Just imagine this for a second. We were driving through the middle of Finland after our bus’ tire broke (and later was repaired) and suddenly we noticed something out there in the sky. Someone started screaming it’s the Aurora! it’s the Aurora! so we begged-yelled the bus driver to stop the bus so that we could go outside and experience it with our own eyes.
That was one of the most (or better said, the most) majestic thing I’ve ever experienced nature-wise. On the bad side of this awesome experience is that I didn’t have my tripod with me (I had it in the big luggage) so basically I needed to find the way to be as stable as humanly possible, with freezing cold outside (and thus shaking a bit) and try to get a long exposure picture.
As you see the pictures are a bit shaky and not so good focused. I was way too excited. And it’s quite hard to focus on something when it’s quite dark outside. Nevertheless I’m very happy with the result.
When we saw the Aurora again, I had my tripod with me so everything went smoother. It was a pity that this time it wasn’t so spectacular. It’s important to note that what you get to see with your eyes isn’t as full of colour as it shows the photograph but in any case, I’d love to see it again. Or better said, I’ll see it again 🙂 .
If you follow me on Instagram you will probably know by now that a couple of weeks ago I spent a weekend in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn. As always, I’m a student. In approximately 8 months I’ll finally finish my university studies, but I guess I will be still broke by then. Which means that I will still have to travel on the low budget side of life. But hey! Less is more right? (Meh, sometimes is not 😀 ).
Following the same philosophy of my post ‘How to visit Riga for less than 100€’I decided to give you few tips about how to visit the biggest city in Estonia for what I would consider a low budget for a weekend.
*Disclaimer: the prices may vary according to the season and availability of services. If you are traveling from other city that is not Kaunas it might be a bit more expensive or cheaper. Also I’m not getting sponsored by sharing anything of this, it’s just all from my own opinion and belief.The trip I’m presenting here is a weekend trip: leaving Kaunas on Friday and coming back on Sunday, 2 nights and 3 days.
1. Bus from Kaunas to Vilnius and back: 6€
The buses we will be taking this time depart from Vilnius. When I went to Tallinn I was traveling with Ecolines but researching a bit on the net and talking to other travellers I found PolskiBus, which happens to be a cheap bus company from Poland and from now on, your best friend to travel around the Baltic States.
You will need to get to Vilnius if you live in Kaunas, but if you are living already in the capital of Lithuania, well, you can save up those 6€!
2. Bus from Vilnius to Tallinn and back: 24€
Yes. Unbelievable right? Even cheaper than going to Riga. And this is the normal price. I’m not really sure if you can get student discount but, you will be paying 100 zloty (the currency they have in Poland) which is actually 23.42€ to travel more than 1100km by bus.
The journey is a bit long, it takes about 9.15 hours in total, but still faster than with Ecolines, which is 11 hours.
3. Place to sleep for 2 nights: 0€
Now this is something very personal. When I went to Tallinn I decided to try CouchSurfing for the first time. It was a really great experience. If you’d like some more privacy (with CouchSurfing you get basically none, but hey! you meet interesting people and travelling is all about that right) there are some nice hostels and hotels. For me I rarely pay lots of money to sleep. I sort of feel that I’m committing a crime. If you would like to CouchSurf, we stayed with Rainu and Andres, they have hosted more than 1,000 people (not at the same time of course) and they have such a cozy and nice flat. And they have a dog too!
4. Breakfast, lunch and dinner for 2-3 days: 36€
This is a very approximate price. Of course it all depends about how much you like to eat and how many beers you like to drink while having dinner. But for 4€/day you can easily have breakfast (a nice coffee and some croissant) and for 7€/day/meal you can get through lunch and dinner without starving.
5. Tour around the city: 0€
They do this tour once per day and it leaves at 12:00 from the city centre. We didn’t join it but from what I could research is a total blast of a tour. Great info, free (of course if you liked it very much you should support them with some tips, but if you don’t want to, you are free) and most important, in English. 2 hours walking around Tallinn and getting great information and history straight from a local.
6. Museums and towers: 10€
It’s up to you. If you are not into visiting the heritage of one city you will probably spend nothing here. My favourite tower and attraction to visit in Tallinn were Kiek in de Kökand walking the City Wall of Tallinn. Both of them are 10€ without student discount. With the ISIC you can get them for 6€. (Really, get that card right now!).
Overall the price for the proposed plan is 70€ per person and per weekend. If you add 30€ for emergencies or munchies or some souvenirs, you can get a really good deal to visit Tallinn.
