WikiTravel - A Travel GuideBook of Tomorrow?

When I was surfing for information about Cinque Terre, I stumbled upon an interesting site. It is a Wiki kind of site and depends solely on user input.

WikiTravel.org is a very useful site for all of you travelers, surfing for up to date info about your next travel destination.
It was inspired by Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and by the needs of travellers for timely information that long book-publishing cycles can't seem to meet.

Feel free to contribute your bit. I have already added a little piece of information to its vast and fast growing database. At the moment they have more then 18.000 destination guides and other articles written and edited by Wikitravellers.

I believe there is a bright future ahead of this project. In a couple of years we can expect various portable devices that enable Web surfing and navigation will become quite widespread. At the same time we can also see all kinds of wireless networks spreading all around us.
Put those things together and you don't have to be a visionary to see which way this is going...

I predict that in about five years time electronic PDA devices will replace classical guidebooks for travelers in the better developed parts of the world. The only limitation I can see is the non-existence of wireless networks in some parts of the world. For those countries a paper travel guidebook will still be the only option for quite some time.

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Cinque Terre it is...

M. and I have finally decided on our next trip destination... It is going to be a trip through Tuscany, Italy.

As I already mentioned in one of the previous posts (link), we have already done most of Tuscany, but have never been to Cinque Terre before. This part of the coast actually falls into the region of Liguria, which lies to the northwest of Tuscany. Cinque Terre in Italian means Five Lands. All five of them are a part of a magnificent natural park, which is also on the UNESCO World Heritage List.


It is going to be a five day trip and hopefully we will also have time to visit Florence (Firenze). We like this city a lot and take every opportunity to visit.

We are planning to stay in our trusty tent in a camping site near the village of Levanto. If some really awful weather forecast doesn't make us change our plans, you can expect another set of gorgeous photos.


Wherever I go, usually I don't buy any souvenirs. I have enough of things full of dust lying around as it is. Nevertheless I make an occasional photo of the more interesting souvenirs. On the couple of photos above you can see two such products made by street artists in Florence.

If you liked this post and are interested in more information on our trip, please click on this link or on the Cinque Terre label in the right frame.

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A Night in Villa Allegra

Last Friday I attended an IT conference in Portoroz, Slovenia. It is called Days of Slovenian Informatics and spans over three days.
Unfortunately I only had time to participate on Friday.

I arrived to Portoroz late on Thursday and joined a conference party, which was sponsored by the company I work for. First we had dinner on a tourist boat and then continued in a nearby cafe. The boat made a slow circle off the Slovenian coast and in the meantime we enjoyed some fish and some surprisingly drinkable wine. It was an all you can eat/drink kind of supper.

I really love fish, so I took advantage of the situation. However, I went easy on the wine. I had to drive a couple of kilometers to a villa, where I arranged a place to stay over the night.

This time I had a whole villa for myself. This sounds very fancy, but in fact it was a free of charge kind of arrangement.
A colleague of mine inherited this villa a couple of years ago. No one has been living there for the last couple of years, because it badly needs renovation but he can't afford it at the moment.


So with a use of my sleeping bag it was a really pleasant place to stay. I woke up to enjoy a cute view of the Portoroz beach from the balcony. The weather wasn't something to write home about, but I enjoyed the view anyway. The location of this old villa really is superb!

It was built in traditional style and therefore it still looks really nice (there is a year 1831 written on a metal plate, fixed to the front of the house). Unfortunately time took its tool and adaptation of this thing would be a real trouble. That is why its owner is thinking of pulling it down and building something else from scratch.

It's a shame really, but I can also understand his point of view. I guess he doesn't want to spend a fortune for adaptation and then live in a damp house for the rest of his life...

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Where to go next?

The first of May is approaching fast. This means a new opportunity for a short vacation.

