Monday 15 October 2012

How to escape bad weather?

Many of my faithful readers know I live in Slovenia. When people hear about it for the first time many imagine a cold country somewhere in the the middle of former Soviet Union.



In fact it is a small country in the very middle of Europe. Slovenia is tucked among its larger neighbors: Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia. As with some other things, it also seems like this little diverse county adopted some climate characteristics from every one of those neighboring countries.


No matter how sunny and hot it might get during the summer on that little stretch of Slovenia's Adriatic coast, the hills get freaking cold during the winter months. It is not unusual for temperatures to drop below 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) for a week or two in January or February.


As much as I love skiing and the book&TV series where they keep repeating that "winter is coming", I am not too fond of cold, cold winter. That said it should be obvious I try to escape damp, cold weather every winter for at least a week or so.
This year I am already planing an escape trip to Portugal - more specifically Lisbon.
As we are expecting temperatures around zero Centigrade and below at the end of November in Slovenia, we are looking forward to 15 degrees and hopefully less rain in Lisbon. I hope everything works out.


This time we are going as a group of 7 friends. I wish it would turn out to be very much like two years ago when we visited Berlin. Well, actually I am hoping for a little less snow and a lot more sunshine.


Airplane tickets and hostel rooms are already booked. So far it seems like this is going to be a very affordable trip. Both - low budget airline tickets and 4 days of hostel expenses added up to under 130 EUR per person. A bargain if you ask me!


A friend living in UK also wanted to join us but something else came up - he will be going on a Maldives Holiday instead. He found a really good deal through an online flight search engine. It searches for flights from UK to all parts of the world and includes both budget and conventional airlines - a very useful tool indeed.


Nowadays it is not all that hard to get a good deal for a flight. Since we won't be flying from UK we could not use the handy search tool mentioned above, but in the end we found very affordable EasyJet tickets from Venice to Lisbon.
I am really looking forward to this trip. This year I can hardly wait for the cold to come... Just to get away from it for a while, of course.

6 comments:

irena 15 October 2012 at 13:23  

Hm. Lisbon is of course great city, but escaping winter in Slovenia and changing it for "hot" 15 degrees in Lisbon in November/December ..... I don't think it will work this way. I remember September, October being very nice and worm and "summer" really starts months ahead summer in Slovenia (flip flops in April) buuut winter ..... ;) Very humid, heating in the houses is a luxury good similar to air condition in Slovenia (it is kind of useful, but if really hot summer lasts only for 2 months why bothering.
Anyway, wish you all very nice weather, there are lots of museums anyway and bars in Bairro Alto are also great in November/December ;)

Travel-PB 16 October 2012 at 10:44  

@irena:
Thanks for your input! How are you doing? Any news in the photography field?

I agree 15 degrees is not perfect but I think it is still way better then zero (...or below). We are hoping for a heated hostel and nice weather.

Do you have a favorite museum recommendation? Any other "not-in-the-guidebook" thing to see? What about Sintra (or any other location outside the city)? Worth a day trip or should we spend all four and a half days within the city?

irena 16 October 2012 at 11:21  

Hey, photogrpaphy on stand by ;)

Well, you will tell me what's better 15 degrees (I assume more like 10 though) in Portugal or minus 5 in Slovenia. But weather is not what counts. Portugal is great! Museum phuh of Azulejus... I was not very museum like those days ;) But wrote a friend from cultural antropology, she was an expert ;) Will leave you a note when she replies.

Sintra is colorful, nice trip not too far away. I decide on things to see, when I am there. If a city attracts me I see no reason rushing somewhere just to see something. I reccomend Adamastor (Bica) http://www.geolocation.ws/v/L/4086511959/adamastor-bica/en. Have a coffe there and a toast and enjoy the drums ;). I reccomend Fado in Tasca do Chico (bairro Alto) http://tascadochico.blogspot.com/. I reccomend you to bring me Bacalhau Desfiado that you can buy in any supermarcet :) Also a must is having a dinner with bachalao on a table and a glass of red vine from the area Alentejo.

Else is in the book ;) Torre de Belem,...

Travel-PB 16 October 2012 at 16:11  

Thanks for all the info again! I will do some research on the things you mention - I know only some of them.

Then you can probably expect some further questions. ;)

irena 16 October 2012 at 18:07  

Only if I get Bacalhau Desfiado form Portugal ;)

Travel-PB 16 October 2012 at 22:22  

Well, I can't promise anything but let's hope for the best. ;)

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