Primavera Europae

Post scriptum 3: Top 10 It’s pretty much impossible to...

the-collection — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:04:00 +0200

1. Kleine Scheidegg

2. Rome

3. Montreux

4. Andermatt - St. Moritz - Diavolezza

5. Bologna

6. Lyon

7. Siena

8. Perugia

9. Avignon

10. Nice

Post scriptum 3: Top 10

It’s pretty much impossible to select and rank best experiences from a month long trip in varied locations - but I did it anyway. ;) In order to try to sum things up and create some sort of a closure for the blog too. So, here’s a list of top 10 experiences from a month in the European spring:

Kleine Scheidegg - Truly epic landscape at the height of 2km was one of the strongest experiences I’ve ever encountered traveling
Rome - On previous trip 10 or so years ago I hadn’t realized how wonderful city this really is. Not just the amazing amount of history, but the even fellinesquely lively nightlife, great food & wine and contemporary culture make Rome one of the greatest cities in the whole world.
Montreux - Absolutely clear blue sceneries of Lake Geneva & the Alps
Andermatt - St. Moritz - Bernina Diavolezza train ride - Hard to choose from all the gorgeous train rides in Switzerland, but this one had probably the most varied sceneries among some of the most stunning ones
Bologna - Surprisingly urban, modern & artistic vibes in gorgeous red-brick old town setting. One of the places from this trip I definitely want to return to!
Lyon - Large city with the heart of a little town, France at it’s best!
Siena - Still one of the most beautiful Italian cities
Perugia - Eccentric mixture of medieval castles, renaissance palaces and early 1900s buildings on a hilltop setting with a lively university scene
Avignon - Fascinating mediaval buildings with zig-zagging narrow streets filled with inviting restaurants and cafes
Nice - A city that seems to really love food. Throw in world-famous sea views and some great art collections and you’ve got a perfect destination for a long weekend.

This compilation is very probably the final post to this blog, so to keep up to date on my photos in the future you should look me up on Flickr and follow me on Twitter for generic ramblings and occasional insights.

Post scriptum 2: InterRail pass There’s plenty of options...

the-collection — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:21:58 +0200

Post scriptum 2: InterRail pass

There’s plenty of options in InterRail passes with validity ranging from just 10 days to a full month, some with fewer travel days than the actual validity period on calendar - and all can be purchased for either 1st or 2nd class. (And all are offered with different prices for young people, adults and seniors.)

I knew I was going to be on the road for almost exactly a month, but getting the full month InterRail pass would have been overkill as I wasn’t going to travel even nearly every day, and some of the shorter trips especially in Italy were going to be very cheap to purchase as regular tickets. So I opted for a pass that is valid for 22 consecutive days and allows traveling on 10 days from those 22. It gave the opportunity to travel on every other day on average, which seemed like a nice pace.

Based on couple of blog posts and articles I had read, I ended up choosing the 1st class version of the pass. It cost 200€ more than the 2nd class version (580€ vs 380€), but it was supposed to offer much more relaxed way of traveling.

Well, in my particular trip I probably would have been better of saving that 200€ difference and spending it on something else. I did quite many train rides on local/regional trains where there either aren’t 1st class cars in trains at all or the difference between the classes is very minimal. The longer distance trains like TGVs in France or Frecciarossas/-biancas in Italy then again are very comfortable already in 2nd class, so unless you are really traveling through the whole country on one ride (which I didn’t do) the additional comfort on 1st class might not be worth the price. And besides, you can always upgrade your individual trips on 2nd class InterRail pass to 1st class by paying the difference in price between the classes for that particular trip - handy way of paying for the extra comfort only when you really need it.

There’s one additional benefit for the 1st class ticket that can be really worth the money in busy travel months during summertime: there’s only a limited amount of seats reserved for travelers with InterRail pass on the long-distance trains, so if you’re not making the seat reservations well in advance you might not be able to get on the train you want. But as the 1st class IR passes are not as popular (and 1st class in general), you will have a much better chance of finding a seat on 1st class during those high-season months. But again, this was clearly not an issue during the spring months.

