Seattle Central Library designed by Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus - the entrance is free and the visit is really worth your time!

Trendy Capitol Hill
Another highlight is Seattle's Capitol Hill district with great shops for design lovers, amazing restaurants regarding food and interior design, as well as a very liberal and cool community with lots of students and creative folks. One of my favorite restaurant finds was 'Poppy' with a crazy new twist on thalis and a cool interior design concept. Thumbs up!

Blogger Friends
My special highlight was a cool blogger dinner with two cool friends - local blogger hero Uncle Beefy aka Bradford Cowder and the inspiring design connoisseur and blogger Jonathan Lo of Happy Mundane, who is LA based but happened to be in Seattle for a visit, too. Bradford proposed a great downtown restaurant called 'Local 360', offering locally grown food within a 360 mile radius of Seattle. And our dessert came right from nearby Bainbridge Island - homemade cupcakes by the master of patisserie disaster Bradford. Thank you my friend! 

Oh, and we stayed in a wonderful airbnb place in Seattle. I will blog about that in more detail soon! Happy new week!

Photography by Igor Josifovic 

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From Place To Space: Going to Hipsterville - Portland, Oregon

Due to yesterday's blog birthday and book giveaway, this week's 'From Place To Space' post makes its appearance on an unusual Tuesday. But nonetheless I will make sure this yet another inspiring virtual trip to a new city. Today you are very welcome to join me to Hipsterville, the capital of hipsters, tattoos, moustaches and beards: Welcome to Portland, Oregon!

The City of Roses
Portland was my second stop on my Canada & USA trip mid September and early October. Since I was traveling the Pacific Northwest it was a must to go and visit Portland, the vibrant and cool city on the northern tip of Oregon. Some bare facts first: Portland is a rather small city. Very walkable or better yet easy to discover by bikes. It is also THE most bike-friendly city in the United States. The Willamette river divides the city into two parts which are interconnected with numerous bridges. Portland is also supposed to be one of the most optimistic places in the world with a very cool and relaxed lifestyle. It also is the hometown of the inimitable Kinfolk Magazine. It also is a foodie's heaven with a thriving food scene and great restaurants tucked away in various corners of the city and many food carts serving yummy food to-go. It is known for its numberless microbrews, so beer fans will feel like in heaven too, as will coffee lovers. It is nicknamed 'The City of Roses' and features one of the oldest open parks in the US with a fabulous International Rose Test Garden with more than 7.500 different roses. Sounds good, right?

Portland's Aces
I settled in Portland for four nights in the highly hyped Ace Hotel. The hotel is perfectly located in the city center and features a very Portlandian cool vibe - it feels almost like a hipster youth hostel for the cool crowd. Moreover it holds two more aces - the epitomized coffee place 'Stumptown Coffee' and a fabulous restaurant named 'Clyde Common'. Both highly recommendable. Coffee places are paramount in town so make sure you roam around and try all the different coffees as well. Opposite of the hotel is a brand new shopping passage called 'Union Way' with some very cool shops for fashion, interiors, food and sweets. I visited another very cool store at Union Way, but I will share it in a separate blogpost soon. Next doors to the hotel is also the delicious 'Kenny & Zuke's Delicatessen' with luscious Jewish delicatessen and famed for its cured meats - make sure you're really hungry when you go there! Even book lovers just need to take a one minute walk to arrive at the fantastic 'Powell's City of Book', the largest independent store for new and used books worldwide. I spent like an entire evening there and left loaded with new and vintage books!

Keep Portland Weird
What attracted me most to Portland? I think it's the lifestyle in general. It was the first American city where I experienced such a relaxed, urban lifestyle, impromptu gatherings and performances on the streets, and an honest and refreshing friendliness of its people. A typical Pacific Northwest phenomenon is how the city liaises urban life with the vast surrounding nature. It is a short drive away from the wild Oregon Pacific coast as well as from the high, densly-wooded peaks of the Cascade Range. Go and see both! I will share more on the surroundings later on the blog. And when people say 'keep Portland weird' I will strongly agree if it means that the city stays as cool as it is. Or weird for that matter.

More Good Places
The problem with cities where you feel like almost every place you visited is recommendable, is how to break it down in one blogpost. Anyways, here are just a few more recommendable places if you ever happen to be in Portland: Mother's Bistro, Olympic Provisions, Barista, Voodoo Doughnuts (be prepared for queuing), Canoe for interior design lovers, Quin for the sweet thooths among you. If you have more recommendations, share them in the comment section.

Happy Tuesday, folks!

Photography by Igor Josifovic

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A Design Walk In London

The British Week on Happy Interior Blog continues. Today I'd like to make you feel the 'design pulse' of one of London's super popular neighbourhoods, Notting Hill. During the 'Meet the Blogger' conference in London I was very happy to join the fabulous design walk organised by the impeccable London coinnesseur Tina Bernstein.

Above all I want to thank Tina for the decent starting time - 1 p.m. was just about acceptable for a morning grouch like moi. Just in time we flocked around our style sheppard in the Tom Dixon store at the Docks and followed her along like a little chicken family all the way through Notting Hill and Portobello district.

