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Alessandra Distefano

@alessandra.explores

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📸 See the world through my eyes
📍 London, UK
🗺️ Travel Guides & Prints
✈️ Inspiring busy professionals to escape the routine one trip at a time

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Cartoline da Catania

Grazie a @alessandra.explores per questa bellissima carrellata!
🔸Taggaci anche tu: gli scatti migliori verranno pubblicati nella nostra galleria 😁📷
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#visitsicily #visitcatania #catania by @alessandra.explores

50th post to celebrate 5000 of you. Thank you all so much for following me. It’s been a fun journey so far.

I’ll be sharing more and more of my travel photos, videos and e-guides.

In the meantime, subscribe to my newsletter and get unique insights and special offers. 🤗🥳

Let’s keep this community growing!

Thanks to @sammyisseyegh @123explorenow and @vivaleces for all of your help

Alessandra by @alessandra.explores

10 reasons why you shouldn’t skip Tashkent.🇺🇿✨

This city is a brilliant collision of ancient craftsmanship and mid-century design.

Here is why it absolutely needs to be on your radar:

🚇 1. The Metro: A subterranean museum! Every station is a retro-futuristic dream of marble, chandeliers, and intricate ceramic tilework.

🏺 2. Chorsu Bazaar: Underneath that massive turquoise dome is a tactile paradise of hand-embroidered suzani textiles and traditional terracotta.

🍚 3. The Food Chaikhanas: Follow the savory smoke outside Chorsu to giant open-air cauldrons of golden plov and sizzling shashlik.

🕌 4. Khast Imam Complex: Stunningly preserved brick facades, vibrant blue domes, and one of the world’s oldest Quran manuscripts.

🧵 5. Museum of Applied Arts: Centuries of vibrant regional textiles, jewelry, and woodcarving packed into one gorgeous, intensely detailed historic home.

🫖 6. The Locals: The unmatched warmth of sharing a pot of tea and a genuine conversation with market artisans.

🏢 7. Brutalist Beauty: The monolithic Hotel Uzbekistan and the Monument to Courage offer monumental slices of Soviet-era history.

🛍️ 8. Alay Bazaar: The sleek, structured, and modern side of Uzbek commerce for sourcing high-quality regional finds.

🩰 9. Navoi Theatre: Catching an opulent, incredibly accessible local ballet or opera performance alongside the residents.

🌳 10. Amir Timur Square: The vibrant pedestrian pulse of the city where locals gather to walk, view street art, and hang out at sunset.
#tashkent #uzbekistan #silkroad #visituzbekistan #tashkentcity by @alessandra.explores

Step into Bukhara, and you step straight into the pages of a Silk Road epic.

Unlike other ancient cities that feel like museums frozen in time, this @unesco World Heritage site in the heart of Uzbekistan is a living, breathing mosaic of Central Asian culture.

It’s famously said that elsewhere in the world, light shines down from the heavens, but in Bukhara, the light shines upward from the city itself.

#bukhara

Here is the story told through its streets:

The History: A Crossroads of Empires

For over 2,500 years, Bukhara has served as an intellectual and commercial heavyweight of the ancient world. It was a vital pitstop on the Silk Road, a beacon of Islamic scholarship, and a prize fought over by empires. It has hosted Persian merchants, Sufi mystics, and ruthless conquerors.

Even Genghis Khan was so awestruck by the city’s grandeur that, while he leveled much of the region, he ordered Bukhara’s towering minaret spared.

The Architecture: Turquoise Domes and Desert Brick

The city’s skyline is an architectural masterclass in geometric precision and desert resilience.

1) The Po-i-Kalyan Complex:
The heart of the city is anchored by the 12th-century Kalyan Minaret—a 150-foot marvel of intricate baked brickwork that once guided caravans across the desert at night.

2)The Madrasas:
Flanking the squares are colossal theological schools like the Mir-i-Arab, cloaked in mesmerizing, vibrant blue majolica tilework that shifts in color as the sun moves across the sky.

3) The Ark of Bukhara:

A massive, formidable fortress that served as a city-within-a-city, housing the Emirs of Bukhara, their courts, and their legendary libraries.

The Craftsmanship:

The Thriving Trading Domes

Bukhara’s ancient vaulted bazaars, known as Toqi, were ingeniously designed to draw in cool air and provide shade for merchants. Today, they remain a hub for master artisans keeping centuries-old traditions alive.

#uzbekistan

Wander beneath the domes and you will hear the rhythmic tapping of coppersmiths engraving intricate brass trays.

Stalls overflow with brilliant silk ikat fabrics, hand-knotted carpets, and suzani, the stunning embroidered tapestries stitched with pomegra by @alessandra.explores

Samarkand stands as the architectural crown jewel of the Silk Road, a city where centuries of trade and the formidable ambition of the Timurid empire materialized into blue-tiled monuments. The city’s landscape is defined by 14th- and 15th-century structures that pushed the engineering limits of their time.

Shah-i-Zinda (The Turquoise Necropolis)

Translated as “The Living King,” Shah-i-Zinda is a narrow, ascending avenue of vividly decorated mausoleums housing the tombs of Timurid royalty, nobles, and architects.

