-
My Three Week Poland Trip Itinerary
planning to visit an entire country in three weeks’ time is sort of daunting. the first step i took was to think about the obvious, unmissable places i needed to see on this trip. that would be kraków (my triumphant return!), warsaw (really jonesing to see it!) and gdańsk (love affair with this city ever since seeing it on the amazing race). with three major cities, i started to see a path forming in my mind: working my way up the country from south to north (or vice versa). the next logical steps were to fill out the other areas. i polled all of my facebook friends with polish connections…
-
travel fails & how to fix ’em
travel is a learning experience. when anything goes wrong, it always comforts me to know that that is one thing i will not be doing again in the future anytime soon, and these experiences have helped to make me a better traveler. i don’t even mind thinking about or revisiting them because it helps refresh the moral of the story in my mind and it’s that that’s made me wiser.this week, i’m talking my biggest travel fails and what i learned from them… and what i hope you too will learn so you don’t make these same mistakes that i have. mistake #1: accidental fare-dodging on the prague metro system……
-
I Dyed in Szczecin
it was my last full day in poland and i was on a (very very full) train from the hel peninsula bound for szczecin, near the german border. i chose to visit szczecin because i’d heard a lot of great things in the travel bloggy world about this gritty polish harbor city and i wanted to see it with my own eyes. naively, when booking the trip i planned a handful of “one-nighters”, and this was one of them, my last hurrah in poland. but little did i know that one nighters aren’t such a great idea when you’re on a long backpacking trip. those days were such whirlwinds and admittedly,…
-
a winter wunderland
the day after christmas, i (and much of central europe) woke up to a magical blanket of snow. i hadn’t at all expected that it would snow during christmas… last year it was around 10c! this here was the stuff of miracles. after breakfast, we took a snowy winter walk around the lake and some residential areas before hopping on a boat for a lake cruise to st. wolfgang– the biggest village on wolfgangsee (which still isn’t really that big at all). it is also the most heavily toured spot on the lake. all the other merry tourists seemed to have the same idea as it was the first day…
-
atop the zwölferhorn
the zwölferhorn, which means something like “the twelfth peak” in german, is a mountain of 1,522m in height that looms over tiny st. gilgen. the village is, in fact, where you go to take the cable car to the top. when i was first researching the area a few months ago i was thinking no way, no how am i ever getting on that cable car! for some reason, i’ve developed a crippling dislike of heights in the last three years or so (good thing i got some swiss travels out of the way before then….) and was thinking i would have to forgo this trip.and then, right before we left,…
-
christmas in st. gilgen, austria
why did i choose to spend christmas time at austria’s wolfgangsee? well, by the beginning of autumn, we hadn’t heard any talk of visitors so i thought it would be a great idea to experience an alpine christmas somewhere. austria, with its close proximity to southern czech republic fit the bill perfectly, especially the salzkammergut area (lake and alpine region near salzburg), which is closer to us than tirol or the other famous alpine regions of the country. we booked a sweet family-owned hotel and christmas was planned! it only took two and a half hours to get to st. gilgen from budějovice (mostly because our driver flew like a…
-
a year of travels: 2014
you know those facebook “year in review” things where it shows you your year as if it knows you? (and how well can a social media website know you, anyway?) when i clicked on mine, a photo from 2013 popped up as the centerpiece and then a load of random photos: reggie watts (?!), a landscape shot of hel, poland, a still from big brother 16. just pathetic, facebook.sometimes, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. in that spirit, here’s my travel year in review of only my favorite travel memories… and it’s been a heck of a year and i’m feeling really thankful about…
-
returning from a trip: pros & cons
hope everyone has had a very merry holiday! we have returned from our snowy austrian alpine christmas and i know i’ll have a lot to share with you. but for today, a smattering of inevitable thoughts i’m always thinking after returning home from a trip. why you’re so excited to come home from a trip… > get to sleep in your own bed! can i get a “woooo hoooo!”> full 24/7 access to a tea kettle and assortment of teas (just basically chugged a hot mug of herbal tea because i was so happy)> hooray, bath tub! i wanted to take a bath but the hotel only had a shower.> cooking!…
-
embracing czech holidays in tábor
december weekends in europe are one of my (new) favorite things. there’s always something going on somewhere that accomplishes my usual goal of doing something festive. so when i heard about a killer one-day-only vanoční trh (christmas market) in tábor, a smaller south bohemian town situated on the rail line between české budějovice and prague, it was decided. i had no prior reason to go to tábor as i just assumed it was another small bohemian town. it’s actually got an important load of history behind it. the name of the town translates to ‘camp’ and is famous as the medieval hussite stronghold of bohemia, lead by jan žižka. if you…
-
Going to Hel (Poland) and Back
well, reporting back about my polish backpacking odyssey this summer has almost come to a close. but definitely not before i talk about the single place in poland i was most excited about: the beach town of hel, located on a sandbar peninsula of the same name on the northern coast of poland which extends thirty-five km out into the baltic, and varies from only 100m to 3 km wide. i thought it would be something special to behold, for sure. anything this interesting geographically really gets my vote! we took a ferry ride from gdansk on this boat. i think the name of our boat was a good sign of things…
