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berlin’s new favorite park
i was going to talk about poland for today’s travel tuesday. but i am in berlin and my mind is hopelessly submerged in all that is a berlin summer extended weekend. my trip to poland is finished and i had a wonderful time, but…. berlin is on the mind today. as well as trying to forget the polish i learned and try to transition to my german which has sat in a state of decay since my language classes wrapped up for the summer in late june. i actually had a situation where i said, “tak! er… ano! er… ja!” awkward central europe language problems. lord help me. but i…
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Weekend in the Tatras
i love to break up cities on a trip with a bit of nature, so after some recommendations from friends, i decided to steer us towards zakopane, a polish town south of kraków very near the border of slovakia. zakopane is the most popular winter resort town in the entire country because it lies at the beginning of the tatras, the highest mountain range within the mighty carpathian mountains. i (and thousands of other poles) have found that it also makes a very pleasant summer holiday as well! zakopane did surprise me a little. i was expecting a tiny mountain town with a couple grocery stores maximum. little did i…
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The Beginning of a Massive Poland Trip: Krakow
kraków was the first stop on my polish odyssey, just a mere hour or two over the czech border. i visited eight years ago, but it feels like an eternity. back then, i remember thinking at the time how polish was the most incomprehensible language i’ve ever seen or heard and that it was nearly impossible to pronounce or decipher any of it. but after living in the czech republic for almost two years, i was pleased to see that many words and phrases are similar and communicating hasn’t been a problem. it feels good to have this slavic language knowledge, although i am still an amateur… a learned…
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when planning this big ol’ three week (so long! so ambitious!) summer trip of mine, i kept asking myself: what makes the best trip? i know a lot of us are going on summer holidays and we’re all hoping that our trips are heavy with those magical moments. we all plan full days of museums, sight-seeing, tours, excursions… it it occurred to me: how memorable are doing those things? sometimes i can barely remember a museum i went to three years ago.so, it took a bit of an examination on my part to think about my favorite memories from trips of the past ten years and really think about what…
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julian alps
hello all! i’m back to tell you more about slovenia– specifically, the mountainous part. i was telling you last tuesday about my lovely camping trip to lake bled and how it was anything but relaxing, for better or worse. it was because i wanted the full slovenia experience, and this meant journeying deep into the triglav national park (located in the northwest corner of the country including a little bit of italy) which includes the julian alps (named for julius caeser). i know you may have not known slovenia had an adriatic coastline, but did you know there were alps too? yep. mostly known for the time ernest hemingway spent…
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lake bled
dober dan! i can’t believe i haven’t told you about the rest of my full week in slovenia yet. i spent four nights in ljubljana soaking in all of those good vibes and day tripping to a sweet cave and a fantastic little town on the adriatic sea. but it was time for (what i thought was going to be) some lake-side relaxation. for that, we headed north on a easy seventy minute bus ride to bled, slovenia.bled, bled, bled. i had heard so much about you… maybe too much! we arrived in early afternoon and pitched our tent at the campground. yeah, there’s likely only one campground. even if…
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day at the adriatic
the continuing saga of my week long trip to western slovenia continues with a day trip to the adriatic coast– a town called piran to be exact. what’s that? you didn’t think slovenia had a coastline? au contraire, mes amis. check this out……… not only is there a little stretch of coastline smushed between italy and croatia (27 miles of it, or 43km), but it is on the adriatic, my friends. i’d never been to this particular part of the mediterranean before. and damned if i was going to be two hours away from it in ljubljana without making a day trip out of it. so i spent a whole…
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twenty-first century paris (an itinerary)
in october and november 2012 on my way to prague, i made a two week pit-stop in paris between london and berlin. before this i had spent only a few days there eight years before, so i was thrilled to experience the city for an extended amount of days, this time with alex who had never been to france. now, inspired by reading the paris wife, i wanted to share about my fourteen day parisian experience and what my itinerary looked like. i sublet a tiny studio apartment in the 13th arrondissement while the resident (a russian artist) was on a holiday in the states. her rent was about the…
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from the church to the palace
on sunday, we took an excursion for the day to the south-south-south of south-west czech republic near the border of austria to a little town called vyšši brod with the intention of hiking 10km to rožmberk nad vltavou. both of these towns are situated on the vltava river, both are meccas for rafting and canoeing enthusiasts, and both have tourist value, so it seemed like a perfect idea, especially at under an hour and a half by train from české budějovice.we landed in vyšši brod around 9:30am and headed up to the monastery. you can visit the monastery complex and go on a tour every day except sundays, so instead we lingered…
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mein leipzig
i spent the first half of my birthday busing to leipzig via prague and dresden. i’m not sure at what point i thought that booking 5:40am bus tickets outta ČB was a good idea, but on the morning of my twenty-eighth birthday, it did not feel like one. (fortunately a pitstop at starbucks helped!) i’d never been to leipzig before but because alex and my mutual favorite band was playing there on my birthday night, so the plans were made for us! i quickly settled into our gorgeous flat in südvorstadt near connewitz, a neighborhood that i immediately took a great liking to. it felt strange to be somewhere so like…