So even though I did enjoy some of the 1st class rides very much with complimentary proseccos, good air-conditioning, wide seats and good views I probably would have enjoyed the trip as a whole equally with the 2nd class InterRail pass too. But that’s just for this particular journey on low-season, where the distances traveled were quite short (max ca. 400km for one ride, max 6-7h on trains in total per day).

Post scriptum 1: Gear Here are some highlights of the gear I...

the-collection — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:02:31 +0200

Post scriptum 1: Gear

Here are some highlights of the gear I used on the trip. The trip would not have been possible, or at least not as enjoyable, without any of these.

Macbook Air 11”

It’s safe to say that this blog would not have happened without this tiny powerhouse of a laptop. I used it in train rides, hotels, cafes and park benches to edit the photos with Lightroom 4 and to type the blog posts. Nor would the actual journey have been possible without the laptop: it was an indispensable tool in planning the next steps of the journey throughout the trip and booking the accommodations, connected to the Internet via hotel WIFIs. And it brightened up a dull hotel room with my favorite music and provided much needed entertainment in the form of the episodes of The New Girl and Game of Thrones when I was down with flu. All this in tiny package that’s light enough to carry around the whole day in a backpack.

I bought the laptop just before the trip with a plan to sell it right after with a small loss (in essence leasing it for a month), but it proved to be so damn nice piece of computing equipment and definitely fast enough for my photo editing needs that it will actually replace my old Macbook Pro as my primary machine at home.

iPhone4 & Navigon app

No app replaces a good, real map for getting an oversight of the city and the neighborhood you’re in. But when you arrive at a train station late at night in a completely unfamiliar enviroment and need to get to the hotel you booked on the previous night, iPhone with a decent navigator app like Navigon comes really, really handy. I bought the Navigon app a year ago primarily for holiday use car navigator in foreign countries, but the app functions well enough as a pedestrian navigator as well. I was able to get myself a walking route from train stations to hotels without much of a hassle (I had booked 90% hotels in 10-20min walking distance from train stations).

And best of all, as the map data is pre-downloaded in the app, there’s no need for expensive data roaming when using the app (getting the location via GPS-signal can take a while though without the assistance from data network).

Olympus EP-1

On way too many previous trips I lugged around heavy & big Canon 5D setup, that could easily weigh nearly 2kg - and that’s even with a limited travel setup. Carrying something like that on top of everything else with you on a holiday started to take the fun out of vacationing. So when Olympus EP-1 came out late 2009, I was eager to jump on board the micro4/3-train: finally a camera that didn’t compromise the image quality too much on the expense of small size, but still offering clearly lighter & smaller package (clearly less than 1kg even with multiple optics). The perfect travel setup.

And indeed it proved to be, I’ve rarely touched the 5D ever since Sept 2009 I got the EP-1. So that’s the body I used in all the photos on this blog too, using various optics from standard zoom to tiny primes and old manual focus lenses with tilt-adapters. It’s not without faults (what camera is?), e.g. the really slow autofocus can sometimes make you miss a shot, the screen is really hard to see in bright sunlight, the dynamic range could be better just as the high-ISO noise. All those aspects have improved greatly on the new Olympus OM-D I’ve preordered but that didn’t yet make it to the trip. Somehow knowing that I’d soon be using something much better made the limitations of E-P1 seem much more annoying this time around than on previous trips. ;)

Swiss army pocket knife

Peeling a juicy orange, slicing some delicious country cheese, cutting a piece from a fresh baquette, opening a local wine bottle, clipping a split finger nail, opening an iPhone cable package. None of those things would have been possible without this stainless steel multi-tool.

Rimowa Salsa 4-wheel luggage

No, you don’t have to do the Interrail backpacking your way through hostels! You can also choose to travel like an adult, with some style & dignity. ;) But as there was going to be more time spent on city streets with the luggage than on a normal air-travel oriented trip, I wanted something light and easily movable. So I got myself a polycarbonote 4-wheel luggage from Rimowa. It’s waaaay lighter than my old luggage of similar size made of standard, heavy-duty plastic. And the 4 wheels actually make a surprisingly big difference compared to the more usual 2-wheel trolley: on a good surface (think smoother type of pavement, larger stone slabs, metal) you can tug the luggage almost effortlessly by your side, instead of dragging it behind you like you would with a 2-wheeler. And if the surface is rougher, like cobblestone or uneven pavement, you can always tilt it to trolley-position to get it moving.

