Adventure of the month

In my last post, I started listing all the things I loved about the six days I spent in the Bilbao region. At some point, it hit me that I had way too many photos for one post and didn't want to be responsible for anyone spraining a scrolling finger. With that in mind, let's continue with this Bilbao lovefest. 6. San Sebastian Beach resort, Belle Epoque architecture, the world's greatest number of Michelin star restaurants per capita and a viewpoint with bumper cars-this town has a lot to offer. It would be easy to spend a couple of days here. Since we were here on a day tour, we had a grand total of 2 hours. This gave us just enough time to glimpse some of the highlights. The Maria Cristina Bridge The San Sebastian Cathedral De Okendo Plaza, a monument to a Spanish admiral Constitution Square, formerly a bull ring now the city's main plaza Viewpoint from the Igueldo Amusement Park With more time, I would have happily done the Michelin thing, gone for a swim and gotten ...

The more you see, the more you realize there is to see. I don't know if that is an actual quote or a if it's saying that I saw somewhere and butchered for my own purposes. Either way, I use it a lot. Whenever someone introduces me and says something along the lines of "This is Berti. She's loves to travel and she's been everywhere", I'm quick to jump in and point out how much I haven't seen. I'll protest that "You know the saying, the more you see..." as the person wonders if I understand how small talk works and why I need to be so damn literal. However, there is some truth to it. Obviously, no one- no matter how well-traveled- has been everywhere. Nor should they. There are some boring ass places in this world. But there are also so so many amazing places. You would think that with the glut of travel shows, instagram influencers and  annoying bloggers, we would know about all of these places, whether we'd been or not. Case i...

Friend: Hey, if you are interested, you can fly for free to Me: Awesome! Yes, I'll take it. Friend: Great, it'll be on flights to Me: When does it leave? I can get my bag right now.  Friend: Don't you want to know where it goes? Me: Does it matter? The answer is always going to be yes. But sure, where am I going? Malaga. Through an arrangement with a Dutch low-cost carrier, my colleagues and I could go to Malaga for free. I had already been , some eleven years ago. Twice. The first time I stayed in the port city itself and the second, I used it as a jumping off point for Sevilla and Granada. Both times, I fell madly deeply in love with Andalusia, the southern region of Spain.

Can't decide between a weekend getaway to Greece or Turkey? Want to do both but are limited on time? I've got the place for you: Cyprus. The southern half is culturally Greek, although not a part of Greece itself. The northern part is under Turkish control and is sometimes referred to as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. It is essentially two countries for the price of one. In the span of one city block, you can go from a borek to a gyro, from Euro to Turkish Lira, from Efes to Mythos. Just don't think that this is a harmonious relationship. Far from it. There are a lot of geopolitical sticking points with the arrangement, none of which I am well-versed enough to discuss. I can only speak to the practical issues. For one, my Cypriot map- the nice official one that I had picked up at the tourist office in Larnaca- effectively ends when you reach Nicosia. Anything north of the dividing line could just as well be the Mediterranean Sea. There are no cities marked, ...

Four years ago, I was in Vilnius, Lithuania trying to plan out my day. Among the tours on offer was one to neighboring Belarus. In less than an hour, I could happily add a new country to my list. The problem- I had not realized this far enough in advance and did not have either the necessary visa or the time to get it. No Belarus for me. Fast forward to 2019, the visa requirement has been lifted and conveniently, there is now a direct flight from Amsterdam to Minsk. I visited in August, when the weather was perfect and was admiring the blue skies while trying to talk to the cab driver who picked me up at the airport. With no common language between us, I was working off of google translate. As I did this, he kept saying "Russian". It was obvious I am not Russian, so that's probably not what he was trying to ask but I had no clue what he was getting at. I just smiled and kept typing away. When I handed him my phone, he went straight to the language selection mode a...

October was coming to an end and with it, so was my four month workation in Rotterdam. With just one break and diminishing funds remaining, I left the final destination up to chance. Whatever flight was cheapest on my days off, that's where I was going. A couple of searches via cheapoair, skyscanner, momondo and finally Kayak later, fate determined that I was going to Bergerac, France. With that decided, I had a new, more pressing question. What was I going to do in Bergerac for five days? The town is best known for two things: wine and a large-schnozzed romantic. I like wine. I vaguely remember Steve Martin playing this guy, Cyrano de Bergerac in a movie a million years but nothing about this combo sounded interesting enough for five days.  I expanded my search a bit and saw that Bordeaux was less than a two hour train ride away. C'est le done. This was going to be a wing it (and wine it) kinda trip.

1. The architecture. A beguiling mix of Moorish and Gothic, it gives the city a wonderfully mysterious air and encourages the visitor to walk around taking it all in even if the temperature is slightly less than that of the sun. Without question, the most recognizable building is the Seu Cathedral, sitting on the water's edge. Built upon the site of a Moorish mosque, it was first consecrated in 1230 but was not completed until 1601. After an earthquake in 1851 destroyed a portion of the cathedral, Antonin Gaudi was brought in for the redo to work mainly on the interior portion. After a couple of years, he got into a fight with the contractor and did his best 'take this job and shove it'.

Although this summer has been going wonderfully, there is something missing. I may be traveling, meeting some amazing people and finding that the Netherlands has seriously stepped up their vegetarian game.  However, there is also a distinct lack of blue-eyed zombies, dragons and little blond badasses in my life. In other words, I want my Game of Thrones back. Seeing as George R. R. Martin is not taking my calls and I inadvertently cancelled my HBO subscription (but not before the finale of Westworld), this situation called for drastic measures. If the seven kingdoms would not come to me, then clearly I must go to the seven kingdoms.  I've already been to King's Landing (aka Dubrovnik) and Braavos (aka Girona), so maybe it was time to check out the Iron Islands, the wall and pretty much everything else in between. In order to do this, a trip to Belfast was in order.

I know what you are saying, dear fictional nitpicking reader. Is Kosovo actually a country? Like, for real? Well, they did declare their independence on 2/17/08. Out of the 193 UN member states, 111 recognize this declaration. The other 82, namely Russia and China, still see it is as a province of Serbia. The fact of the matter is that while crossing the border from Macedonia, it is a Kosovo stamp that I got in my passport. I did not actually want this stamp, as it may cause problems if I ever want to enter into actual Serbia in the future, but I had taken a crowded jitney-type bus from Skopje and the customs official had us all pass up our passports and off he went. I had no chance to make my "no stamp" plea.  While this stamp business may cause me some headaches in the future, I was glad that the customs process was relatively speedy since it was getting late and I had to be at the National Theater at 11am for a free walking tour of Prishtina . As it was, I kept sending...

Have you ever been so pleasantly surprised by something that it made you angry? Or maybe just slightly annoyed? I know this sounds weird but hear me out. As part of my quest to hit all the countries, I'd booked a flight to Skopje, Macedonia. This in itself was a kind of consolation prize because I actually wanted to go to Ohrid for some sunning and funning. Those flights, in the middle of July were way too expensive so I'd settled on the larger, less water-adjacent city. After checking into the wonderful  Lounge Hostel , I'd realized that I had left my European power-adaptor plugged into the wall of the Belgrade airport and had to rush out to replace it before the stores closed. It's possible that this situation had put me into a disgruntled state of mind. How else explain my reaction when I first saw a massive Alexander the Great presiding over this very imposing square.  As I gaped at all the perfectly restored neo-classical architecture around me, my first thou...