The complex is built over 11th-century foundations, but its visually stunning blue and turquoise ceramic facings largely date to the 14th and 15th centuries. The most sacred chamber belongs to Kusam ibn Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad who reportedly brought Islam to the area in the 7th century and is said to have lived on after being beheaded (giving the site its name). The density of the majolica tiles and muqarnas (honeycomb vaulting) makes this one of the most richly decorated ancient sites in Central Asia.

Registan Square

The historic centerpiece of Samarkand is anchored by a massive architectural ensemble of three madrasahs: Ulugh Beg, Sher-Dor, and Tillya-Kori.

The Ulugh Beg Madrasah, completed in 1420, was once the largest scientific and educational establishment in the city, where up to 100 students lived and studied mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy under Timur’s scholar-grandson.

Two centuries later, the Sher-Dor Madrasah was built directly opposite it. Despite Islamic prohibitions on depicting living creatures, its portal famously features golden tiger-lions carrying suns on their backs while chasing fallow deer—a striking motif that eventually became a national symbol of Uzbekistan.

Bibi-Khanym Mosque

Commissioned by Timur in 1399 following his campaign in India, this was designed to be one of the largest and most magnificent mosques in the Islamic world.

Spurred by immense ambition, Timur aggressively pushed the structural engineering limits of the era, demanding a 40-meter-high outer dome. Because it was built so quickly and on such a colossal scale, structural integrity issues plagued the building from the start. Th by @alessandra.explores

Still reeling from the sheer visual scale of Samarkand.

Standing in the center of Registan Square, framed by the towering Ulugh Beg, Sher-Dor, and Tilya-Kori madrasas, every angle feels like a masterclass in spatial composition and color.

My camera roll is entirely overflowing with close-ups of the meticulous mosaic work and deep lapis lazuli hues at the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis and the monumental Gur-e-Amir mausoleum. The perfect geometry, tactile textures, and sheer dedication to craftsmanship in these monuments are just on another level.

But beyond all the breathtaking architecture, it’s the vibrant, bustling energy wandering through Siyob Bazaar and the absolute warmth and kindness of the locals that truly bring the city to life. A masterpiece in every sense.

#visituzbekistan #uzbekistan #samarkand #samarqand #traveluzbekistan by @alessandra.explores

Catania: black lava, white stone, and a volcano at the end of every street 🌋

Rebuilt after the 1693 earthquake in dark lava stone and pale limestone, Catania, like other cities on the east coast, is Sicilian Baroque at its most dramatic. Here’s how to see it:

📍 Piazza Duomo
Start under U Liotru, the lava-stone elephant carrying an obelisk, the city’s symbol since 1736. Behind him rise the Cathedral of Sant’Agata and the Porta Uzeda. Don’t miss the Amenano Fountain, where water spills over the edge like a sheet of glass.

🐟 La Pescheria
Walk down the steps behind the fountain into the fish market. Swordfish, sea urchins, fishmongers shouting in dialect. Go early, then have raw seafood and a glass of Etna white wine nearby.

🏛 Piazza Stesicoro
A 2nd-century Roman amphitheatre sits right in the middle of the traffic. It once held around 15,000 people, and most of it is still buried under the streets.

✨ Baroque details
→ Via Crociferi, with its churches side by side and the Arch of San Benedetto
→ The dome terrace of the Badia di Sant’Agata, for a 360° view of the city and Etna
→ The Monastero dei Benedettini, one of the largest monasteries in Europe
→ Via Etnea, which runs straight towards the volcano

⚓ The harbour
Walk through the Porta Uzeda to the port and the Arco della Marina. Castello Ursino once stood on the shore until the 1669 lava flow pushed the coast away. Come at sunset or sunrise!

🌋 Etna from the city
No car needed. A bus goes up to Rifugio Sapienza (1,900 m). Walk the Silvestri Craters, take the cable car up to about 2,500 m, and go higher with a certified guide. Bring layers, because it can be 30°C in the city and close to freezing near the top.

☕ Have granita and brioche for breakfast. And in Catania it’s arancino, shaped like Etna not arancina, like they say in Palermo.

📎Save this for your Sicily trip. Hit me up if you want tips and tricks and a cheeky discount on any activity.

#Catania #Sicily #Sicilia #MountEtna #SicilianBaroque PiazzaDuomo VisitSicily ItalyTravel VolcanoHike SicilyTravel HikingItaly SlowTravel by @alessandra.explores

Come with me on this long weekend road trip along the French Riviera.

1) Nice
Nice is where the Mediterranean turns every stroll into a postcard: sunlit façades, palm-fringed promenades and that unmistakable Côte d’Azur blue. Start with a slow wander through the Old Town, then finish the day watching the sea glow from the Promenade des Anglais.

2) Grasse
Grasse: the perfume capital of the world, where the air seems to carry a little extra magic. Come for the historic fragrance houses, stay for the flower-filled views and the chance to bottle up a memory of the French Riviera. Visit @fragonardparfumeurofficiel free entry and tour.