I was slightly worried about the durability of the zippers and the bendiness of the casing, but everything proved out to be made to match the price & image of German engineering.

This one is for sale now that the trip is over, since I have no continuous use for this kind of special luggage. So if you’re in Helsinki area and want a light, high-quality luggage that’s already been tested on the road for you, get in touch.

That could have easily been the slogan for this trip. (This is...

the-collection — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:13:07 +0200

That could have easily been the slogan for this trip.

(This is not my photo, but a reblog of something I stumbled upon here on Tumblr.)

Especially the emphasized part of the Holstee Manifesto seems to...

the-collection — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:01:55 +0200

Especially the emphasized part of the Holstee Manifesto seems to match the journey perfectly…

Go read the whole manifesto if you don’t know it already by heart! There’s also a great video made of it.

32 days, 28 cities (with couple of villages thrown in too), 4...

the-collection — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 14:49:00 +0200

32 days, 28 cities (with couple of villages thrown in too), 4 countries, 20 hotels, 1 hostel, 50 train rides (at least, lost the exact count long time ago), 1 lost favorite pen, 1 lost hat, 1 lost iPhone cable, 1 flu, 1 visit to dentist, 3458 photos, 63 blog posts, 407 published photos in the blog, 2 flights, 8 bus rides, 3 tram rides, 2 taxi rides, 2 cable car rides, 4500 km in train (very rough estimate).

Europa – merci beaucoup, danke schön, hvala lijepa, grazie mille!!

(The blog will continue to live for a while, I will be doing couple of post scriptums still…)

Home, Helsinki. ??? €

the-collection — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 14:00:00 +0200

Home, Helsinki. ??? €

Grande finale @ Roma A month long trip is coming to an end. And...

the-collection — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:00:00 +0200

Grande finale @ Roma

A month long trip is coming to an end. And no better place to celebrate the finale of the journey than Rome, where great food and wine are plentiful. I had a healthy overdose of truly excellent red wine, cheeses, pasta, meatballs, grappa and ice-cream on the last two days here. The photos here are a more or less random sampling of the snaps taken during those days, wasn’t anymore focusing effort or energy into photography at this point…

Modern art at Rome: MAXXI & MACRO It’s nice to have...

the-collection — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:00:00 +0200

Modern art at Rome: MAXXI & MACRO

It’s nice to have stayed long enough in Rome altogether to be able to take some time off from checking out the most important historical landmarks, and focusing for more contemporary offerings of the city for a while. It’s crazy how many big & important exhibitions there are in Rome at the same time, rivaling the cultural metropoles like Paris and New York easily. Helsinki would be considered lucky to be able to host just one of those exhibitions per year. Right now there would have been displays of American modernism from Guggenheim collections, Miro, Dali, Russian avant-garde, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Steve McCurry - just to mention the biggest names.

We checked the two new museums for modern & contemporary art in Rome: MAXXI and MACRO. Both are interesting not only for the exhibitions but also for their architecture. MAXXI is at least architecturally better known of the two, being designed by the superstar Zaha Hadid. On the outside it doesn’t look too special, but the insides are very interesting and also highly functional - there’s a good flow inside the building leading from one exhibition hall to another. Content-wise there’s an interesting mixture of architecture, installations, paintings, video works and photos in display at MAXXI. Also there are preparations on the way for the setting up the installation from recycled clothes by the Finnish artist Kaarina Kaikkonen, whose exhibition we miss by just two days.

MACRO is quite a bit more confusing as an exhibition space than Zaha Hadid’s building, but at least as interesting visually with bold shapes and colors. We actually came here for Steve McCurry’s photo exhibition, only to learn that it was at the other MARCO location (yes, apparently there are two…). But the works in display were worth the walk anyway: interesting samplings from the permanent collection and massive video/installation works in one of the largest exhibition halls I’ve ever seen.

