So last week I was telling you all about my trip to Milan, Italy and the amazing time I had while I was there. This week the story time continues with another portion of Italy and what I did there, so read on to know more about it.
Bella Italia, there is just something about you! Maybe it’s your romantic streets, maybe it’s the smell of pizza wherever you go, the sip of strong espresso in the morning or that cute guy who smiled at you when you passed by, I really can’t tell. I just know that ever since my short trip to Milan last week, I definitely want to go back soon! I know this isn’t a post about Vienna, but bear with me!
Not that long ago I was visiting my cousin in Upper Austria and we were planning a short road trip to Passau, Germany. Since the drive is not longer than two hours, we were already planning ahead of oursleves, including other things that we can do on the way. And that is when it occurred to me – this one place in Austria that has stuck with me through childhood, but never actually considered seeing one day.
You may or may not know that I actually come from Bulgaria. Part of my ancestors came at the beginning of the 20th century from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Bulgaria and married among Bulgarians. Some returned to their home country and some stayed in Bulgaria but here I am now, one century later, in Vienna, after spending the bigger part of my life in Bulgaria.
I can say for sure that I am very used to the Austrian culture, cuisine, and traditions because I grew up with some parts of it. My grandma would sing Christmas carols in German and we would bake Linzeraugen together, yet, I am born and bread Bulgarian so today I will tell you why March is one of the most special months for Bulgarians.
It is already March and the semester break is over. However, in between traveling, having guests and writing my BA thesis, my blog had to stay silent for a while. After I am officially tired of doing research and quoting linguists 24/7, I am back with a story about my trip to Upper Austria and Hallstatt.
If you already read the post from last week, you know what I think about buying tickets and finding a suitable accommodation. Well, today I present to you the follow-up article about packing, sightseeing and basically all the fun things you do on a trip.
Sightseeing
If you are like me, you are someone who likes to see as much as possible when on a holiday. For me it is actually not a real holiday, but more or less a trip of running, hiking and doing everything suggested by any tour guide, forum or blog I have read. Needless to say, this is not always manageable due to weather conditions and my companions, but most of the time I go back home quite content and if there is something that I missed doing I tell myself: “Next time! You have to have a reason to come back here”.
First thing I do when I figure out where I am going is checking TripAdvisor. It has become an instinct of mine to go online and look the top destinations and sights to see. Of course since TripAdvisor has this huge audience of people submitting reviews and scores online daily, you are kept up to date with everything that is worth doing when you are somewhere.
Travel Guides
I also have this old-fashioned side of mine that involves buying a tour guide. This is one of the most thrilling things to do when going on a holiday apart from the holiday itself. I particularly love the tour guides by DK Eyewitnes and I have used them for many destinations. As any other travel guide they include information on different districts and interesting places to visit within this area. However, some of the features that I love about these travel guides are unique. To start off, they offer a sliced view of the most famous buildings in the city/ country and in that way you can see how the building is arranged with all of its corridors, floors, and entrances. I particularly love this detailed view, since most tour guides will give you a picture from the outside (so that you orientate yourself better) and if you are lucky you will get a shot from the inside as well. Although, this common practice can be helpful, it can barely give you a realistic idea what to expect when you go inside and although it is always nice to be surprised, I like to know what to look for when I go somewhere.
Another cool part that is included in these travel guides is the ‘Survival Guide’ section. Here you are being guided through the means of transport, you are provided with visuals of the tickets for the subway and tram, and also you get to see pictures of the local currency. And wait – that is not all of it! You get a few pages on local cuisine as well as the specific foods and drinks, typical for your destination. I always appreciate the country’s culture and I try to ‘dine like the locals’ as much as I can when I am somewhere new, so this information is extremely important to me.
Of course, there are so many more cool things inside these guides, but I will let it to you to find them out for yourself. I am sure you can get the brand in most of the bigger bookstores and they are offered in several languages but for sure English and German are available here in Austria.
Huh? How come Instagram has anything to do with planning my trip? Very simple – it helps you to get to know where you are going. I love small bakeries, cute streets off the beaten track and cozy cafés where the locals go and have a chit-chat on the weekends. Well, unfortunately this information is neither on TripAdvisor nor in my travel guide, but I have realized that some of the most successful instagrammers that post regularly pictures from their basis-locations are actually giving away all the hints about the cool places that are definitely ‘in’. Therefore, whenever I see something that looks really cool (say a street, fountain or a corner) on my feed, I just add it to my collection so I can revisit it and plan on going to that very same place, without having to look it up again.