3) Mougins
Mougins is all golden-stone charm, leafy lanes and long lunches with a view. Perched above Cannes, this elegant village has drawn artists, food lovers and dreamers for decades and one look at its sunset-lit streets explains why.

4) Biot
Biot feels like a tiny hilltop secret with a creative soul. Its winding stone lanes, colourful shutters and famed hand-blown glass make it a dreamy stop when you want the Riviera at a slower, more artistic pace. Dinner at @les_acacias_biot

5) Cannes
Cannes may be famous for the red carpet, but its real star is the Riviera lifestyle. Think yacht-lined harbour views, glamorous boulevards, sandy beach clubs and sunset apéritifs that make every evening feel cinematic.
Brunch at @cafecreme.cannes

6) Monaco, Montecarlo
Monte Carlo is full-throttle glamour in one glittering seaside pocket. From the Belle Époque beauty of the casino to supercars, harbour yachts and sweeping Mediterranean views, it is the kind of place that makes ordinary life feel very far away. by @alessandra.explores

Long weekend in Amsterdam? Here is a list of things to do and places to eat. Be ready for long walks, lots of cool wine bars, restaurants, shops, cafes and obviously…coffee shops 😉

🛌 Stay
· Hotel MAI @hotelmaiamsterdam Perfect location. 5min walk from the central train station.

☕️ Thursday — arrive, Zeedijk
Bagels Village @bagelsvillage1 (till 6) → Sango @sango.amsterdam (till 4) → dinner at De Haven van Texel @havenvantexelamsterdam

🌬️Friday — windmills
Morning Owl @morning_owl_coffee super cute coffee shop that serves amazing coffee take away in recycled milk cartons → Bloemenmarkt → 12.30 half-day Zaanse Schans tour → canal cruise on the voucher at dusk → Castell at 8. Book the fireplace sofa when you reserve. @castellamsterdam

🚤 Tour options: Amsterdam Canal Cruises half-day (bus + canal cruise voucher included) · Zaan Tours if you want the boat up the Zaan instead. @amsterdamcanalcruises

👟 Saturday — museums, market, Moeders
Moco museum for some contemporary art → Rudi’s stroopwafels at 11, Albert Cuyp around it → Vondelpark → Foodhallen for bitterballen → Moeders at 7. Book way in advance. @restaurantmoeders @mocomuseum

🖼️ Sunday — Jordaan, then home
Anne Frank House at 9, timed ticket booked weeks ahead → Jordaan canals → Café ’t Smalle @cafe.t.smalle from 12 → Vleminckx fries, order oorlog → Centraal.

Three bookings to make now: Anne Frank, Moeders, Castell. Don’t forget!

📎Save it for your next trip to Amsterdam! #amsterdam #amsterdamcity #visitamsterdam #igamsterdam #netherlands by @alessandra.explores

Planning a Toronto city break?

Give yourself five days to experience both the city and the best of the surrounding area.

Start in downtown Toronto with the CN Tower @cntower , Yonge Street and a walk through Graffiti Alley for its colourful street art. @graffitialleyt.o

Add Toronto Music Garden and a boat trip on Lake Ontario for some of the best skyline views, then book dinner at @paitoronto for Northern Thai food. My absolute favourite restaurant in Toronto.

Set aside a full day for Niagara Falls—it is around 1.5–2 hours from Toronto by car, so an early start makes the most of it. See the Falls from the viewpoints, take a boat cruise if you can, and leave time to explore the wider Niagara region.

For a first visit, this is a great balance of big-city sights, waterfront views, neighbourhood culture, food and one of Canada’s most famous day trips.

🇨🇦 #TorontoGuide #NiagaraFalls #TorontoTravel #CanadaItinerary by @alessandra.explores

Weekend in Andorra 🇦🇩 from London, and honestly, it couldn’t be easier or more worth it. I flew into Toulouse, grabbed a hire car and in a few hours I was swapping city noise for mountain air and hairpin bends as the road wound its way up into the Pyrenees.

Andorra is tiny – sandwiched between France and Spain – but it feels like its own little world of peaks, valleys and small towns tucked into the hills.

I stayed in El Tarter, which is a ski resort in winter but has a really relaxed, local feel in the warmer months. In summer, the slopes turn into hiking terrain, with trails leading through forests, up to viewpoints and around beautiful high-altitude lakes.

The scenery is classic Pyrenees: big, open mountain views, rocky peaks, and those quiet moments where it’s just you, the path and the sound of cowbells in the distance.

What I loved is how Andorra mixes nature and culture without feeling overwhelming. You’ve got this long history tied to the mountains – old paths, small stone churches, family-run places – but it still feels very easy-going and accessible.

After hiking, evenings in El Tarter were all about simple comforts: hearty mountain food, lots of cheese, grilled meats, good bread and that cosy, content feeling you only get after a full day outdoors.

For a quick trip from London, it’s such a nice reset: fly to Toulouse, drive into the mountains, base yourself in El Tarter, hike around the area and unwind over big, comforting meals. It feels like you’ve gone much further than just a weekend away.

@andorralovers @andorraworld @turismeandorralavella @andorraofficial #andorra #andorralovers #andorraworld #visitandorra #discoverandorra by @alessandra.explores