DESTINATIONS

PROLOGUE

>> THE BEGINNING <<

Summer 1978.

Apparently very wet and cold.

I was only two, starting my first, long journey. Direction – Vienna, destination –> Baden, where my grandmother lived back then, one of those few people, who had an impact on what my life is like today. Baden, a town, that became my second home for the next twenty years.

Late seventies, deep communist regime in East Europe, Kraków, train named Chopin or other Sobieski, even my mom does not remember today. Traveling in those days was not an easy feat. At a times, when passports were checked at European borders ( true story!), customs officers used to checked invitations and other documents, and a the same time they seemed to have strange pleasure of rummaging in someone’s luggage…

Not an easy feat, travelling with such a small toddler… with no smartphones, no tablets, no YouTube… With sandwiches and thermoses ( God! Those sandwiches for travel! How they tested !!! 😛 ), in the sleeping carriages, very often among the crowd, for long hours…

But you know what?… Although I don’t remember that first trip, I do remember many later ones…By trains, by cars, by buses and eventually by planes…

Because this is how it started… I caught the „bug” 😀 For many years without even knowing it yet…

Unfortunately, everyday life for many years limited my possibilities, and routine must still prevail over travel plans or priorities … You have to work. Somewhere. Somehow.

But … my way of thinking and coordinating the trip’s plans, has gone through a significant evolution … So …

Here I am 😀

The idea of ​​a blog about traveling has been in my mind for several years. Mainly since I returned after a long, almost ten years break, to explore the world „my way”. Initially, many factors discouraged me: there are a million things like that online… Who actually reads this at all? … Do I really need it?

Until the day came, when I thought : if nobody will read it… so what? I like to write, I like to wander in strange places, and recently I also like to spend my time in the kitchen, preparing something, in my opinion, healthy. So, why should I not do what I like? …

Especially, that maybe some will actually benefit from it?… maybe someone will find some useful information, maybe someone will catch a similar bug? :p

And if nobody really will read, I can always force my family and friends 😀 😀

„Anyway” – how we say in London, guided myself by the motto :

„…The most important thing in my life, is organizing it. Think through what I want, what am I dream about, what do I need – and then finding the way to achieve it”…

I started to write, collected the necessary materials, and tried to get everything together.

You will find, in my loose essays, a lot of practical information on how to organize trips yourself, a lot of photos, some advertisements (please forgive me ! :p )

For the record, I would like to mention, that regular customers of luxury hotels, fans of all inclusive options or supporters of travel agencies are unlikely to find much helpful information here … And this is not showing a lack of understanding or respect for other people’s choices. Quite the opposite. I am well aware, that everyone has different preferences, especially when it comes to vacation trips, because in the end it should be a time of rest. And everyone rests differently.

When it comes to „My Travel Philosophy,” it’s very simple: I organize everything myself. We rarely use hotels, anywhere we stay, most often we use public transport, we try to cook ourselves, and if we go to the restaurants, we choose the most local ones.

Initially, my stories will be a kind of chronological collage, intertwining my first trips from years ago, with more recent ones. Therefore, please take into account, that some facts today may differ slightly from those, that took place some time ago.

The stories will be published initially once a week, and then … who knows … who knows … 😉 Each new „episode” will have its announcement on Facebook and Instagram.

So we’ll start from… the beginning.

From Baden.

From beautiful Austria.

Everyone’s invited.