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Azerbaijan, Baku – Mad Max in the shade of glass houses
Azerbaijan has always been the most mysterious country of the Southern Caucasus for me. While Armenia and Georgia seemed culturally close, in the case of Azerbaijan, even the name of its capital – Baku, sounded orientally. In fact, the Caspian Sea, actually the world’s largest lake, was an important communication route between the East and the West over the centuries ago. Actually, I hadn’t known what to expect from Azerbaijan. This country had seemed to me isolated from the rest of the world and expensive. However, Baku turned out to be a very cosmpolitan and cheap city. Apparently, my notion was caused by the high cost of obtaining a visa…
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Ohrid Lake – weekend break in Macedonia!
Macedonia isn’t a popular holiday destination. It’s located much farther than for example Croatia and in addition, furthermore it has no access to the sea. However, this small country has a lot to offer and prices here are really low in comparison to other holiday directions. In Macedonia there are over 50 lakes surrounded by high mountain peaks, which can reach even 2000 meters. Macedonia is recognised as one of the highest countries in Europe, right after Switzerland and Austria. What’s more, this country has a huge number of monuments, temples and old monastries. All of this in the area less than 26 000 square kilometeres. In a word, the perfect…
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Girl on a Trail – Kosovo
In the very centre of Kosovo, there’s a huge statue – inscription NEWBORN. Born in February 2008 the Republic of Kosovo has not yet been officially recognised by many countries. The recognition of the Republic, was refused mainy by the countries which have internal problems with separatist regions like: Russia, Spain or Georgia. It has been almost 20 years since the end of the war with Serbia. Kosovo is still under international control and it’s the territory shared between Serbian and Kosovan Albanians. At Present, 90% of the population is of Albanian nationality, while Serbs represent only less than 10 % of the whole population. However, for centuries, the proportions…
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Kosovo – Mitrvica and Prizren
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Georgia – Gori, a short visit to Stalin’s hometown
The first time I heard about Gori, it was in History class a long, long… time ago, I didn’t even think I would ever be in Stalin’s hometown. Some time ago, the world remembered about Gori again. In August 2008, news and headlines were dominated by images of the city seized by Russians. During the short war between Georgia and Russia over two regions: Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Gori, which almost borders with South Ossetia, has become the main point of military actions. Initially, it was bombarded by Russian forces, resulting in the death of many civilians and then from 13th to 22nd of August fell under Russian occupation. Being…
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Bosnia and Herzegovina – Mostar, the city of hatred?
It’s 11.00 am, delighted with views on the way from Sarajevo, I look forward to getting out of the bus and seeing marvelous Mostar. The door of the bus opens and I feel like I’m going straight to hell. The temperature is 35 Celsius degrees, and it’s not a noon yet. I take my backpack and I move towards the hostel, expecting to see this picturesque city with a famous bridge. But what I see along the way in no way doesn’t look like images from a catalogue which I’d seen before. In addition to the beautiful panorama of the city from the Musal bridge, you can see the ruins…
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Girl on a Trail – one-day trip to Verona
I guess everyone knows that feeling when you want to go somewhere for a while, but you don’t want to spend a lot of money and take day off from work. In such a situation, you can go somewhere in your beautiful country or just take a plane and within 4 hours’ time you can sit in a cafe sipping aromatic Italian cappuccino in Piazza Bra in Verona 😉 A little organisation… How to go to Verona for just one day, saving on accommodation? On the way from Warsaw to Bergamo I used Wizzair which flies very early in the morning (plane lands in Bergamo at 8.30 am). On the…
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Georgia – Kutaisi
Kutaisi is getting more and more popular destinantion among travelers and backpackers, due to cheap flight connections and relatively low prices. Kutaisi is the second largest city in Georgia and in my opinion, like whole this country is full of contradictions. Special attention deserves Gerogian architecture. I won’t hide that I’m as green as grass in this topic, but I have to admit that Georgian fantasy in this subject was a great surprise to me. In 2012 President Saakashvili decided to transferred here the Georgian Parliament, which previously had been located in Tbilisi. It wouldn’t be surprising but for the fact that Parliament’s building is located on the outskirts of…
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Girl on a Trail – meet Lisboners!
After returning from Portugal, without hesitation I knew what would be the subject of the first post about this place. This time I won’t focus on the wonderful Lisbon’s architecture, beautiful viewpoints, yellow trams or sentimental rhythms of the Fado heared during the walk in Alfama. Of course, all these elements form the unique climate of the capital of Portugal, but mainly the people of this city will remain in my memory. In fact, they create this city and its specific atmosphere, without them Lisbon certainly wouldn’t be such a cheerful place. What are the people of Portugal like? It might seem that Portuguese, like Italians or the Spanish, have…
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Spain – the Basque Country
The Basque Country connotes with the separatist aspirations and ETA activity. As a matter of fact, ETA announced a definite ceasefire in 2011 but only recently, because in 2017, they surrendered an armed arsenal which was in their possession. In the memory of many people, there are still “spectacular” ETA actions, like the bombing of a car with Spanish Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco inside. The power of the explosion was so strong that the Prime Minister’s car flew over the roof of the nearby building and landed on the other side of it. Another terrorist attacks were in 2002 in Seville during the EU summit and in 2006 on…
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Spain – fall in love with Santander!
