My Favourite Trips of 2014

In the end of 2013, I decided together with Marcela that it was time to travel around. We have been living in Berlin since march 2012 and we didn’t know much about Europe. Of course we traveled before, but not as much as we wanted to. So, it was with create pleasure that we decided that 2014 would be the year we would start traveling around Europe. At least once a month, this was our plan since the beginning. Looking at all the pictures I have here on lightroom, it seems that everything worked out great since we, almost, manage to reach our goal. From Dresden to Porvoo, from São Paulo to Poznan… Last year was good for Fotostrasse and we want to go to even more places in 2015. Just as a way of keeping track of what I did in 2014, I decided to create a list with my favourite trips of 2014.

Sometimes it was hard to choose which destination should be where but, the list below makes lots of sense. At least for me. So, lets start with the 5th place and follow all the way to the top.

5 – Umeå

Umeå was the first trip I did in 2014, back in the end of january. I was up there in Sweden, almost in the Arctic Circle and it was freezing. But, it was beautiful as well. Fotostrasse went there to cover the party the city threw to celebrate that they were the European Capital of Culture in 2014. It was my first ever blog trip, my first time walking of top of a frozen river, my first time seeing reindeers and it was perfect.

You can see by the pictures that I posted on flickr that I really loved being there and walking around the snow covered streets of this northern city in Sweden.

4 – Belo Horizonte

I was born in Belo Horizonte more than thirty years ago but I always had this love and hate relationship with the city. I moved out of it when I was young and only moved back when was almost a teenager and I never felt like i belonged there. After university, I moved to São Paulo and met Marcela. We got married and moved to Berlin and I never went back to Belo Horizonte after moving here.

My mother was going crazy with that so I decided to be a good son and, finally, decided to spend a few days in my hometown. Before travelling there, I have to say that I had this weird feeling in my gut. I was pretty sure that going back there would be a terrible experience but… It was great. Really.

Seeing my family again felt great. I manage to find time to hang out and have some beers with lots of friends and, thinking about it now, this was one of the best trips I did since we moved to Berlin.

3 – Helsinki

Like I said on a post before going to Finland, the country was close to the top place when it comes to countries I needed to visit. Back in september, I finally manage to go there and it was amazing. I am not sure why but Helsinki is the only city I have been here in Europe that I seriously thought about moving to. If you ask me why I felt like that, I wouldn’t be able to answer you anything. But, you must have felt like that before.

Walking around Helsinki felt like I belonged there. Since Fotostrasse will be there again next week, I going to try to see if that feeling was real. Who knows? Maybe I need to change my life all over again.

2 – Poznan

Until 2010, I had never traveled outside of Brazil. This is the sad truth. Once I manage to save enough money to travel around, I went to Poland. I have Metallica, Slayer, Behemoth and Anthrax to blame for that since I went to Warsaw just to see them playing together at the first ever Big Four Concert. Before going to Warsaw, I spent some time in Krackow and it was love at first site.

Since that, Marcela keeps hearing stories about Poland and she decided that it was time to visit the country in june. Poznan was the city to go and she chose it wisely since the city proved to be one of the best trips we ever did in our lives. We are not lying on that. We love Poznan and you should see why Fotostrasse loves this city so much. It might be the beer, it might be the scars of history you see everywhere you walk.

If you never been to Poznan, you have to fix this mistake fast.

1 – Porvoo

I have to be really sincere when I say that I wasn’t expecting to enjoy Porvoo as much as I did when Fotostrasse was invited to visit the city back in september. I was excited to visit Finland but I didn’t know much about Porvoo and, what I researched online didn’t ring any bells inside me. But, I was wrong.

Porvoo won my heart as soon as I got there. This small city close to Helsinki will be in my heart forever. And I blame this on the nature that surrounds the city, the people that hosted us there, the beautiful streets I walked around there and everything else that I can’t describe in words here. Porvoo, it was amazing to visit you and I’m looking forward to do that again soon. Thank you so much.

Dresden, Vienna, Bratislava, São Paulo… I’m sorry but you didn’t manage to be on the list. I’m not saying that it wasn’t good to meet you but… You were not good enough to be in My Favourite Trips list. Sorry.

The past year was a year of change for Fotostrasse. We decided to go from a photo meetup around Berlin to something bigger. We took some pieces of what we believe a travel blog should be, mixed with our love for pictures and we decided to create what you are reading right now. From what I can say now, 2015 will be even better.

I hope it will be as hard to choose my favourite trips of 2015 as it was in 2014.

If you like what you read here, you should follow us on Facebook and Twitter and, maybe, even our Flipboard Magazine. Or even, subscribe to our newsletter!