Our next stop over were the vintage stores Phoenix on Golborne and Les Couilles du Chien - realy treasure troves for vintage loving hearts. We wandered along, passed by the cool and urban Pizza East restaurant with its weathered blue Tolix chairs (snap, snap) and arrived at the fabulous and colourful Pedlars boutique. Free coffee to warm our hands and bodies, a healthy dose of vibrant colours to please our eye and super friendly staff who introduced us to the store's concept and product lines. We loved it!

Warmed up and already loaded with shopping bags, we continued our design tour to yet another highlight, Ceramica Blue. If you love ceramics then this is the place to stop and shop! The shop owner was super friendly and offered an extra 15 % discount so I couldn't help it but add yet another shopping bag to my lugagge.

SCP was our next stop - the big and bright streetside store with lots of design classics was another visual highlight. Fibreglass Eames chairs in retro colours, soft and fluffy sofas in green and blue, Donna Wilson cushions and String wall units made us think about travelling back home with bulky lugagge. Yet another presentation of the store's philosophy, concept and product range gave us valuable insights into SCP. Chapeau!

Last but not least, we visited the headquarters of made.com. Their showroom on the 9th floor revealed stunning sights everywhere - the London skyline all around and fabulous sofas, coffee tables, chairs in the showroom itself. A young and dynamic team welcomed us with bubbles and snacks and a little tour made me almost click on the order button on my iPad - but alas, they do not deliver to Germany. Yet. I'll stay tuned.

With this post I am signing off till next Wednesday my friends. I am off to a little design & holiday trip. You know, I need more content for my upcoming 'From Place To Space' post so stay tuned. If you want to see where I am heading to later today, follow me on Instagram for on-the-go snaps in a new metropolis.

Big hugs to everyone!

Photography by Igor Josifovic

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Blogs & Coffee Munich: Design Fun Part Two

Ten days ago I invited 30 German lifestyle bloggers to Munich for a weekend full of fun, design, shopping and networking. Last week I covered the first part of our 'Blogs & Coffee' weekend HERE, today I want to share the rest of our discoveries with you.

As one of three hosts it was my duty to scout nice and cool locations in Munich in order to present the Bavarian capital as a thriving design hub in southern Germany. But let me take you step by step on our blogger tour. 

Saturday afternoon was reserved for discovering some of my favorite interior design stores and cafés in the lively Glockenbach quarter. First, I took my blogger friends to my favorite boutique 'Ladoug'. This is a real gem in downtown Munich. Small, intimate, full of beautifully curated homewares, mostly vintage and handcrafted, scouted by the charming owner Andrea Douglas. Not only will you dive into a dreamy world when entering the boutique, but the owner will also tell you one or two anecdotes from her trips around the globe in order to find these fine home decoration goodies. My secret favorite: the vintage Moroccan wedding cushions.

Later on we continued to a kooky store bursting with industrial and vintage finds called 'Delikatessen'. This is the place to head to if you look for one-of-a-kind vintage furniture pieces, local designs, fine ceramics, industrial pendants. We literally fell in like a horde into the store and snapped our way along. 

A short coffee and cake break was squeezed in at the beautiful organic 'Kranz Café' before we headed to a new concept store in the Schwabing area called 'Weissglut'. Weissglut means 'incandecence' in German and you will reach a state of glowing when you roam through the super stylish concept store with carefully selected homeware pieces, home textiles and fashion in the basement. The owner is a friendly chap and will tell you about the idea if asked. So head to this cool store if you happen to be in Munich. Dinner was organized in the über-cool restaurant 'Theresa'. Since it was too dark for nice pics, see my blog post about the restaurant HERE to have an idea of how stylish it is (and yummy by the way). 

Sunday morning marked our farewell breakfast in the dreamy-white café 'White Rabbit's Room'. Easy to decode, the theme is based on the world famous Alice in Wonderland story. A white washed interior, exposed bulbs, wooden furniture, colourful tableware and yummy food - all good reasons to stop by and have a break in the Haidhausen area. Plus, a little store completes the café for those who fall in love with the accessories and tableware.

So, isn't this all super enticing? Don't you want to jump to Munich for a quick visit? 

Photography by Igor Josifovic

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Blogs & Coffee In Munich

This weekend is an exciting one - it's 'Blogs & Coffee' time in Munich. 'Blogs & Coffee' is a laid-back, easy going lifestyle blogger meet-up that was 'invented' last year by my fellow bloggers Ricarda and Clara and organized for the very first time in Hamburg. I blogged about it HERE. This time it's Munich's turn and I am hosting and organizing the meet-up with my fellows Sabine and Ines. 

30 German lifestyle bloggers - design, DIY, wedding, food bloggers - have flocked in Munich from all over Germany. We kicked off our weekend with a savoury and traditional Bavarian dinner and today we will check out a great design showroom, a few interior stores and some lovely corners, cafés and restaurants of the Bavarian capital. Expect next week a first recap including snapshots. For the time being, follow me along on Instagram and Twitter. Have a happy & great weekend!

Photography by Igor Josifovic

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