All and all glad to see that the contemporary culture in Rome is alive and well to say the least, on top of the couple of millennia of history….

Hotel Leon’s Place, Rome. 180€ (for 2 persons)

the-collection — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0200

Hotel Leon’s Place, Rome. 180€ (for 2 persons)

Siena Even at this point of the journey, having seen so many...

the-collection — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:00:00 +0200

Siena

Even at this point of the journey, having seen so many beautiful, gorgeous, bold cities and locations for weeks on end, Siena still manages to impress. I’ve been here once before, on a quick day trip 6-7 years ago and the city left a lasting impression already then. Now there’s much more time to walk around on the winding, narrow streets and admire the red brick buildings - we’re here for 2 days. It’s blisteringly chilly and rainy when we get in on Sunday - haven’t been this cold on this trip, not even in the Alps. But there’s a certain extra charm to the place on a misty, cold early evening. On daytime Siena is filled with tourists already at this time of the year, the main streets between Piazza del Campo and Duomo are as busy as the main sights in Rome or Florence. But most of the tourists are here on day trips, so the place gets much quieter in the evening. And it never takes more than a turn or two of the street to get to a spot of the city which is void of other people (or at least other tourists).

The next day is sunny but still cold, especially if you step out of the sun to a shadow for just a minute or two. Now the most famous spot of Siena, Piazza del Campo, is filled with people enjoying sunshine with food & drinks. Campo is quite unique in construction: a semi-circle constructed of 9 sloping sectors all joining each other on the lowest point of the piazza, surrounded by cafes, restaurants and bars on the arc of the circle and the magnificent red brick palazzo on the other side. All the buildings on the arc are somewhat curved, and some even employ a forced perspective that creates an fascinatingly odd feel to the place.

Talking about perspective: many of the photos from Siena are taken with my latest photographic toy - a tilt-adapter for connecting old Olympus film-SLR OM-optics for micro43-body (Olympus E-P1 in my case). The tilting of the lens allows for the plane of focus to be moved (almost) freely in space in all directions - which in turn can be used for creatively blurring or focusing specific parts of the image. This was the first time I shot with this combo, and even though it clearly takes some time to get used to and can be quite hard to do handheld, I really like some of the shots I got with it. Seemed to suit the a bit mysterious, fascinating mood of Siena really well.

Hotel Minerva, Siena. 112€ (for 2 persons)

the-collection — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 10:00:00 +0200

Hotel Minerva, Siena. 112€ (for 2 persons)

Rome Saturday-night in Rome, Easter-weekend. Love the...

the-collection — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 23:59:00 +0200

Rome

Saturday-night in Rome, Easter-weekend. Love the fellinesque vibrancy of streets filled with shiny, happy people. First a great dinner in Trastevere with Nina, then walking back to the hotel - drunk on good food, wine, company and the city. And then there’s this impromptu jazz show on a bridge connecting Trastevere to the center. Great jamming in the night, on the river, admired by people passing by and stopping to listen to the rhythms filling the Easter weekend night in the eternal city. ♥ Roma!

The Bailey’s Hotel, Roma. 140€ (for 2 persons)

the-collection — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 17:00:00 +0200

The Bailey’s Hotel, Roma. 140€ (for 2 persons)

Bologna I arrive at Bologona on a Friday night with full moon,...

the-collection — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 14:00:00 +0200

Bologna

I arrive at Bologona on a Friday night with full moon, and it seems that the whole town has gone a bit crazy. Or maybe it’s just the contradiction with the many previous quiet cities, but at least it seems that everybody in town who is under 30 is out tonight - either in bars or restaurants, hanging outside them or going to or from one. And being a city with a big university, that means a lot of people. It feels very energetic and lively, there’s something about the vibe of the city that reminds of more modern urban artistic cities like Berlin, but the setting for the vibes in Bologna is one of the most gorgeous old towns in Italy. The center is mostly built with red brick, so that gives a certain tint and hue to the scene. And another unique characteristic of the city are the wide loggias, the arcades that make up for the sidewalks in almost all of the city streets. The loggias vary from simplistic to fresco-decorated beauties that rival many churches in details. Many of the loggias are wide enough to accommodate cafes and restaurants, and still let the flow of the people pass by easily.

