The year is over and it is time to write about my favorite trips of 2015. It is time for a retrospective and, as always, it was hard to narrow down to just 5 destinations but I had to do it.
This is Fotostrasse second year as a blog and we are doing quite well. This year we went on the road quite a few times, a trip every month and it was amazing. Too band I couldn’t follow Marcela in every trip but I did my best to go with her whenever it was possible.
In 2015, we went to Finland three times and it continues to be one of my favorite countries. And, in 2016, I’m looking forward to visit it again. We went to Poland as well, twice. One time by bus, heading to Wroclaw. Another one by bike, from Berlin to Sluice, following an earlier walking trip that I did alone in 2013.
My Favorite Trips of 2015
Looking at the pictures from all these trips on Lightroom, it seems that we had more fun than usual. We manage to go from Aachen to Wroclaw, from Amsterdam to Mariehamm, from Moscow to Milan. Choosing the best of those is hard but this is what I have to do. So, the list below makes a lot of sense for me but I believe I might be alone in this. Either way, lets start with my favorite trips of 2015.
5 – My first time in Amsterdam
In the end of July, I took a bus from Berlin to Amsterdam where I spent the weekend going to museums, trying out cycling in the busy streets and taking pictures of everything. The weather was great, the food was awesome and we had an amazing time there.
I have great memories of walking along canals, learning about science at Nemo and saw a lot of beautiful art at Stedelijk. Too bad this trip was way too short and I couldn’t do most of the things I had in mind. But I just need to get back there and that is it.
4 – The mountains in Hall in Tirol
We visited Hall in Tirol in the end of November and it was an amazing experience. This small city in Austria is home to great christmas markets, a rich history and a beautiful old town. It was there that we took pictures of Krampus. It was there that we learned everything we could about Swarovski Crystals.
We also tasted a bit of the schnapps in the area and we visited the beautiful mountains that surround the city. It was such a cool experience that we are already planning our way back there in the summer. We need to see how beautiful those mountains can get filled with green trees. That is one of our goals for 2016.
3 – Milan, Lombardy and #Blogville
In september we took a train from Berlin to Zurich and there we took another one heading to Milan. It was there that we stayed for a week during our time at #blogville Lombardy. We had an amazing time there. We met a lot of great people and hung out with our friends Nick and Margherita from The Crowded Planet. During our week in Italy we visited Torino, Milan, Lake Garda, Saló, Brescia, Sirmione, Bergamo, Lake Como and we saw so many cool things that it will take a while to write about everything we saw there.
Since this was my first time in Italy, I had to see if the coffee was as good as everybody told me and it was. The food was a big highlight of this trip and I need to get back there as soon as possible just to try them out again. It was also great to learn that even though I studied italian in school almost 20 years ago, I could understand everything people saying around me.
2 – Our visit to Aland Islands
When I first learned about the amazing Åland Islands, I knew I had to go there and I finally did it in 2015. This small group of islands between Sweden and Finland were on our map in June and we loved everything about the place. From the cosmopolitan vibe of Mariehamn to frisbee golf in Lappo, our time in Aland was filled with beautiful scenery, great food and a lot of fun times.
We saw a rock concert in the middle of a lake at the Fish Bait Festival, we learned a little about fishing in the amazing Jurmo island and we rested our bodies in Degersand. This trip was filled with ferries and a never ending day and it was our third and last visit to Finland in 2015. Next year we need to get back there!
1 – The amazing Saint Petersburg
On my personal list of places to visit, Russia was always on the top. So you can imagine how excited I was when we got an e-mail from the amazing people at Timetravels confirming our trip to Saint Petersburg and Moscow in early May. We took a plane to Helsinki and, from there, we took a ferry to St. Petersburg. We barely got to the city and we were taking pictures of sphinxes and seeing how the city was getting ready for the Victory Parade of May 9th. We visited churches, old palaces and museums but I believe we had more fun walking around the streets and taking picture in the subway.
Russia was great but it was easy to choose this trip to St. Petersburg as my favorite one in this past year. Just the feeling of marching with the veterans at the Immortal Regiment would make this the coolest thing I did with Fotostrasse in 2015. But St. Petersburg was more than that. So much more than we are looking forward to get back there in 2016.
I feel bad for Aachen, Torino, Helsinki, Moscow, Wroclaw, Turku and Zurich for not getting in this list but narrowing my favorite trips of 2015 to five destinations isn’t as easy as it sounds. I hope it will be as hard to choose my favorite trips of 2016 as it was in 2015.
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