La vie en rose // Celebrating Rose Festival with Cyprus Tourism

I love a festival. Whether a celebration of music, food, or 'other' (read: all else in-between!), I love the community aspect. When I was invited to celebrate Rose Festival with Cyprus Tourism, I was intrigued to learn more.

Turns out this is a festival that is celebrated every May in the rural village of Agros, built on the Troödos Mountains in south west Cyprus. A rose festival is as you would expect - a celebration of the rose. Roses have long been seen as a symbol of promise, hope, and new beginnings, but certain colours have additional layers of meaning. For instance, red roses can represent love. And the Rose Festival for the local Agros community really is a labour of love.

The venue for the event was Alice in Wonderland themed which as you can imagine, I was pretty excited by! With a grass croquet lawn outside, a white rabbit, and roses galore, it was the perfect place to host a rose themed event.

Myself and a few other lucky bloggers were welcomed with the prettiest of cocktails (a rose bellini if you're curious!). We walked through a rose archway into what I called the 'library' with seating and a modern, whitewashed book shelf. But upon closer inspection, the 'books' were in fact staff lockers. Pretty neat, huh?

With a chessboard inspired ceiling AND floor tiles, and the dreamiest chesterfield grey sofa with a hedge backdrop, I immediately wanted to know when I could move into this building and live there for good. No joke.

First on the agenda: a warm welcome from Mario from the Cyprus Tourism Organisation who gave us some background on the Rose Festival and the village of Agros, and then welcomed us into another room (equally dreamy and filled with roses and hedges and greenery), where we were invited to take part in several activities in celebration of the rose.

First stop: flower arranging. I am by no means an expert, nor am I good enough to become a florist any time soon(!) but that being said, I was pretty chuffed with what I created. Peonies were available, but they were a little too big and didn't work in my particular bouquet. Instead I used white and cream roses and used bright pops of pink and sunny yellows to add some vim.

On the other side of the room - behind more rose bushes and hedges - was a makeshift beauty salon where we were offered beauty treatments inspired by Cyprus's Rose Festival.

It all started with a hand and arm massage where rose oil was lovingly massaged into our skin. Forever hunched over a desk and working on computers 24/7, I do experience a bit of RSI and I really feel it in my right hand (my mouse hand!). So having that all massaged out of me was an absolute dream. The rose oil smelt amazing and you know? My hands are still super soft days after. I usually use hand cream in colder weather, but this has made me consider using essential oils going forward.

Feeling deliciously soporific, I then moved across to the nail station where we had the chance to have some nail art done. Embracing the rose theme, I opted for soft pink nails and the clever nail technician delicately painted intricate purple roses on one finger on each hand (we ran out of time!)

In between each activity we were spoilt with a delicious spread of sweet treats. Many were Cyprus delicacies (love how some of these were presented in tea cups!), but there were also rose cookies and some really realistic looking rose cupcakes which had many of us fooled

Now, I thought the welcome drinks were amazing, but the rose mojitos were even better! Some people said they found them strong but I personally thought the rum measure was perfect ;) Although admittedly I was regretting my choice of heeled ankle boots after a few of these!

My only slight criticism of the event... the time went far too quickly! It was really sad to go home, but the lovely team let us take our bouquets home and also gave us each a beautifully presented box of rose orientated goodies.

As you can see, I had a bloomin' good time. Having never been to Cyprus before, it was lovely to learn more about a village and festival that I might not have otherwise heard of. I would love to visit Agros and the Rose Festival in the future -  so am really happy this is on my radar now!

What I really loved about this event was the clever choosing of activities and refreshments which complimented the rose theme well. Thank you so much to the Cyprus Tourism and Baillie for inviting me!

#VisitCyprus #RoseWater

EVENT // Alice Through The Looking Glass

To celebrate Disney's latest film Alice Through The Looking Glass, an Alice in Wonderland themed pop-up event was hosted in London for a limited time only. People were ripping out pages of the local newspaper - which featured the event - pressing it into my hand, and overly exciting me in the process. When it came to booking tickets it was no easy feat - the event had sold out faster than you can say "mad hatter".

Around the time of my birthday I received two envelopes through my door. One a birthday card from one of my best friends, Alison, instructing me to check out the other envelope. The second envelope read "open me" and inside I found a card covered with flamingos. Two tickets fell into my lap and I found a lovely handwritten message inside, detailing the adventure I was about to go on. Unknown fact about me: I'm the biggest ice queen and don't tend to wear my emotions on my sleeve or let on how I'm feeling to anyone. But when I opened that envelope I must admit, I did have a little cry. I'd got it in my head that I wasn't going because tickets had sold out and I couldn't and then suddenly to be told I was going, was a little big magical. And how someone made that effort for me, and sought out tickets. The card also contained these cute little Alice in Wonderland tattoos / transfers which were the sorts of designs I wanted to get etched when I was in Brighton recently, but sadly the shop had closed up for the day by the time I'd got to it. So now I can indulge in some Alice inspired skin art!

So let's fast forward to the day in question, if I may? My tickets were for the 7pm session on Saturday 21st May. The street in question was near to Spitalfields market and contained these curious little houses, all higgledy piddly, and aged and asymmetrical. It was clear which door was The Door for us:

 

This script was the basis of your - self guided - tour and messages like this were throughout the building:

Upon entry we were provided with a map of the house (really useful as it was right ol' maze in there!) and playing cards which were drink / food tokens so we could indulge in both "eat me" and "drink me". The food included cakes and biscuits in cellophane packing labelled "eat me" whereas the "drink me" option was a grapefruit and gin cocktail served in these curious little goblets.

There were different rooms with different activities suited to those of all ages. You didn't have to be an Alice in Wonderland fanatic like me - but it probably helped if you were, otherwise lots of the themes would be quite surreal to you! The decor was dark and sultry - lots of dark corners, room contents lit by candlelight, and huge clocks which I believe to have come straight from the European Alice Through The Looking Glass film premiere hosted in London a few weeks back.

There was a crafts section, photography upstairs in the Queen's boudoir (emphasis on be quick before the Queen catches you and off with your head), Looking Glass type photobooth downstairs where you could transition into your favourite characters (I opted for the Cheshire cat!), and an Escape Room hosted by the greats of ClueQuest.

Instead of painting the roses red, people were having their skin painted with delicate little red hearts. I had mine on my wrist:

My favourite room of them all had to be the croquet up on the roof. Just like the cartoon / film / book, it was pretty nonsensical a game with lots of cheating and laughs, but really fun!

There were different sessions / time slots and we made the most of our 90 minutes. It was a good laugh and perfect for an Alice in Wonderland fanatics like myself! Afterwards we popped into The Diner in Spitalfields for late night hard shakes and burgers. Their choconaut (rum and chocolate milkshake) is deliciously warming and was the perfect way to end such a memorable evening!

A massive THANK YOU to Alison for tracking down the tickets and letting me experience this amazing event!