Vienna

Vienna is the capital of classical music. Therefore, whether you are high-budget traveller or not, the first think you should plan to do during your stay in that marvellous city is to go to a concert in Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper). If you cannot afford front row tickets, don’t worry, the Opera offers standing room tickets for only 3€. When you’ve already decided which concert to go to you can start organising the rest of your holiday. Under no circumstances should you miss the Schönbrunn Palace with its impressive gardens where you will be able to see, among other things, an incredible maze and an admirable orangery. Inside the palace the mysterious history of love between Emperor  Franz Joseph and Empress Sisi will be presented to you. After that, you ought to choose the art galleries that attract you most. In Belvedere Palace you will find The Kiss and other famous paintings of Gustav Klimt whereas in Kunsthistorisches Museum there are numerous works of art of Rubens, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Dührer, Vermeer and many more. At the end, I recommend you to take a rest in one of the amazing parks of Vienna or in one of the historical Viennese coffee house.

Trieste

Visiting North Italy you cannot miss it.  It’s a lovely city and seaport where many surprises are waiting to be discovered by you. The most impressive one is the marvelous white castle just at the side of the sea, likewise the place where Disney princess Ariel lived after the marriage to prince Eric. This pearl of architecture was built in the middle of XIX century on request of Emperor Franz Josef’s brother, who later became Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, and his wife. Another aspect of the beauty of Trieste is its love to coffee. The residents of this city are among the greatest coffee drinkers in Italy (after Naples). If you like the Illy brand of coffee you should try it in the place of its origin and the best ambience for doing that you will find in one of the former Viennese coffee houses. However, you need to remember one thing: in Trieste they have their own names for the variety of ways that coffee can be prepared and sometimes they even give a different meaning to a common known denomination. For instance, if we want to get a cappuccino we should ask a caffelatte.

Sugar free

A few time ago I couldn’t imagine a single day of my life without any sweets.  I have a great love of chocolate and cakes of any type and I could never feel well satisfied with any sumptuous dinner without dessert. During discussions about eating habits, I was, of course, on the side of the majority that criticised the few weirdoes for having given up eating sweets (“but why? it’s an exaggeration, it’s just an inoffensive pleasure.”). And now the roles have become reversed. People tell me: Don’t punish yourself, take just one piece of this cake. You’re so thin, you can allow yourself this pleasure. Though I really don’t feel I’m missing something.

How is such a change possible? Well, it’s much more easier than it might seem. But before I reveal to you the secret, let me explain what my personal motivation for such a change was. Well, the list of harmful effects of sugar on our organism is of considerable length. Since I’ve never been overweight, I had been resisting each diet suggestion for long. Then I realised how my wrong eating habits affected my everyday’s mood. Despite sleeping more than is considered necessary, I often felt dead on my feet. Moreover, I noticed I started having concentration problems. When I became conscious of the fact that it was sugar that made me feel that way I decided to quit it.

In that difficult undertaking, my greatest friend was xylitol. It’s a ten-time-more-expensive equivalent of sugar without its negative features.  I use it while baking always when I feel like have a piece of cake. That actually doesn’t happen frequently since, as opposed to sugar, xylitol is not addictive.