Tallinn - Estonia

Tallinn – Estonia

Post published:27 March 2011
Post category:Estonia Europe Northern Europe

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Qalaven, Kesoniemi, Reval

Although this is currently my second time in this city, it was very long since the first time, hence actually glad to be back to one of the most charming place in Europe. Not the best weather in this occasion though. From what was a perfect summer time was back in 2005 to really winter this time. We could not even believe that almost in April, there was still -5 degrees with the feeling at much lower, and the Baltic Sea entirely frozen. One for another, having the chance to have seen the city during these two different seasons was already a plus, enhance for being able to admire the sea completely frozen as my eyes could reach, that was a first in my life!.

When planning your time here, the good news is that two days are good enough to visit everything. The Baltic capitals are in general small and perfect for a weekend trip, or if on a wider tour, still 2 days at each is perfect when talking about cities like Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius or Helsinki. To make things even better, once you are in the Upper or Lower town, you will get to see everything on foot. Most of the streets are pedestrian only, extremely compact and the whole of it listed by the UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. One can hardly see any damage from WWII, thankfully it retained what is now one of the best preserved medieval old towns in Europe.

The city walls are so well preserved, and so the many towers that when viewed from the upper town it’s more like a truly fairy tale city. So many towers raising, together with the many churches spires and all right at the footstep of the Baltic Sea not far ahead.

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Santiago de Compostela - Spain

Santiago de Compostela – Spain

Post published:3 January 2011
Post category:Europe Southern Europe Spain

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The City of Stone and Way of Saint James

Happy to travel to Santiago de Compostela for a well deserved return to one of the most historical and beautiful cities in Spain, worldwide known especially among the Christian Catholic population. It becomes now quite an oddity to think it took me 13 years to come back and admire this city one more time; but yeah, with an almost infinite choice of destinations for a lifetime, sometimes the ones we have near us are the ones we tend to mistakenly postpone and even forget.

Although this was just a day trip taking as much advantage from a very early flight in the morning and a late at night return, it is more than enough time to visit Santiago de Compostela, the small capital city of the Autonomous Region of Galicia in north west Spain. We can be thankful the weather was not too bad considering it was just January! Yes, this is something you need to be aware of, the weather in this region. It does not matter whether you are coming in the summer months or winter, the chances of rain are one of the highest in Europe, only second after Bergen in Norway. Also a jacket in summer will almost certainly be needed.

So what’s the deal and so special about this city to be so world renown? It is the end point of the Way of Saint James’, the Christian pilgrimage network of routes coming all over Europe onto Northern Spain and on to the Cathedral of Santiago, resting place of the apostle. Quite an epic journey should you wish to do, noticeable the route between Roncevalles (France) and Santiago, covering some 800 km of beautiful northern Spain scenery and historical cities. (more…)

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Modena - Italy

Modena – Italy

Post published:19 December 2010
Post category:Europe Italy Southern Europe

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The Capital of Engines

Our second day on this weekend trip and as planned, we used for visiting the small and incredibly beautiful city of Modena. Who has never heard of this name before? Surely you must know for the balsamic vinegar, redundant to say it comes from here. At only 40km away from Bologna and around 30 minutes by train between both, it is the perfect combination you should aim for. Bologna and Modena, two in one for a weekend cultural trip is the ideal.

Being of this size makes it perfect for a day trip, in fact, not even a full day is needed as you will visit everything in much less time, meaning you could use pretty much the entire Saturday if you are coming just for the weekend to Bologna, while Sunday for Modena before heading back to the airport if you have an evening flight back on that day. If you plan to do it other way around then you will be making a mistake because Bologna deserves much more time, unless you’ve already visited it before. It’s quite large in size.

The city boasts two monuments listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Both located at the very heart of the historic centre, the Piazza Grande (meaning Great Square), and the City Hall. It is with no surprise why is that as you will see for your own eyes. Elsewhere, the charming streets full of historical buildings speak for themselves, but remember is very small. Everything is compact and very straightforward with an almost impossible chance of being lost or loosing time trying to locate yourself around.

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Bologna - Italy

Bologna – Italy

Post published:19 December 2010
Post category:Europe Italy Southern Europe

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The Learned, the Fat and the Red

Again the time has arrived for a last trip of the year. Many so far, to incredible places and countless pictures and memories, so let’s add with another one to Bologna, and considering how near is Modena, both would be the plan for this weekend. Making it all possible thanks to the bargain flights, although nowadays nothing to compare to these “almost fore free” flights once Ryanair had some years ago. Still, cheaper than three pints in a normal bar in London that’s what we paid this time.

Days before our arrival it has been snowing quite heavily, therefore we prepared ourselves to cope with the weather and for the freezing temperatures. Thankfully we could land on-time right in the middle of a blizzard which, luckily for us, stopped once we were outside of the airport. We cannot say the same for our returning flight the day after… flights were severely disrupted, delayed and cancelled. I must say I was only lucky by chance at only 2 hours delay, but managed it back home.

The city, 7th largest in Italy has also one of the largest and best preserved historical old town centre in Europe. There is always some great architecture and history everywhere you walk, although this is a fact repeated across the entire Emilia Romagna region, which capital city is, as you could imagine by now, Bologna. And if something makes it very unique is the UNESCO World Heritage Site listed incredibly system of porticoes covering no less than 38 kilometres across the entire city. Once can walk under the arches for several kilometres without even getting wet if raining.