There would be plenty to explore in Bologna - on top of the historical sights which there are a lot, there’s also e.g. a museum for modern art, MAMbo. On the first night I only have time & energy for a quick tagliatelle bolognese (pretty effin far from what passes as pasta bolognese outside Italy), and in the morning it’s time for a stroll around the city without any plans or map. That leads me e.g. to a really nice flea market where I have a chance to do some shopping for souvenirs. Had I more flexible schedule at this point of the journey, I would have stayed in Bologna for at least one more night. But I have a date in Roma with Nina, who’s flown in to join me for the remaining part of the trip - a long weekend in Rome & Siena. Before I leave, I still have time for a quick ice-cream and espresso at Café Saverio: the combination of pistachio and fig is heavenly, one of the best ice-creams I’ve ever head. But then again, I shouldn’t have expected anything less from a city that’s been (self)-proclaimed as the food capital of Italy. And in Italy, that’s quite a bold claim.

The train ride to Rome is again on a fast Frecciarossa train, where the kilometers between Bologna and Rome fly by quickly. There’s even a free (or 0,01€ to be exact) wifi on the train, that actually works really well and fast. So again a good chance to keep the blog updated, while sipping the complimentary prosecco. This is also the final day of validity for my Interrail ticket, and the final trip with the ticket. There’s still couple of train rides coming up, but those will be covered with cold cash instead.

Hotel Paradise, Bologna. 50€

the-collection — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 09:00:00 +0200

Hotel Paradise, Bologna. 50€

Trieste - Venezia Mestre - Bologna Finally got a true taste of...

the-collection — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:00:00 +0200

Trieste - Venezia Mestre - Bologna

Finally got a true taste of first class travel! My Interrail ticket is for 1st class, but I’ve often travelled on regional trains where there hasn’t been that much difference between 2nd and 1st class (if there even has been 1st class cars on the train), and those stretches that I’ve been on 1st class high speed trains have usually been so short it really hasn’t mattered that much if the seat is a bit wider or not.

But this time the additional luxury on Trieste - Venezia Mestre came much appreciated: the same trip for the other direction was one of the most strenuous ones of this journey. It was absolutely fully packed commuter train that was unbearably hot even though outside temperature was rather chilly. I only found a pull-down seat in the train car lobby, where I was pushed and shoved in stations when the commuters got in and out of the train. And on one station some guy tried to walk away with my luggage, but luckily some shouting and cursing fixed that pronto.

So, it was great that the same journey the other way around was a total opposite: almost empty and well air-conditioned train car, comfortable seat, electricity for the laptop and even complimentary prosecco together with some snacks!

So wouldn’t have minded staying on that train for even longer, but the first leg to Venezia Mestre wasn’t much longer than an hour. In Mestre there was an hours worth of wait for the Bologna train, but the bar in the station is really crappy. I had already found a much better alternative for passing the time on previous occasion: just across the street from the station is a bar called Soul Kitchen, with nice, modern ambience, friendly service, great wines & free wifi. It is so nice of a place, I even bothered to make a tip on Foursquare! ;) So I ordered a glass of Valpolicella and made the latest updates to the blog. The wine and ambience were so relaxing that I almost forgot the passing of the time. 9 minutes before the train to Bologna was supposed to leave, I realized I was in a hurry. Quick payment at the counter, rushing across the street and hurrying through the underpass to the platform I in the end did make the train on time.

The Venezia - Rome evening train I hopped on was real tourist line: the 1st class car was filled with chatter in American English. Apparently the Americans had been very thirsty for prosecco as the staff was already out of it when they got to my seat ;) Not much sceneries to look at after dark usually, but now there was an absolutely gorgeous full moon hanging low tinted in red.