If you finally decide to go visit this city, let me know on the comments! 🙂
If you follow me on Instagram you will probably know by now that a couple of weeks ago I spent a weekend in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn. As always, I’m a student. In approximately 8 months I’ll finally finish my university studies, but I guess I will be still broke by then. Which means that I will still have to travel on the low budget side of life. But hey! Less is more right? (Meh, sometimes is not 😀 ).
Following the same philosophy of my post ‘How to visit Riga for less than 100€’I decided to give you few tips about how to visit the biggest city in Estonia for what I would consider a low budget for a weekend.
*Disclaimer: the prices may vary according to the season and availability of services. If you are traveling from other city that is not Kaunas it might be a bit more expensive or cheaper. Also I’m not getting sponsored by sharing anything of this, it’s just all from my own opinion and belief.The trip I’m presenting here is a weekend trip: leaving Kaunas on Friday and coming back on Sunday, 2 nights and 3 days.
1. Bus from Kaunas to Vilnius and back: 6€
The buses we will be taking this time depart from Vilnius. When I went to Tallinn I was traveling with Ecolines but researching a bit on the net and talking to other travellers I found PolskiBus, which happens to be a cheap bus company from Poland and from now on, your best friend to travel around the Baltic States.
You will need to get to Vilnius if you live in Kaunas, but if you are living already in the capital of Lithuania, well, you can save up those 6€!
2. Bus from Vilnius to Tallinn and back: 24€
Yes. Unbelievable right? Even cheaper than going to Riga. And this is the normal price. I’m not really sure if you can get student discount but, you will be paying 100 zloty (the currency they have in Poland) which is actually 23.42€ to travel more than 1100km by bus.
The journey is a bit long, it takes about 9.15 hours in total, but still faster than with Ecolines, which is 11 hours.
3. Place to sleep for 2 nights: 0€
Now this is something very personal. When I went to Tallinn I decided to try CouchSurfing for the first time. It was a really great experience. If you’d like some more privacy (with CouchSurfing you get basically none, but hey! you meet interesting people and travelling is all about that right) there are some nice hostels and hotels. For me I rarely pay lots of money to sleep. I sort of feel that I’m committing a crime. If you would like to CouchSurf, we stayed with Rainu and Andres, they have hosted more than 1,000 people (not at the same time of course) and they have such a cozy and nice flat. And they have a dog too!
4. Breakfast, lunch and dinner for 2-3 days: 36€
This is a very approximate price. Of course it all depends about how much you like to eat and how many beers you like to drink while having dinner. But for 4€/day you can easily have breakfast (a nice coffee and some croissant) and for 7€/day/meal you can get through lunch and dinner without starving.
5. Tour around the city: 0€
They do this tour once per day and it leaves at 12:00 from the city centre. We didn’t join it but from what I could research is a total blast of a tour. Great info, free (of course if you liked it very much you should support them with some tips, but if you don’t want to, you are free) and most important, in English. 2 hours walking around Tallinn and getting great information and history straight from a local.
6. Museums and towers: 10€
It’s up to you. If you are not into visiting the heritage of one city you will probably spend nothing here. My favourite tower and attraction to visit in Tallinn were Kiek in de Kökand walking the City Wall of Tallinn. Both of them are 10€ without student discount. With the ISIC you can get them for 6€. (Really, get that card right now!).
Overall the price for the proposed plan is 70€ per person and per weekend. If you add 30€ for emergencies or munchies or some souvenirs, you can get a really good deal to visit Tallinn.
If you finally decide to go visit this city, let me know on the comments! 🙂
Back in 2009 I did my first big trip. 5 friends and I went on a month-long-trip around Europe. One thing that we call InterRail. Which basically is getting a train ticket and traveling around Europe by train. We went to Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium.
Amsterdam was by far one of my favourite cities.
We spent there 5 days. Amsterdam was our base and we went to Utretch and Marken. I was 18 at that time and I had completely fallen in love with the city. The vibes, the people, the multiculturality, the music, the scents and the food were ‘mindblasting mate’.
I liked it so much that 2 years after, on my first year living abroad in Lithuania, I decided to come back.
I was almost 20 years old at that time. It was me who planned the whole trip. Why? Because I love to do this. It’s kind of a ritual. The excitement increases, you read and read more about the city that you are planning to ‘conquer’ and the more you read the more you want to go. You know what I’m talking about right?
I’ll walk you step by step on How to spend a good and affordable few days in Amsterdam.
1. Dates.
One of the most important things you should know is when you are planning to visit the city. I’ve been there both in March and August and trust me, the humid cold winter in Amsterdam can get into your bones and never leave. But if you are totally okay with that, you get a whole different picture of the city during ‘low season’. Theoretically, the best season to go to Amsterdam is during Autumn. Haven’t tried that yet. I should go back then!