April 27th, 1st and 2nd of May are all national holidays in Slovenia. That means a couple days off from our everyday jobs. 27th of April falls on a Sunday this year and unfortunately in Slovenia we are not so lucky to get a free day on the next Monday.
However, 1st and 2nd of May fall on Thursday and Friday. Together with the following weekend they add up to four free days in a row.

Like always, I see this as an opportunity for a short trip. Together with M. we were going through our options the other day. Well, here are this year's contestants for our Spring trip...

1. Party trip to Rovinj, Croatia
A group of friends from my college days visit this place by the Adriatic Sea every year. It is a great opportunity for us to get together once in a while and also to see if we can still party as we did in our college days. With that bunch of guys, having a good time is a guarantee!



2. Fishing trip to Pasman, Croatia
Like a couple of times before, another group of friends is going fishing. And with this I mean some hardcore fishing - all through the night, every night. This might seem unpleasant, but actually it is quite relaxing. That is if the weather isn't too cold, too rainy or too windy. The part I like most is the menu - grilled sea bass (locals call it brancin), fresh out of the sea. Everyday!



3. Camping trip to Cinque Terre, Italy
We have been to Tuscany quite a few times so far and we like it very much. One of the places nearby, which are still on our to-visit-list is Cinque Terre (those Five lands are actually in the region of Liguria, just next to Tuscany). Our plan is to find a camping site near by and go there on day hiking trips. The only thing that is a bit tricky is the weather. It can still get a bit too cold for camping in the first days of May. Also in case of bad weather, hiking isn't all that fun.
On the other hand once near Tuscany, I am sure we couldn't get bored despite bad weather. In Florence and Pisa you can always find a hidden place to explore regardless of weather.
A visit of some relatives of mine, living just next to Pisa, is also a must when going there.



4. Trip to London, UK
Since the last time I have been to UK, I have been missing the taste of a proper ale.
I don't consider myself much of a beer enthusiast, but I think a traditional British ale tastes much better compared to ordinary lagers. I will not even begin to count other things London has to offer.
It is the only one of these locations we would have to fly to, but with quite a few low-fare airlines flying there, the trip itself isn't all that expensive.
Unfortunately everything else in London is.



5. Some other option, we haven't thought about just yet
I am pretty sure at least a couple more options will come up before we make the final decision.

Since we have been to all those places before, I have posted a photo of each one of them. I think you'll agree it is not an easy decision to make.

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Time for some Brass Music

Since there is not much happening in the area of travel at this moment, I have decided to post a video of Kar Ces Brass Band. They were playing live at a birthday party I went to a couple of weeks ago.


I have already mentioned this in my previous post.

This is the first time I am posting a video. Quality isn't really something to brag about, but sound is the thing that matters in this one. Apologies to those who were expecting a photo in this photo blog.

Enjoy a special version of a song called Djurdev dan by Goran Bregovic, performed by Kar Ces Brass Band!

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Birthday party in a hunting lodge

Usually I don't write much about different parties but this time I'll make an exception.


Last weekend M. and I were invited to a birthday party. It was a party like any other, with drinking, eating and socializing on the schedule. The only thing that was a bit out of ordinary was the location.


The event happened in a hunting lodge near the town of Cerknica (Slovenia). The building is situated in the middle of a forest, with a forest road leading to it.

It was freezing cold. Fortunately there was lots of chopped firewood waiting to be burned. In spite of the cold we had a great time. I dare to say our present helped at least a bit.

The first part of the present was a bottle of Absinthe Supreme to keep us warm. It is made by a former coworker of mine and also sold on the internet (check out the link).


The second present was a band. A real brass band of eight eager musicians, one of which is my younger brother (he plays the tuba). They are called Kar Češ Brass Band and play all sorts of music. Mostly they are inspired by Balkan and New Orleans street jazz rhythms. They rocked the place!

You can see them in action on the three photos above. I might even post a movie of them playing at this party in one of the following posts.

Well, actually I don't know about that. After all, this is a photo blog...
What do you think?

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Ski performance - Civetta 2008

Every time I went skiing to Dolomites I have posted my ski performance stats from the official Dolomiti Superski site.

