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berlin christmas market rundown!
hey. so i know it’s january, folks are knee-deep in resolutions, self-betterment, and photos to prove you went running. but i have some serious intel about the christmas markets in berlin, seeing as i’d been doing this “research” the week of christmas, that needs to be released on the wild internet or the thought will either wither away in my mind or this post will rot in my drafts folder forever. and technically, the twelve days of christmas are still on ‘til the 6th, yo. so pin it, bookmark it, do whatever it is you gotta do if you want to know the low-down on which berlin christmas markets to visit!…
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st. nicholas day & hangin’ in nuremberg
from what i can recall from my travels around germany in 2007, nuremberg (nürnberg) had the king of christmas markets; topping many a list. not only is the setting gorgeous and the stalls seemingly unending, but they are famous for both their glühwein and their lebkuchen (gingerbread). i knew alex had to see this! i mean, germany is soooo close… and yet, so far. although it would take about one hour by car (or less) if one drove directly west of budějovice to get to eastern bavaria, the public transport connections usually straight up suck. even after twenty five years since the fall of the iron curtain, the infrastructure and…
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sweating to the oldies: athens
athens in july would be fine, i thought. it will be fun, i thought. alright, actually no, that’s a lie. every piece of travel information i have ever received actually says “avoid athens in high summer”. but it’s tough to pass through an exciting european capital without wanting to spend a few days there getting to know it. we took the blue star ferry from santorini to athens, which is an eight hour journey. i chose the ferry because we had flown in, and the price of flights, by the time i actually went to go buy them, had sky-rocketed. (buyearlybuyearly) but also, what’s not to like about the idea…
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santorini, pt. II: from imerovigli to ammoudi
{this post is third in the honeymoon in greece series– catch up if you’ve missed the others!} from our perch in beautiful imerovigli, every day i would stare out at the tip of land that curved around like an arm to the village on the very tip of the “hand”, oia (ee-uh), purportedly one of the most beautiful villages on the island. before arriving, i thought it would be fun to hike there from imerovigli but when i arrived, i saw it all laid out in front of me, above. (map via) how often do you actually see the path of your hike laid out in front of you? what…
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santorini, pt. I
the moment i’d been waiting for for almost a year: when our ryanair flight from athens touched down in santorini (thira) at 7:50am that mid-july morning, bright and early. the anxiety-inducing bright yellow and blue colors of the ryanair brand did nothing to ease my flying nerves*, nor did a greek yogurt and honey i’d recently ingested at the airport, NOR did the fact that the ascent and descent (least favorite parts) seemed to be the majority of the time of that very quick flight. but when we finally touched down (“WHERE IS THE LAND?!!!”, me, sweatily gripping the arm-rest moments before landing as we were still flying over the…
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touching down in greece
we had a bit of a stressful journey from the united states, which involved spending 9 total hours running here and there all over detroit wayne county airport and almost flying through thunderstorms in chicago (aiie!), and so much more, but eventually being allowed to board a super secret special direct red-eye to london and catching up with our original flight to athens. oh, athens! flying over the vicinity of this ancient city was so exciting: my first glimpse of the deep blue aegean sea and the dusty, rocky terrain with shrubby looking trees. i had never seen land like this before, and it wasn’t until that moment right before…
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a montmartre story
i promised i’d tell this story about what happened to alex and myself on our final day of spending two weeks in paris during the first vagabonding part of our adventure in 2012. some old-timer readers might remember it as a mention of this exists in the archives, but it definitely is deserving of a post all on its own. we had just spent a wonderful leisurely time in the city of lights taking things very slowly. one museum that day, two park visits the next day… slow travel style (you can read my nine day itinerary i used here). but something i never got to do yet was visit the…
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biking bohemia
after getting my bike back in ship-shape just in time for the nice weather, i decided to take a first pedal of the year last weekend. the weather was supposed to be around 23°C and mostly sunny, and with alex busy, it was time for me to finally take the pedal to hluboká nad vltavou, the next town of any repute to the north, on what has been called the busiest cycle path in the entire country! it is an easy 12km from my house to hluboká, riding along the river vltava most of the time before veering off into the adorable village of bavorovice, then on along some ponds…
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next ten years of travel
it seemed fitting the day that adventurings finally got it’s real home on the web (adventurings.com!) that i get an email alerting me of this blog’s second “birthday”. it’s pretty neat knowing my big adventure is over two years old. not only that, but this week i’m celebrating my big TEN YEARS of europe travel-versary: a decade from the time i took my first europe trip (celebrating my high school graduation) to five cities in five countries with two of my buddies. so in honor of this, i’ve got a couple of travel-y posts prepared. ‘cause man, ten years of traveling europe seems like kind of a big deal to…
