Read more about the article Lviv – Ukraine
Lviv - Ukraine

Lviv – Ukraine

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Latin Leopolis, The City of the Lion

Coming back to one of our less visited countries in Europe, Ukraine, also one of the biggest with so much to see and so much to offer. While we had a great time visiting the capital Kiev in other trips, it was about time to come to the beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Site listed city of Lviv. The most historical of any in the country and with such an incredible vast amount of old buildings, churches, palaces and monuments all over the city; many of which already perfectly restored to their former glory with many on the way. In this city you can still strongly feel its Soviet past with areas where it seems time stood still, but it is changing and redeveloping rapidly itself to become the next new major tourist spot in Eastern Europe.

The city’s potential is unquestionable. Through its history of invasions and different empires taking over this region it kept gaining strength and importance, and survived almost intact the Soviet invasion and both World Wars, unlike majority of its neighbours, or even Kiev that was severely destroyed to rubble.

Invaded by the Tatars in 1261 by King Daniel and completely razed to the ground, was rebuilt from 1270 by King Lev (Leo) who chose it as his residence, making it the capital of Galicia-Volhynia. Inherited by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1340, then Poland gaining control in 1349 with Casimir III becoming part of the Kingdom of Poland until 1772 with the First Partition of Poland and as such, the region annexed to Austria, Habsburg Empire. This would last until the end of WWI with the fall of the Habsburg Monarchy, leading to the Polish-Ukrainian War, when Poland retook control. As for the last years on the city’s recent history, at the brink of WWII the Soviets invaded the land and slowly annexed it to the Soviet Union, lasting until its complete independence in 1980. (more…)

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Read more about the article Arad – Romania
Arad - Romania

Arad – Romania

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Westernmost part of Transylvania

On the following day after visiting Timisoara, our main destination for this weekend, and the beautiful city of Szeged right across the border in Hungary, all while enjoying a great time at the Spa Resort Hotel we booked for both nights, we spared Sunday to visit the small yet charming city of Arad, barely 60 kilometres north of Timisoara. The westernmost city in the Transylvania region, home to one of the fortresses built in the Vauban star-shaped style so typical in this area.

After all, we did have the time to visit in full every of the three cities we ended up going to in just 2 days, so the five of us decided it would be a great idea and a good opportunity while taking the chance to see more than originally we planned for this weekend. Distances are short in between the cities, and with a rental car booked for the length of our stay made it even much more convenient. However, after having visited both Timisoara and spectacular Szeged, our expectations were perhaps too high and did not see from Arad its beautiful historic centre as such but instead a more laid back place, where we were the only tourists in the entire city. We did not cross with any other foreigner at all! Not that we would mind, to be honest even better. You get the chance to take some nice pictures people-free.

Disregarding a bit my comment before, the city has charm and hosts a great collection of beautiful old buildings, more typical of a Central European city than East European, but as I described a bit on the Timisoara and Szeged guides, this was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire hence such urbanism and architecture, same you see in Vienna or Budapest, the main cities by excellence back in these times. (more…)

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Read more about the article Szeged – Hungary
Szeged - Hungary

Szeged – Hungary

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City of Sunshine

If I mentioned in the previous travel guide about Timisoara that we left Szeged only in mind should we have time for visiting it or not, well, here I am writing the guide for it. Yes, we did have the time for it, and yes, it was actually the best decision we could have done. We did not expect such a beautiful city at all, and in this occasion it was actually a proper surprise for me. If I always like to check pictures of the places I am going to visit before hand, for the Szeged it was not the case. I though we would not have the time to go so I decided not to find any further information. Now after the trip, I am extremely happy that we did go! Not only myself, but everyone of my friends we travelled with too.

Located on the eastern part of Hungary, it does actually borders not only with Romania but to Serbia. It’s the last city in the country on the east, and the 3rd biggest, and it’s curious nickname, the Sun City, comes because it is the city with the most hours of sun through the year! Who would have thought the more the east the more the sun, but this is due to its geographical location, with no nearby mountain ranges. Another unexpected fact, the incredible large amount of art-nouveau architecture everywhere in the old town. From modest to absolutely amazing examples that seem to be taken from Barcelona.