2. Good and affordable place to stay.
Since I’m a student, I’m always traveling on a budget. But I like it. Makes the journey more interesting. It’s very important to make an exhaustive research on where to stay. You have to decide what’s more important for you, paying less and being far from the centre, or investing more money and being closer to the heart of the city. Me personally I like to save up on this. That’s why I usually spend most of the planning time looking for the perfect place to stay.
3. What to see.
Are you into art? Are you into underground scene? Are you into ‘special cookies’? Are you into historical things? Well, good news is that you can find all of those things in the capital of the Netherlands. There are few websites where they give you recommendations on what to see in Amsterdam.
But if you really are on a budget (as I was) here’s a video of free things to do in Amsterdam.
4. Enjoy.
That’s the most important thing you have to do. You will encounter such a magical city.
Did you know that Amsterdam is the most multicultural city in the whole world? 178 different nationalities were recorded as living there in 2011. Another thing that you probably know is that there are lots of canals. But did you know that Amsterdam has more canals than Venice? It has 165 canals forming 100 km of waterways as compared with 150 in Venice. Amsterdam also has 1,200 bridges, about three times as 409 in Venice.
I love traveling. Also I love saving. And if I can travel and save at the same time, well, perfect combo! Whenever I travel there’s always the pressure of being a student and not having lots of money to spare. There have been many times when I couldn’t do something because I didn’t have enough money or I had to decide: either entering in the museum or eating the next day.
Since I have been a couple of times in Riga (Latvia) (one in February 2014 and the other one in November 2014) and by the experience I had trying the different things you find in the city, I think I have come with the ultimate and sort of cheapest way of visiting Latvia’s capital.
*Disclaimer: the prices may vary according to the season and availability of services. If you are traveling from other city that is not Kaunas it might be a bit more expensive or cheaper. Also I’m not getting sponsored by sharing anything of this, it’s just all from my own opinion and belief.The trip I’m presenting here is a weekend trip: leaving Kaunas on Friday and coming back on Sunday, 2 nights and 3 days.
1. Bus from Kaunas to Riga and back: 37.60€
Now, what is very important is to own an ISIC card(it gives you many discounts in many cities in Europe and in some places you can enter for free). If you don’t have this card you’ll have to pay 5€ more on your journey, so you decide! The bus company that I travel with is Ecolines, the buses are quite okay and comfy. The ride is approximately 4 hours and it drops you at Riga’s central bus station.
2. Hostel for a couple of nights: 24€
Now there might be a bit of controversy. The first time I went to Riga I stayed at The Naughty Squirrel Backpackers Hostel. Backpackers + Naughty + Squirrel in the same name of a place? Yes please! Also I was reading lots of reviews about this place, and it appears that it has won for several years prizes such as best hostel in Latvia and top 10 hostels in the world. And just for 12€ the night if you decide to stay in a 8-10 people mixed and shared room.
Also, a big plus of this hostel is that it is located in the centre of the city and just next to it has a Coffee Inn (a quite popular coffee place here in the Baltics).
There might be possibilities such as CouchSurfing, AirBnB, other hostels or even the street. It’s all up to you. I have been twice in that hostel and if I ever have to come back to Riga I will probably stay there again.
3. Breakfast for two days: 6€
As I mentioned before, there’s a nice coffee place where you can get a cookie or cake plus a coffee for about 3€. Here again if you like to eat more or you are a not breakfast person (you know you should eat breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day. Just a simple and friendly advice) the price may vary.
4. Lunch and dinner for two days: 30€
Exactly the same as with the breakfast, it all depends on your budget and on how much you want to eat. I’m 99.8% sure that for 7.5€ you can eat and have dinner almost every day. There are many places to eat in the city and of course there are different prices and qualities of the food. It’s all about the budget you got!
Heather Hall (from Ferreting Out the Fun) has recently moved to Riga and she’s writing tons and tons of information about the city and Latvia. If you are planning to visit Riga her blog is a must!
5. Tour around the city: 0€
The first time I tried a free tour was back in 2013 when visiting Stockholm. I really liked the idea: a local person shows you around and tells you about the history and anecdotes of the city for free. If you liked the tour you are free to offer a tip for the nice work. There are a couple of tours happening daily in Riga, and you can find more information here.
6. St. Peters church: 7€
Now this is not something you need to survive like food or a place to stay. It’s an extra (that’s why if you add this to the total amount it will exceed 100€) but it’s totally recommended to go up there. The prices vary (important, get an ISIC card for discounts) so you can find the exact price on their website.