I can't see why should it be any different this time.


However there is one inaccuracy in that summary. Something is missing in the "Present season until yesterday" item. It's the 145 kilometers of slopes we did in December in Trevalli that's missing. You can check out that report here.

On the list of slopes we did this year there is also Gran Risa. This is the place of Alta Badia FIS Alpine Ski World Cup giant slalom race.


5+1 ski ticket allows you to go anywhere you want inside the wast Dolomiti Superski area for a day. This year we visited La Villa for the first time.

I must say Gran Risa slope is really something. It is quite steep but you can find many steeper slopes in the neighborhood. The combination of the steepness and length of this slope is what's really impressive. It just goes on and on...
If you do it in one piece and relatively fast I am sure you too will feel the pressure in your eardrums building up and your thighs should be burning quite nicely when you reach the end (that's if you're not the Terminator). Apart from that a sweaty drop or two should also come dripping from under your helmet.

It is something you should definitely try. Only then you can start to understand what those World Cup participants are doing on daily basis.

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Elan S10

For as long as I can remember I have been using Elan skis. I guess it's because Elan is a Slovenian trademark and they are also making really good skis.
They are working on innovations all the time for others to copy afterwards. They say Elan was the first company to introduce carve approach. Now everybody is doing it.


Skis of my choice for the last couple of seasons have been Elan S10 Fusion.
Even though it wasn't cheap I am very satisfied with the purchase. With them I can easily enjoy throughout a whole day of skiing without getting my legs too tired.

Despite of that I think next time I'll choose just a bit stiffer model. Stiffer skis make you work harder but at the same time offer better grip on hard and icy surfaces.

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Mount Pelmo and Mount Civetta

Civetta ski area amongst other things also offers great views of the Dolomites. This is one of the things why I always like to go back to this place.


One of the best views of Mount Pelmo is from Civetta ski area. Because of its height (3168 m) and shape, it can be easily spotted even from a large distance.

We like the area so much that M. and I are planning a visit to the Dolomites also during the summer months. We are hoping to do some hiking and climbing.


I hope you like this couple of nice views captured by my camera. The first one features Mount Pelmo and the second one a windy peak of Mount Civetta (3219 m) - photo was taken from a chairlift.

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Dolomites still looking good

We are back from skiing in Civetta and as expected we had a great time. There is a lot of snow in Italian Dolomites at this moment and the weather was simply gorgeous. Throughout the last week we hardly saw any clouds and even those few didn't come rolling across the sky until the time we were leaving.

I even came across a discussion the other day where people were talking about the best week for skiing in Dolomites area this season. Mostly they agreed last week was the best so far. I really couldn't argue that. Lucky me, I guess.


It was blue sky and sunshine all over and I have the tan to prove it! Mornings were a bit cold - especially on high altitudes, but through the day it got quite warm. We saw people sunbathing next to almost every mountain cottage.

We of course didn't use much of our time for that. Mostly our first priority was skiing but nevertheless we could not entirely ignore a wide selection of home-made products offered by local innkeepers. We especially liked a wide selection of homemade spirits (or grappa as Italians call them). It was almost impossible to find a kind of herb or fruit, that wasn't dipped into a strong local schnapps and offered to customers.

Those with a local sort of apples were my favorite. The little apples were barely cherry size, yet very delicious. If you take into consideration where those apples grow, I guess you shouldn't be at all surprised with their size. After all we are talking about altitudes between 1.000 and 2.000 meters above sea level.

Before I could afford to fully experience those tasty liquors I had a choice to make. I was on an antibiotic prescription at the time and as you should know - alcohol and antibiotics don't mix well. It was already my fifth week on those drugs and I had another week ahead of me.
I did a little research and decided that five weeks and a few days will just have to do.


You can see my unfortunate dilemma on the last photo above.

