Travelling anywhere almost feels a bit bizarre at the moment, doesn’t it? I had trips planned for April and May this year, both now cancelled, and I’m not even browsing SkyScanner in the bath any more.. I have the itch but there’s not much I can do about it..

It was my third time at Glastonbury, and (like I say every time..) it’s just the best place on earth. It’s a long story (that I won’t bore you with on here) but I unexpectedly ended up having a weekend free over Glastonbury weekend.. I left the date open as long as possible and then gave in and managed to get tickets fairly late in the day to join our existing ‘Glastonboro’ camping crew. It was an absolute dream.

Something a bit different on the blog today.. some personal travel and family photos from a recent trip I made to Ibiza with my two girls. I had a short break between work in the Easter holidays and this year is set to be my busiest ever during the Summer months.. I really wanted to have some quality time with my girls before wedding season really kicked off. Here’s how Ibiza looked for us..

We took a trip to Turkey in October half term - a rushed trip due to an airline going bankrupt and trying to book something (anything!) with 24 hours to go.. but, hey! It worked out OK - it was hot, there was plenty for the girls to do and we had a few days exploring too. Granted, it wasn’t the most beautiful area we’d ever visited but it was so good to have a break the four of us.

“Paris is always a good idea”

…so much so, that I think this was my fifth visit to this beautiful city. This trip was my first where I arrived by Eurostar, though, which felt pretty exciting! As I’ve visited and seen most of the sights to ‘tick off the list’, it was wonderful to mainly wander, eat, drink and photograph this city. I went with my husband for my 30th birthday, and the only thing I especially wanted to do was to watch the sunset from the Eiffel tower.. and it was magical.

A bumper post for this ‘Behind the Curtain’! There was a lot going on besides weddings at the end of last year, and it was busy in the best way..

I’ve waited so long to find the time to edit these! It’s what happens during wedding season.. you still itch to create your own personal work but actually processing and finding the time to edit and finish little projects on the side gets pushed to the bottom of the pile..

This August I had a rare weekend off, so as it drew closer I decided to embrace it and booked a camping trip for myself and my two girls. It was so intense working in the weeks before and after the trip (there’s still just so much going on in wedding season!) but it was worth every second. I booked a site in Saint Lunaire, near Dinard and Saint Malo in Brittany. We took a tandem bike and I brought my camera along to document the trip and take some travel photos.

It’s no wonder that’s it’s taken so long to find the time for another ‘Behind The Curtain’ during the Summer, but better late than never I guess? Summer has gone by in such a wonderful and busy blur that I’ve had to sit and go back through my calendar to help me remember what I actually did and when! Work gets slightly slower-paced from October and I’ll be able to escape from ‘the editing cave’ in time to celebrate my birthday next month, but Summer has been busy and wonderful, and here’s how it looked for me..

Better late than never! (Oh god, *how* is it June, already?) This year has started flying by at a crazy speed, January and February shuffled by, and suddenly we're approaching the half way point! Here is what's been going on in March, April and May 'Behind the Curtain'..

I had high hopes and expectations for Budapest and it definitely didn't disappoint.. Budapest was our final destination, and my husband and baby came out to meet us there for the final four days of our trip. We had an amazing and central Air Bnb, and spend the days wandering in Buda and Pest, doing a few touristy things, enjoying the sunshine, eating well and cheaply, taking photos and catching up.

Vienna ended up being one of my favourite places that we visited. I had no real idea of what it would be like.. I imagined the buildings would be ornate and it would be beautiful but that was about it. Vienna is cool, beautiful but gritty. Maybe not quite as cool as Berlin, maybe not as beautiful as Paris, but like their love child, taking a bit from each. And they have a bakery on every corner. What's not to love?

We ended up popping over to Bratislava after getting off the night train in Vienna because I had an extra travel day to use on our pass, I literally looked at a map and thought "Hey! It's an hour away, it's worth a few hours to see somewhere else?"

​​​​​​​After Zermatt we travelled up to Zurich, ahead of catching a sleeper train at around 10pm that night. We arrived around lunchtime, left cases in storage in the train station, and went straight out exploring. We found a park on high ground where people were playing boules and chess, which had beautiful views over the entire city. We walked down into the old town, through to the harbour and looked out onto Lake Zurich.

Zermatt is the perfect little ski town. It's isolated (no cars allowed, there are only electric buggies and horses on the streets), picturesque and small enough that you can wander around the entire place easily on foot. I'm so glad we went for two nights, we had a day skiing and visiting the glacier experience, and we explored and ate galette, raclette and crepes.

Montreux was just heavenly.. Not the most lusted-after tourist spot in Switzerland, but just beautiful. It's a town set at the other end of Lake Geneva to Geneva itself, and our train between the two was just over an hour. The buildings were beautiful - some reminded me so much of The Grand Budapest Hotel - but when we arrived it was early evening, and although we could see lights twinkling in the mist over the lake, there wasn't much else to be seen because of the visibility. The next day it had lifted and it was just beautiful. I think I ran to the lake-side as soon as I saw the mountains that morning..

So! At the end of March and into April my eldest daughter and I took a trip together. If you follow me on Instagram at @sallythurrell or @sallytphotography you may be up to date with where we visited, what we saw and how it went.. and you can see the outline of our plans over on my personal family blog here. 

I'm going to dive deeply into very personal stuff today on the blog (if you're looking for wedding films and table decor inspiration then keep scrolling..), this is a post and a project I worked on just for myself. I took a series of photos last year and couldn't face looking through them and editing them for a while, but eventually did, and these are a few favourites.

January creeps by so slowly then suddenly it's March! Did anyone see February? Did it even happen? Anyway, time for another 'Behind The Curtain' post - a little personal post about what's been going on behind the scenes for this Teesside wedding photographer (shameless SEO writing, there..)

Did you make any new year's resolutions? I realised about a week in to 2018 that it hadn't even crossed my mind. I've since made a few small business resolutions and I have some general targets.. but writing a list felt like setting myself up to fail.