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Venice - Italy

Venice – Italy

Post published:5 December 2010
Post category:Europe Italy Southern Europe

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La Serenissima, Queen of the Adriatic, Floating City

Such a wonderful surprise was to find one of the best airfare deals ever to one of the most stunning cities in the planet, Venice. More even considering it was almost 10 years apart since the first and only time I was here. The excitement was even higher considering the time of the year, December, and the weather conditions so totally different to that glorious days of summer the first time I step on Venice.

I admit I have a great memory for the places I travel to, however, remembering absolutely everything as in this case, like the little streets I once walked, or where I had food and that great ice cream was priceless. The only most clear difference was, as mentioned earlier, the weather. Now I can gladly say I have enjoyed the city in the summer when it’s hot, sunny and nicely clear skies yet hordes of tourists in almost every possible piece of land; and the city during the Christmas period; cloudy, cold and rainy but experienced something unique, the acqua alta. That’s the phenomenon where the city gets flooded with the rising levels of water reaching some meters in height at some points. This usually happens between winter and spring months.

This city has so much to see in so limited space that it’s incredible how could it be built since the very beginning like this, in the middle of the lagoon with the houses on top of wooden pillars stick to the mud below the water level. Engineers knew about the tide (acqua alta) since the very beginning, and that was not a problem. The issue arise only in the recent decades as it is getting worst and worst with levels reaching score heights, hence the terrible damages it cause. This fate is due to hopefully change for the better once the lagoon barriers are fully operational in order to control the water rising in the city.

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Barcelona - Spain

Barcelona – Spain

Post published:26 June 2010
Post category:Europe Southern Europe Spain

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Roman Barcino; Ciudad Condal

With so many trips and visits to one of my all time favourite cities in the world; usually coming once or twice a year since 2003 mainly to visit and enjoy being with my friends, it’s finally a great time to create the travel guide for it, no more excuses on why to postpone. And while I am typing these introductory words, I do already know this will be a long guide and harder to create than most of the cities I’ve been, merely because I know it very well by now and can describe lots of facts and places.

Barcelona is a brand on its own. Everyone around the world have heard of it. In fact, although at points painful, many people from non Spanish speaking countries do believe it is the capital of Spain. Well, on the other hand, the city knew well how to sell itself to the world. Adverts, promotions, guides, tourist projects to bring people, great marketing and so on; something Madrid has only started doing recently. But of course, Barcelona has an asset impossible to beat, the sea. It is the 3rd largest city in the Mediterranean only after Istanbul and Alexandria.

Although along the coast, it is not only a seaside destination; it is a major centre for financial, telecommunications, cultural and businesses. Second transport hub after Madrid. Large music, sport and arts city; and an incredible architecture playground unique in Spain. After all, the millions of tourist and business people the city receive per year want to marvel the elegant avenues with the countless collection of Modernist style constructions, having the ones from Gaudi (full name Antoni Gaudi i Cornet) the sight number one. (more…)

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Astorga - Spain

Astorga – Spain

Post published:12 June 2010
Post category:Europe Southern Europe Spain

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Asturica Augusta

Continuing on this holidays in Spain we decided to spend the day in Astorga, just 52km way from Leon. A major point along the UNESCO World Heritage Site listed Way of Saint James, it comes next after Leon and middle way to Ponferrada, the next important stop along this pilgrim way. Listed as Spanish Historic Heritage site, it is well known for being the city in Spain with the best preserved Roman sewers. These are so good in state after 2000 years that are still in use today.

It was a key city during the Roman empire due to the gold mines not far towards Ponferrada to the north west of Spain, still in the region of Leon, known as Las Medulas and listed an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Being one of the largest in production, they provided to the capital of the empire, Rome, with all the gold mined here. The streets follows the original Roman pattern and since the historical city is inside the walls, it is very simple and easy to walk around without need for any map or getting lost.

But the city is not only important for its Roman origins and remains, but also for being one of the very few places outside of Barcelona where Antoni Gaudi designed one of his works; and incredibly enough for this rarity, the province of Leon has 2 of his works, with the second one in the city of Leon itself.

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The Ruhr Industrial Area - Germany

The Ruhr Industrial Area – Germany

Post published:24 April 2010
Post category:Europe Germany Western Europe

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Bauhaus and Modernist Coal Mines

Over the next 3 weekends spamming between March and April, all the trips to Dusseldorf in Germany had the very same purpose: visiting the Ruhr Valley Industrial Area, landmark in the European Route of Industrial Heritage, right in coincidence with the celebrations of the “European Capital of Culture 2010: Essen and the Ruhr area”. In total we would visit 3 iconic places, symbols of a bygone industrial era where this coal-rich region was once one of the most important high quality steel producers in the world.

Even nowadays steel production still strong, of course using much modern techniques without the use of coal for heating and melting, the coal era died at the beginning of 1990 leaving dozens of coal mines and industries abandoned. In many cases, their remains have been erased forever with the regeneration of their former sites back to nature or new constructions; but in other “lucky” cases, the most important for their architecture and engineering have been preserved and are now great museums.

One of them, the largest of its kind in Europe was designated an UNESCO World Heritage Site for its engineering achievement and its incredible design; the largest Bauhaus style building ever created: the Zeche Zollverein. Another, the Zeche Zollern, is in the other hand a masterpiece in the Art-Nouveu style. Equally beautiful.

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