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Skiing in Civetta

It's time to go skiing again. For the last couple of years we have been going to Dolomites this time of year. Civetta is the destination of our choice. We obviously like it a lot (otherwise we wouldn't be going there year after year) and we can hardly wait to hit the road tommorrow after lunch.

I hope we'll have nice weather and as many nice photo opportunities as possible.

If you want, you can check some photos from last year. You can find them on these links: link1, link2 and link3.


I also published a skiing checklist last year and used it earlier today. I have to say it still works fine.

Enjoy next week as much as possible. I know I will.

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Traditional Venetian masks

Venetian masks come in many variations, shapes and colors. A visitor to Venice can buy one from a bunch of shops and stalls.



For someone who is not an expert, it is quite difficult to distinguish good, quality ones from many cheap reproductions. Masks are made from different materials and by using various techniques. Some (the expensive ones obviously) are hand-crafted using a traditional papier mache technique and traditionally decorated. Most of others are made out of gypsum base, which is then painted and decorated.



Some come with a certificate of authenticity and others don't. If you care about those things, be careful where you buy.

On the other hand if you are only interested in what a mask looks like, you will be able to get one for a much more reasonable price. If you just want to hang it on a wall and do not intend to actually wear it, I guess all those things I mentioned above don't really matter.



I leave the decision which kind (if any) to buy totally in your hands.

On the photos you can see the details of some of the most popular Venetian mask designs. Pretty neat, aren't they?

If you liked this post you should probably click on the Venice link under labels to check out more of the similar content.

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Venetian costumes

Locals like to show off in their carefully made, rich costumes. They are not the only ones. In fact when in Venice you can rent a costume yourself!
They say Venice looks even better from inside of a costume.

There are many shops and ateliers where you can get your dream costume.
You can take a look at one of them on this link.

Some of the costumes are really nice replicas of old clothes. There are replicas available even from 1600.

It is not cheap, but I guess it's one of those things one would do once in a lifetime, so I guess price should not be such an issue.

I didn't buy nor rent a costume, but as you can see, I took some nice photos of the ones in action this year.

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Lamp post detail from Venice

A few posts back I mentioned how difficult it is to take a bad photo in Venice. Here is a proof of that.

Even a detail of a lamp post on St Mark's Square can make a nice motive.

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Photo trip to Venice

When we decided to visit Venice during the Carneval (Italians call it Carnevale di Venezia) there was six of us. However one of our companions had to cancel at the last minute.

We all agreed to make a photo trip out of it, so we scheduled an early start on Saturday morning. After some delay (one of the participants overslept), we were on the highway heading for Venice. It was a three hour ride from Ljubljana, Slovenia to Venice, Italy. You can check a suggested itinerary here (provided by ViaMichelin).



When we parked our cars on the island of Tronchetto it was already past 11 AM (we were well behind our schedule). From there we caught a Vaporetto (a water bus) to St. Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco). This is the famous square just across the island of Murano.



There were quite a few locals in costumes showing off. Many tourists and also many professional photographers (judging by their equipment) gladly took the chance. We also joined in and got trigger happy.

We spent quite some time on the square, before venturing into the maze of narrow streets and stinky canals.



We continued wandering the streets until a way too early sunset. After sunset we soon headed back to our parking area. We went on foot and took a chance to see a bit less glamorous side of the city. Piles of garbage by the road were just one of the highlights of our walk.

I personally think Venice is overrated as a tourist location. It is expensive and overrun by tourists all year round. Nonetheless I wouldn't dare to argue about its picturesqueness. It is almost impossible to take a bad photo while there.

I hope you enjoy my selection.



This trip was an excellent idea. And it was relatively cheap too. For two persons it costed under 80 EUR in total. If all five of us went by one car, it would be even cheaper.
If I break it down to separate items it looks like this:

road tools ......... 10 EUR
parking ............ 20 EUR
gasoline ........... 25 EUR
vaporetto ......... 12 EUR
pizza & drinks .... 10 EUR
----------------------------
2 persons total ... 77 EUR

I guess it is necessary to point out that we successfully resisted the temptation to buy any souvenirs or enjoy a coffee on the main square.
This stuff can get really expensive. For instance if you sit at a table closer to a canal, they usually charge you more for whatever you order!