Due to its extremely compact historic old town core, where the streets follow a perfect orthogonal grid pattern, and right by the edges an inner ring road avenue divides it from the “newer” areas by the west, and the river to the east, it is very easy and straightforward to visit and enjoy every sight without needing too much time. To give you an idea, we arrived to Szeged from Timisoara at around 16.00pm, and left the city slightly before 20.00pm in order to have the first section of driving with some daylight before night. If I must confess, this was a bit too short time; an entire half a day would be perfect for anyone as there are no further important sights once you are out of the small historic core. (more…)

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Read more about the article Timisoara – Romania
Timisoara - Romania

Timisoara – Romania

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The Little Vienna

After a while since our first, and only visit to Romania before with Bucharest, Bran and Brasov; we return right in time benefiting from Ryanair’s new route from London Stansted on their introductory fare. Something we could not resist, furthermore their flight times could not be any better! Giving us the entire weekend over there, without having to rush away from work on Friday evening to the airport. I wish many of the European routes with any airline would be as good as this timetable.

Timisoara is Romania’s third largest city, yet second after Bucharest in regards to tourism, industry, economy and education. It’s location is also very favourable on the west of the country, very near the border with Serbia and Hungary; and its architecture, heritage from the times it was part of the Hungarian Empire has resulted in receiving the nickname of Little Vienna. The entire historic quarter retains almost intact its original fabric, with beautiful late 19th and early 20th century buildings among older palaces, cathedrals and churches.

It is very wrong when sometimes we think about Romania and come to our minds what we get through the news, unfaithfully believing that either the country is poor, their people untrustful or “not much” to see and do. It is actually all the opposite! And I already knew this after visiting the beautiful capital and the idyllic Transylvania villages and castles through Bran and Brasov; and now strengthen with Timisoara, (and Arad the following day). This leads me only to want more of this country and having a great potential here with so many destinations to go. (more…)

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Read more about the article Nesvizh and Mir – Belarus
Nesvizh and Mir - Belarus

Nesvizh and Mir – Belarus

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Treasures of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Crown Kingdom of Poland

An spontaneous and very last minute decision for touring something else in Belarus than only visiting its capital, Minsk; turned out to be one of the highlights in this trip all together. However, it was not an easy task finding out the transportation to get there. But first of all, let’s start by talking about how we found and knew about both these places. At the time I was collecting information about Minsk before the trip, Nesvizh Castle also pop up, but after reading the “complicated” way to reach it I decided to let it go and not going deeper to find out more.

A second attempt came after I finalised the guide for Minsk and discovered that for sure, two and a half days in the city will be way over too much. So as usual I do wherever we travel, I searched for UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the country in case something turns to be nearby. And there is was again, Nesvizh and Mir. I only noted down the very minimal information on how to get there and though on asking someone once in Minsk rather than the almost 0 proper help from internet. And so after our first day in Minsk, and after seeing hundreds of advertisements for visiting the castle, and also the castle of Mir (which I did not have any idea of its existence until this day); our resolution was waking up early and ask at the bus station.

Asking at the bus station did not happen at the end, but at our hotel they gave us all the information we needed, and managed to get there without delay and pretty much straightforward. Not before having to ask at another hotel for further “clarification” and help but all was there at the front of our eyes. I explain below at the next section how to get there and all you need to know with details which are nowhere in the internet.

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Read more about the article Minsk – Belarus
Minsk - Belarus

Minsk – Belarus

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Capital of the Commonwealth of Independent States

Another exciting trip ahead of us to a country we’ve never been, Belarus. And yet another country to tick off the list of countries visited in Europe, bringing down the count to just 6 left (out of 50!). These are already serious numbers, but also means that excluding Albania and Moldova which are quite near and “easy” to reach, the others are way farther and beyond any logical time to get there on just for the weekend or 3 days trip. So unless booking some time off coupled with the weekend, there is no other possible solution to be able to enjoy them. In any case, the remaining ones will definitely require more days for visiting as it is not the only objective getting to their capital, but also secondary cities and important places elsewhere in the country.