Opatija Step into the bus terminal in Trieste for buses heading...

the-collection — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:00:00 +0200

Opatija

Step into the bus terminal in Trieste for buses heading to Croatia, and you are instantly transferred from Italy to somewhere deep in Eastern-Europe. From the outside the terminal looks really shady, almost as if it’s a make-shift solution not intended to be in use for more than a week. There’s no clear signage anywhere and no apparent entrance. Once you do find the way in via back yard, you are greeted with a very dimly lit hallway that’s lined with tiny kiosks selling an odd combination of weird looking underwear (no, not the good kind of weird), tobacco and magazines in various Eastern-European languages. One of the kiosks is apparently the ticket office, where the grumpiness of the service fits the overall mood of the place perfectly. The waiting area is filled with matushkas with too many plastic bags as luggage, stunningly beautiful girls in very short skirts and shady looking middle-aged men in gym suits. The buses leave from a garage, where there’s even less light than in the hallway and the driver response to my question “Per Opetija? To Opetija?” with a grunt that I hesitantly take as a yes. Judging from the dialects of the chatter on the bus, a clear majority of the people heading east are from the east. Not many Italians on board, and only one backpacker couple representing tourists in addition to myself.

I hadn’t realized that the road from Trieste to Croatia actually goes through Slovenian territory - Slovenia has a short stretch of Adriatic shore in their control between Italy and Croatia. While there is no border control between Italy and Slovenia, on Slovenian-Croatian border our passports are checked twice, once for each country. The border controls apparently sometimes take much longer, as the bus arrives in Opatija an half an hour early compared to the schedule.

Opatija proves to be much nicer than the whole bus terminal experience might have suggested: a small seaside town, with the shore lined up with hotels, restaurants and cafes. It’s raining lightly when I get in, but it’s still much warmer than in Trieste during the day. I decide to skip dinner and instead make it an early night, just watching an episode of Game of Thrones on the laptop (S01E09 - holy hell how damn great that was!).

During the night it rains heavily and I’m starting to worry if there’s anything to do in the town if the rain continues for the following day. But luckily the morning comes with sunshine so I’m off to walk the shore boulevard. Opatija provides just the relaxation I needed - I spend the day strolling on the boulevard, stopping by once and a while for a drink on a beach bar playing magnificently calming chill-out tunes and to have a light lunch. The city provides a free wifi in the park and port, and as the hotel wifi was down the whole time, that comes very much in need as I haven’t yet booked a hotel for the following night. What a better place to update the blog and make hotel reservations than in a harbor overlooking the Adriatic shore glittering in the sunlight. When ever the sun comes fully out from the clouds it gets really warm really fast - and once the clouds take over, it’s back to the overcoat again. That’s spring.

I’ve for long wanted to take a vacation on the Croatian coast, and the quick visit to Opatija makes the urge even stronger. Even now in spring the water looks so inviting - haven’t seen so clear waters other than perhaps in some Greek islands!

Hotel Kvarner, Opatija. 39€

the-collection — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:00:00 +0200

Hotel Kvarner, Opatija. 39€

Trieste I seem to have forgotten to take the sun with me from...

the-collection — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:00:00 +0200

Trieste

I seem to have forgotten to take the sun with me from Switzerland… The weather’s been cloudy, rainy and relatively chilly ever since I got back to Italy. And that takes away some of the joy from enjoying the new locations. Trieste seems rather charming still, the overall look & feel being very central-European with neoclassical buildings and cafes - thanks to the long history with the Hapsburgian empire, to which Trieste was the only harbor. Closeness of the sea is still present in the restaurant menus if nothing else: lots of excellent fish dishes!

Either I’m on the verge of getting a second round of flu or my allergies have gotten really bad. Either or, walking up the hill with a heavy backpack to have a look at the city from a higher altitude proved to be a surprisingly strenuous task. So once I got down from there I settled with just sitting at various cafes enjoying either cappuccinos or glasses of wine and catching up on writing the travel journal. But then again, the whole point of heading this way instead of buzzing Napoli was to chill so why not go all the way with the plan…. Besides, I was behind multiple days on the travelogue - and it’s good to write the diary while the memories are still fresh.