7. Travel guide for Riga: 0€
I have recently found a travel guide(well, if you just type free travel guide for Riga on google you find it very easily) where you find lots and lots of useful information (like where to eat, what to visit, what to do, what NOT to do) and you can just download it on your smartphone or if you feel like print it. Or both. You are free to do as you please.
(…)
So, the final sum would be (of the extremely necessary needs, if you like to buy 25 postcards everywhere you go I’m sorry, I didn’t add it here): Bus from Kaunas to Riga and back: 37.60€ +Hostel for a couple of nights: 24€ +Breakfast for two days: 6€ +Lunch and dinner for two days: 30€ = 97.60€!
Now if you add spare 50€ for emergencies (like tequila shot emergency, postcard emergency, taxi to your new friend’s house emergency or nail polish emergency) you have a fantastic trip for 150€.
Do you need to translate anything fromLatvian or to Latvian? Check out this amazing Latvian translation services offered by PoliLingua 🙂
Not a long time ago, a friend I have from the Vytautas Magnus University (yet another university here in Kaunas) that belongs also to the Miguelio De Cervanteso Club (a Spanish language and culture club based here in Kaunas too) asked me if I could talk about my experience as a Spaniard living in Lithuania.
They organise it every year: (this year’s was the 5th time) a cultural week where they talk about Spain, bring Spaniards and cook Spanish food among lots of other stuff. And it’s quite cool and interesting. Primavera en Español(Spring in Spanish) is how it is called. It’s not the first time I’m part of it, but it was the first time I had to talk about me for about 15 min in front of 40 people(more or less, didn’t count all of them).
You might thing that since I have a youtube channel and I video-blog there often I don’t have any problems when talking in public. Well, I do. Talking to a camera when I’m alone (or almost alone) is one thing (you know, I can always edit if I seem super shy in post production. Well, by post production I mean when I’m home with a tea and editing the video, I just wanted to use a fancy word that cool videomakers I look up to use very often, hehe) but talking straight to people, making eye contact, and trying to keep them entertained and not babble when trying to speak is sometimes quite challenging.
It went all good. They had fun, I enjoyed and felt like I took a mini step forward in overcoming the talking-in-public-gets-me-very-sweaty-and-nervous thing.
Whenever I see that I have few days off (and as long as I have money and no exams soon) I like to travel.
Usually, what I do is check what free days I have and search with this amazing ultimate travel cheap tool called AZUONwhere’s the cheapest destination to fly to. As we say around here: «when you are traveling low cost, it’s not important where you go but what days you can travel». After running the software a couple of times I saw that the optimal trip was to Norway, the cheapest destination. The only «problem» was that I had already been there this year.
The next option was Italy, inbound flight to Milan from Vilnius and outbound flight from Milan to Vilnius. Three nights, four days. Eventually, (including big luggage) I paid around 140€ for both tickets (back and forth).
The journey itself went quite smooth (except for a couple of anecdotes that I’ll share soon) and I tried AirBnBfor the first time! Such a nice experience! (post about it on the making!).
Even though I had already been both in Milan and Venice (when I was about 16 years old and I was with my parents and sister) I truly didn’t mind going back, because it would be almost the first time that I was in Italy without parents.
On our first few hours in Italy, we got to the flat we would be staying, got cleaned up and went to the Duomo. We didn’t make it to the roof (spoiler alert, we didn’t go up there on the trip, the second day we wanted to go was very cloudy and it was totally not worth). That didn’t really bother us, we wandered around the city centre, visited the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, stepped on the bull’s testicles and span aroundand went shopping after fulfilling our stomachs with two wonderful pizzas (one for each, don’t think that I ate two pizzas by myself. I mean, I really like them but that’s way too much dude).
On the next day, we went to Venice.
We got a bit lost while trying to reach the flat but finally made it. But we didn’t make itexactly to Venice(yeah, we thought we were staying in the main one but we actually booked a flat in an outskirt town, well, you can get to the main Venice, yeah the one with the canals and gondolas in a 20 min bus ride, for next time I’ll know better).
To tell the truth, we actually were somehow happy that we made that «mistake» and didn’t get a flat in Venice the mainland. Mestre(the town we stayed in) was super calm and chill, plus it had a very nice and historic old town!
Since it was my birthday we decided that it would be a good idea to have dinner in a nice restaurant where we could see the canals.
Well, we didn’t. Wait. We did have a nice dinner, but not outside, it was in a restaurant. It was too cold to sit outdoors.