Flying to Minsk does not come cheap either. Not only the direct flight to/from London is seriously expensive, but also the scheduled times do not make much sense to be honest if all you have is only a few days. The flights are not daily either. In the other hand, if you look to a map, Minsk is very near Vilnius, to where you can grab some nice flight deals and very frequent. We twisted even more since the deal we found was actually with airBaltic on a London-Riga-Vilnius, and Vilnius to London. The bus from Vilnius to Minsk is 3.5 hours and is just 13 Euros, but for the sake of convenience, we managed to get the flight back from Minsk to Vilnius for almost the same price as the bus would have costed us, giving us some extra hours in Minsk as consequence and avoiding at least 2 hours on the border to enter back the European Union. Leaving the EU for Belarus is as quick as few minutes, but in the opposite direction to enter the EU the queues at the border are terribly long.

So with the flights and overland transportation sorted, the next was to find a hotel. That was an easy task, and a great deal at the DoubleTree by Hilton very near the city centre. Now, as we already knew, there was still the “most” important task to be done: getting a visa to travel to Belarus. Since we already experienced a similar process for getting one to Russia, Belarus was in a sense similar although they have introduced some extra barriers in the process. I will explain this below in a separate section so you know how to proceed. (more…)

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Read more about the article Cesky Krumlov – Czech Republic
Cesky Krumlov - Czech Republic

Cesky Krumlov – Czech Republic

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Bohemian Crumlaw

At only 5 days ago since we returned from a long trip in Indonesia and yet today once again, as most Fridays are for us, we flew to Prague, and yes, once more to this city, it’s never tiring to repeat  the places you admire the most. Although the original purpose was actually not doing any sightseeing whatsoever, but instead taking the time for doing “nothing” and simply enjoy at the many coffee places, food and nice beer; we changed the plans around in order to have a day excursion to Cesky Krumlov, the wonderful UNESCO World Heritage city some 170 kilometres to the south of Prague for the whole of Saturday. As for Sunday in the other hand we retained to the original plan and enjoy the free time.

For a city of this small size its castle is second in size only after the one in Prague! That is in fact very big. Other than the castle, it is also about the incredibly well preserved old town with most constructions dating from the 14th through the 17th centuries Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architectural styles. The Vltava River also adds charm as it crosses the city in many meanders, giving many different perspectives from each angle.

Due to its small size and easy to navigate through when visiting I cannot think of anything else to give you as a note in this brief introduction. Furthermore when planning for lunch I cannot even give you a recommendation here either because our lunch was included as part of the tour hence we did not need to be looking around for restaurants, but as for any city in the world and specially if highly touristy as Cesky Krumlov is, care to have a look around at few places as you might end up in a tourist trap, or paying twice for the same, or having pretty low quality. (more…)

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Read more about the article Opole – Poland
Opole - Poland

Opole – Poland

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Historical capital of Upper Silesia

Another weekend flying to Wroclaw after a year we went there, yet with a different reason this time which was reaching Opole, 100 kilometres to the southeast. Not a city of special importance or any great sights, but fully meaningful to my travel companion as it is his birthplace before having to move to Germany when the borders changed and Opole returned to be a city in Poland and no Germany.

Also a good reason for returning to Wroclaw was to be with my friend whom I did not see for almost 12 years!. And of course, for the city itself. It is still among one of my favourite in Poland with so much to see and do. While the last time we visited it was almost December and the huge Christmas market was already on in the main square and streets, this time we got just in time to enjoy probably the last days of sun and warm temperatures before the Autumn drop. We’ve been very lucky on both Wroclaw and Opole with the weather, it could have been already very bad.

I know this guide is going to be quite explicit, but for the shake of it I could not pass the occasion and give it a go in creating it as I got some spare time right before our main long holidays for this year just 5 days ahead of us. But not minding the very small size of it and that there is not much to see, it was still worth to come for the day and enjoy the cute old town knowing most of it is a reconstruction since the World War II made a great loss and destruction in Opole. (more…)

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