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Venice Carnival 2008

Carnival of Venice or Carnevale di Venezia - as Italians call it, is the place to be these days. This year I went there too!

A couple of days ago me and M. were going through our options on how to spend this last Saturday. One of our options was skiing. We were invited to join a group of friends on a skiing day-trip to Austria.

We almost agreed to go for it, when another option came up.

Four of our other friends were planning a photo trip to Venice. We were interested the moment we heard about it. After a short discussion we opted for this one.

We have both been to Venice before, so we kind of knew what to expect. However we (me especially) were a bit worried this time of year the city might be overrun with tourists from allover the world.



Some years ago, when we were there during the Carnival the streets were literally flooded with people. The human river just swallowed us and it was almost impossible to take a turn. If the crowd was going left, so were we.
You can imagine the nightmare when we tried to take photos. Taking a photo without at least some people in it was science fiction. That really is not my kind of thing.
Unfortunately that wasn't the end of it. It was a very cold day and the strong wind wasn't so nice either. As hours passed, the wind grew stronger and we were freezing.
It was definitely not something to hope for this year.

Luckily this year was nothing like that. All main events were scheduled for the next weekend, so I guess the majority of American and Japanese tourists are still waiting to catch a plain for Venice.
Even the weather was nice and sunny this year. The temperatures were somewhere around 11 degrees Celsius. Altogether it was a nice day in Venice. We were glad we went there again.



This will have to do for now. I will post again on this subject when I make it through a pile of photo material. And it's quite a pile!
Stay tuned for some more old canals and sparkling costumes.

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Trevalli Ski-opening official stats

For a couple of years now the official Dolomiti Superski homepage is offering some statistics for you to check out after you get back home.

I always try to remember and check them out. This year they upgraded the statistics with a graphical representation.



This is how a summary of my four days of skiing in Trevalli looks like. I noticed the numbers are a bit lower than usually. The reason for that is quite obvious from my previous two posts.
I posted a similar summary after my last year's skiing adventure in Civetta. You can check it out here.

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The hard part of skiing

Since in Trevalli there are no night skiing opportunities, we had to find something else to do during late hours.

It is quite usual for our group to cause some mild disturbance in an otherwise peaceful family vacation environment. This time however it was not the case.
There was this group of 18 men (aged 40 to 50) stationed in the same building with us and they were true party animals. We were no match for them. They said they do a thing like this twice a year. That's the only two times in a year their wives let them off the chain (so they put it). They seemed to try real hard to make the most of it.



They brought over 150 liters of alcohol with them. Mostly it was beer and wine, but there was also some home made schnapps, herb brandy, tangerine liqueur, walnut liqueur, blueberry brandy and I'm pretty sure that was not all. Personally I only managed to try those. I must say they were all homemade drinks and without an exception tasted pretty good.



They also had a pile of sausages, various dry salami and a whole leg of prosciutto with them. It all added up to a selection of meat products that I'm sure even a medium-size butchery would be proud of.

When they started to party you could barely hear yourself thinking. An accordion and a guitar encouraged them to sing louder and louder as the hours went by.
Fortunately they weren't in their best shape (or so they said), so they managed an all night party only every other night.

Surprisingly we saw them also on the slopes during the day. It was quite hard work for us too. Partying late and skiing all day long from 10 AM to 4 PM every day was quite a challenge.

They made me laugh every time I saw them. You could just never tell what they were up to. Of course they had their equipment with them on the slopes too (accordion included).

I am not sure how much skiing they actually did, because I saw them mostly around those neat mountain huts by the slopes.
Usually there are tables set in front of these huts. It feels really great to just sit there for a while and soak the sun. The only thing that spoils the idyllic atmosphere are the prices of food and drinks they offer. You could bring your own sandwiches and hot tea, but there are signs everywhere saying: "No picnic!" or "No packed lunch!".

