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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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lost in vary
we interrupt this slovenia post barrage to bring you dispatches from the 49th annual karlovy vary international film festival in beautiful karlovy vary, czech republic. today is the final day of this year’s fabulous festival, and i felt like talking about it. so here we go. after figuring out how things are done last year, alex and i came in ready to conquer the festival. we got in the secret “good line” at the box office an hour early and were first to get our tickets! we definitely learned that the key to film festival success is GET THERE EARLY, and we aced it so hard. this year, we spent…
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to guidebook or not to guidebook
for the vast majority of the ten years i’ve been traveling europe, i’ve been an absolute rick steves fan. scratch that, disciple. on my very first europe trip, which took place in august 2004, i and a couple friends went through a local travel agency. and why not? it wasn’t very common at the time to plan your own trips and i was pretty green to the whole backpacking thing. she turned me on to the books of the local (washington state) hero and fellow UW alum, rick steves, and for many years i followed his itineraries absolutely by the book. on some trips, if rick (yeah, i feel comfortable…
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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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ljubljana
in slovene, “ljub” is a root word that means love. which is perfectly fitting for the capital of slovenia (as the tourism slogans are branding it these days), a small city that is easy to love. it was a wonderful place to land on a first visit to slovenia. everyone is relatively friendly and helpful, speaks near perfect english, are excited about sharing the best their country with you. it’s easy to make comparisons to other cities, like prague, vienna, or even perhaps venice near the waterfront. it felt like a welcome strangeness to see famiiar slavic words written all over, but a much more mediterranean feeling to the actual…
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how i travel: apartment rentals
i’ll be the first to admit that i love a good hotel stay. nothing makes me feel more pampered then cozying up in a fluffy white robe and ordering some room service. but being young, generally underemployed, and and on a budget, this isn’t economical nor does it make much sense. for the past eight years i’ve mostly stayed in hostels, sometimes pensions or bed and breakfasts… but in the past couple of years, coinciding with my switch to becoming a slow traveler, renting an apartment (or a private bedroom in a shared apartment) has become absolutely the top option. although a hostel or hotel makes more sense for a…
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summer travels 2014
i love the month of june (after SIFF finishes and my homesickness dissipates, of course). june means time to countdown the normal teaching weeks and dream about summer travels to come. for the second year now, we’ve been planning three trips each summer. the first, a shorter trip at the end of june (4-7 days) somewhere generally accessible by road or rail to us. last year it was the salzkammergut lake region of austria, this year it’s slovenia! secondly, our annual karlovy vary trip for the film festival– a tradition i will keep as long as i live here. and thirdly, in august after summer camps are finished, it’s time for…
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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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liebster award
i have to be honest that i had no idea what a liebster award was before amy bestowed it upon me. (thank you!!) it’s a blog award given by other bloggers to highlight quality, entertaining blogs (usually, that have less than 1,000 followers). and with this honor, i get to nominate a couple blogs that fit this description that have been on my radar for awhile and deserve recognition. then, the nominees can choose to answer eleven questions from me on their blogs. you can also choose to pick eleven random facts about yourself, but i figured answering eleven questions was good enough for me. my nominees? on the road…
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spring im schaugarten
i am definitely procrastinating my german homework right now, but i figure if it’s talking about my time at the lovely kittenberger erlebnisgarten (botanical garden) in the wachau valley of austria, then that’s kind of german language related! going to the kittenberger gardens was to be the main point, the highlight of the day trip… and besides the dazzling danube scenery, it was my favorite part of the day. i had been tantalized with talk that kittenberger has a fabulous bio restaurant, called the glas.haus, where they make all of their entrees fresh using herbs and plants from the garden. YES! I’M HUNGRY! while the three other ladies we came…