Walks
If you have been with me for a while, you know I am the ultimate rambler. That’s more than obvious by my photo-walks in Vienna and I love exploring cities by walking around. There is one downfall to that – I am a bit of a sloth. I am definitely not a sporty type and after walking for three or four hours straight, I already feel the need to sit down and have a break. Another problem with walks is that you are depending on the mercy of the weather and if it is a rainy afternoon, public transport is definitely unavoidable. Yet, if I can give you one advise that would be: walk as much as possible. Your feet will hurt, you will feel tired and you may even get wet if the weather is not on your side, but what you will remember from a trip like this, would be the spirit of the city, the streets and the atmosphere. You definitely cannot experience the same thing in the underground and hiking from one museum to another, so having said that, give yourself time to explore the place you are and fully submerge yourself within its own magic.
I hope you found this article helpful and I wish you safe travels wherever you are going, Enjoy!
The February holiday is coming up and I guess most of you will treat themselves to a little trip somewhere. I am sure that you already have planned and organized trips before but today I am going to share my experience and little tips how to make your travels stress-free. From tickets, accommodation and places to visit, there are just so many things to think about.
Booking Tickets
My go-to suggestion is skyscanner.net , especially when I am not sure where I want to go. Sometimes, I just want to go away and travel a little, but when you are on a tight student’s budget, you have to be creative. Skyscanner also has an app where you can actually check the cheapest destinations for the month as well as days of the week. I really believe that this makes it a whole lot easier to choose interesting places that are not necessarily at the top of your wish-list, but you can still go and visit them for 30 Euros, and this my friends, is quite a bargain! Am I right, or am I right 😀 I do not necessarily buy my tickets through skyscanner itself, since so far the prices I have found are more or less the same on the official airline website.
If you are travelling by train, there are nice bargains on WestBahn as well, where prices start at 8 bucks. So why not discover Austria for cheap and splurge on a fancy meal somewhere, rather than invest your money in your travels.
Accommodation
I’m guilty as charged: I love nice hotels. I realize that this is sometimes totally unnecessary, especially given that you do not spend your day at the room, but outside exploring and by the time you go back at the hotel, you are too tired to care. All of that is true, however, I cannot imagine going to a hostel and sleeping with six people in the same room. My mom always says: ‘If you are going to feel worse as if you are at home, just don’t go’. Although I am aware I am not sharing the popular opinion here, this has been a motto that I have tried to follow and of course, sometimes when I am away I long for the coziness of home, but after all it is worth to sacrifice a little bit of comfort in order to see new places and travel more often. The solution to that problem in my case is Airbnb. Most of the time you are getting a bigger space, if you are lucky, even nicely furnished, and it would definitely cost you in general less than the most fancier hotels.
Packing
Recently I have traveled light religiously. I’ve grown sick of carrying heavy suitcases around, especially having to lift them onto a bus or a train definitely does not classify as something I want to do on my holidays. Therefore, as long as I am traveling somewhere for three or four nights, I do not bother to carry too much with me: several clothing items that pair nicely together, small sizes of cosmetics and nothing which I will use only once or not at all that will just lay at the bottom of my suitcase by the time I go home. Something really useful that I learned is to roll my clothes, instead of folding them. It has saved my life, especially in the colder seasons when I need to pack warm but still fit into my mini-trolley.
So far so good, stay tuned for the second part of this article, where a lot more interesting tips and suggestions are coming your way. Until then – Enjoy!
It is summer and as everyone else, I am on holiday as well. If I have to be honest I haven’t stopped traveling for the past two months. First it was France and now I am in beautiful Bulgaria. It is true what they say that it is heaven on earth here in the Balkans – the beauty and the interesting things to see and do are endless.
In the previous blog post I talked about my travels to Mont Saint-Michel and the time I have spent in the Normandy, however, our travel did not stop there and today I want to tell you about all of my favorite places in Paris and what I think is a must to see!
I have been to Paris more than a few times, but although now I may say I know the city well enough, France is a mystery to me. I am in favor of the opinion that the city does not reveal the soul of the country and this is the case with Paris as well. This time, however, I had the chance to get a glance at a little more different part of this amazing country – Normandy.
Viennese Mademoiselle 