If you try to ignore them, there is usually a waiter around to nag about it.



Well these neighbors of ours didn't seem to bother. They simply put their leg of prosciutto in a stand on one of the tables, just next to the 10 liter wine container they brought with them. They sang a song or two and slowly carved into the prosciutto with a 30 cm carving knife.

The waiter just pretended they weren't there and kept avoiding them. It was a laugh!
Oh yeah and the prosciutto was excellent!

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Ski season opening in Trevalli

I finally (with some substantial delay, but hey in the end I did it and that's what counts) decided to share some info on how my first skiing trip of this season went.

We had a great time and will definitely try to do it again. The only problem with this kind of ski-opening trips can be snow, or better put - the lack of it. It is always a bit of a gamble since you have to book the accommodation at least two months in advance. At that time you don't have a clue what the weather and snow conditions are gonna be.
Fortunately this time all went well.

It happened in the middle of December and included four days of skiing, relaxing and partying. The car trip took us just over four hours one way (Ljubljana to Falcade and back). It went by without any problems.

We went as a group of 13. In case if you are wondering - no, there was no lack of luck (I guess this time 13 wasn't an unlucky number at all).
Mostly we knew each other, there was only one couple that was new to me. We got along great.

We were divided into four apartments and instantly turned into four perfect little families. When it was time to party we (as usually when we go somewhere as such a group) occupied one of the apartments and tried to destroy as much of our common enemy as possible. As you might have guessed, this enemy of ours is also called alcohol.
Because of the long hours of skiing that were always in front of us on the next morning, we didn't take it too far. Most of us really love skiing, so it was our first priority.



A smaller part of our group (a female colleague) wasn't expecting that and consequentially while others were skiing, she tried to pass the time tasting various local drinks (most of which were alcoholic).
Those cute little huts (I like to call them skier traps) placed just next to ski slopes offer a variety of spirits, beers and similar stuff. Everybody tasted at least some of those. For an instance Bombardino was the first choice of many.


The skiing was great. Most of the snow was artificial, but it was enough of it and most of the slopes were opened.
That meant around 90 km of slopes were available. Trevalli ski resort is just big enough not to get bored in four days.
The name of this part of Dolomiti Superski area - Trevalli translates to Three Valleys and that's just what it is - three valleys full of ski-lifts and slopes. Two of those valleys are connected and the third is just a short ride away.


From Col Margherita, at a height of 2.650 m one can also see ski slopes in Civetta ski area and Mt. Pelmo rising above them. It was a nice view especially because we are going there again in February.

More about the other side of skiing in my next post.

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A crappy new year

The new year has not started all that well for me. I have not been feeling well since the New Year's Eve. There have been some good days since, but mostly I've been feeling quite crappy.

It all began on the New Year's Eve. With a small group of friends we went to a mountain cottage under the Vršič pass.

It stands at 1226 m and at this time of year we were hoping for a couple days in an idyllic mountain winter atmosphere.

When everybody was partying I was shaking with some flu-like symptoms. I didn't have much of the New Year Eve's party nor the day after. I spend it in bed while others enjoyed hiking on a beautiful and sunny first day of the new year.

So no photos for you!


I took some on the next day when we went hiking to Peč (1509 m). I was obviously feeling better then, but it lasted only for a couple of days. Then it got worse again and I haven't been fine since. Unfortunately it wasn't a simple flu and the doctor prescribed me 6 weeks of antibiotics and a week of rest.



All that aside it was a nice trip to Peč. The place is also called Tromeja, which translates into English as Triple border. It is the place of triple border among Slovenia, Italy and Austria. In clear weather it offers nice views on all sides and there is also Tromeja skiing area down the Austrian side of the mountain.



We stopped at a mountain hut on our way down. There we had a delicious venison stew with bread dumplings.

These photos are from that trip.

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