Since we didn’t explore much the day we got there, we came back the next morning to keep on exploring the different streets and squares that Venice had to offer. It was so (f-word+ing) crowded. I didn’t remember there were so many people last time I was there.
After having an exhausting and quite explorer day, we jumped (we didn’t really jump, we walked in, as normal people do) into the train that would ride us back to Milan. There we would be spending the last night of our adventure in a very lovely top floor-plus-balcony-loft and the few hours we had left in the morning before heading back to the airport.
Overall I have to say that I had quite much fun on this trip. Maybe it was too much (or better said, way too much) visiting a couple of cities in that short time, but, well, this is how you learn right? As Pergulas Gunnharsonne said, «By trying and making mistakes you reach the perfection».
It was a very pleasant experience to get back to Italy and dig up some well-dug memories of my very first trip out of Spain.
It is now 08:20 in the morning, the 30th of April 2015 and I have to catch a train to the airport in about 55 minutes, but I wanted to really fast and quick share with you my next adventure.
I’ll be flying today to Milano from Vilnius, tomorrow catching a train to Venice and on Saturday coming back to Milano to spend the last night before I come back on Sunday to Lithuania.
Very express, but as you probably know if you follow my blog, this is how I enjoy traveling. On a budget (of money and time).
If you want to follow the journey, please do it so on my instagram or on my facebook page.
Safe travels to me!
(*22:38 edit: I am already in Italy, super tired after walking all around Milano. The weather is perfect, I’m staying in a AirBnB flat, first time, great experience. Post about it soon. My laptop has been messing around with me, but I think I found the way to fix it.)
If you are interested in following in a sort of real time the journey (a.k.a. me posting every day), let me know in the comments section down below.
I remember the first time I went to this place a social dance party was going on. Salsa, bachata and that sort of things. Since I’m a not-so-good (or better said, I have my own style) dancer, I just sat down and enjoyed a glass of red wine while checked the decoration and the dim light that was making of it a very unique and mystique place.
Formerly known as La Bodega del Toro, Galeria Urbanais a mixture of restaurant, art gallery, social club & good vibes place. The food price is of average but the taste of it gets a higher-than-average grading. Located in the very main street of Kaunas’ old town, it offers a good place to both enjoy a quite sophisticated meal or a very artsy drink. Or both. Or none. It’s all up to you.
One of the coolest things is that in summer and until mid-autumn they open a terrace to the bustling Vilnius street in Kaunas. Terraces are good for socialising. Very good in fact.
I’m going there quite often, and I would totally recommend you to check their facebook page and if you happen to be in Kaunas, go try their mediterranean inspired menu!
On 11 March 1990, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania adopted an Act on the Restoration of an Independent State of Lithuania. This year Lithuania becomes 25 years old (since the last independence, of course). Which means that she’s one year older than me. Oh hey you pretty girl!
*11/03/2016 edit: Lithuania becomes 26 years old! Hey you lovely country! 🙂
2. As all the important days, the Lithuanians signed an Act.
The act emphasized restoration and legal continuity of the interwar-period inLithuania, which was occupied by the USSR and lost independence in June 1940. It was the first time that a Union Republic declared independence from the dissolving Soviet Union.
3. Lithuanians = kick-ass warriors.
The Soviet Union somehow blamed that it was Lithuanian’s fault that the URSS didn’t work. Well, sorry about that you naughty people. If they want to be an independent country they have the right to be so!
4. There are parades literally everywhere in the country.
If you happen to be in Lithuania today go to the street. You’ll be amazed by the amount of things that are going on. «Lithuania – our land».
5. It’s the national «don’t-mess-with-a-Lithuanian-day».
Today everyone goes to the street. Including some radical people. Some, how to say, extremely nationalistic people. And we all know that extremes ain’t that good. So just be aware of that. And please, don’t do these things to a Lithuanian.
6. Lithuania = role model.
The Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania served as a model and inspiration to other Soviet republics. However, the issue of independence was not immediately settled and recognition by other countries was not certain.
7. Harder times were about to come.
Mikhail Gorbachev called the Act of Independence illegal and the USSR demanded revocation of the Act and started applying sanctions against Lithuania. If that wasn’t enough, on January 13, 1991 Soviet forces stormed the Parliament building in Vilnius along with the Vilnius TV Tower. Unarmed civilian Lithuanians confronted Soviet soldiers. Fourteen people were killed and seven hundred injured in what became known as January Events.
8. Iceland ♥ Lithuania.
Iceland was the first to recognize Lithuanian independence on February 11, 1991. We ♥ you Iceland!
9. Bye bye URSS!
Finally, on September 6, 1991 Lithuania’s independence was recognized by the Soviet Union.
