Describe your most memorable vacation.

The vacation I consider the most memorable was my 1st Europe trip back in March to June 2017. This almost 10-week travel remains to be one of the best things I have ever done.

I resigned from my job a month before I did this vacation-slash-adventure. After my last day at work in February, the following day, I did a Taiwan trip and then did a Hong Kong- Beijing, China birthday trips before I embarked on this Euro travel.

Here is an account of my first solo travel adventure in Europe.please note that this is just a quick rundown of where I went. The detailed narrative of each place I have written about them on separate blogs here in my travel website. So here it goes…

From Beijing, China — I flew my way to Warsaw, Poland. I was fetched at the Chopin Airport by a fellow traveller whom I met during a Sagada trip back in October 2014. We explored Warsaw, and some nearby Polish towns for a few days before I took a bus to Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania.

Vilnius served as my home-based during g this 3-month trip as a good friend offered his apartment for me to stay while I move around Europe. I explored Vilnius and it’s neighboring towns and cities for a week before I decided to go see Vienna, Austria.

You see, I actually did not have a fixed itinerary when I headed to Europe. I wanted to have a “free itinerary” and would just do spir-of-the-momebt” trips. And so from Vilnius, I took a bus back to Warsaw, then another bus ride to Vienna.

In Vienna, I stayed at a friend’s house. She is a Filipina married to an Austrian. I remember showing them around my city (Baguio) back in 2014 when they came to visit. During my stay in Vienna, I also went to visit nearby Bratislava – Slovak Republic’s capital. I was walking around Vienna when I learned that Bratislava was just less than an hour away from Vienna.

After a few days in Vienna, I took a bus to Budapest, Hungary, where I only stayed for 2 days. How I wish I stayed longer there because Budapest was surprisi fly beautifuuuuul!

From Budapest, I made my way to Bucharest in Romania via plane. This time, I stayed at a couch surfing host’s home for a couple of nights before staying at a hostel in the heart of Bucharest. Most of my days in Romania were unfortunately raining and cold that’s why I wasn’t able to explore on foot. Instead, I went for museums and cafes.

From Bucharest, I flew my way to Milan in Italy. Going to Italy wasn’t really part of my initial plan. But then, a former student of mine insisted that I come visited their family in Milan. So I gave in. It was a good decision because I did not only get to visit Milan, but I was also brought to the beautiful lakeside town of Como in Lombardy.

After a few days in Italy, I went to see Greece’s 2nd largest city, Thessaloniki and stayed there for a few days, had my haircut and had kebab and togurt everyday haha. Then, I went to visit Istanbul, Turkey (my 1st of 3 Tirkey visits), stayed at a hostel near the Blue Mosque, met a CS friend, and entered a mosque for the first time. Then, I flew my way to Kiev, Ukraine’s capital. It was a brief visit before flying back to Reykjavik, Iceland for almost a week of stay to do some nature walks and and adventures. I was joined here by my friend from Vilnius, so after out Iceland trip, we both went back to Vilnius to drop our thi gs and get new stuff for our next trip, a cruise that involved 4 countries – Estonia, Finland, and Sweden.

We first took a bus ride from Vilnius to Tallinn, then we embarked in a cruise ship bound for Helsinki (my 1st of 2 Finland trips), then Stockholm (also my 1st of 2 Sweden trips), then back to Tallinn, Estonia where we got to explore its old Town. After the cruise trip, we went back to Vilnius to just chill and slow down.

Spent a few days in Lithuania just walking around, cooking for my Lithuanian friends, and in between they’ll bring me to some countryside trips. Wr Lso went to a trip to Latvia, a nearby Baltic coubtry and visited places like Tuga, Jurmala, and Daugavpils. During this time, I booked a plane ticket to my next destinations.

The next leg of my trip was a flight from Vilnius to Paris, another city that wasn’t really a part of my original trip. After some prodding from a good friend, I squeezed in a trip to France to see her (and of course, the Eiffel Tower). Just a few days in Paris then I took a bus to Amsterdam to see its canals and go try out their popular space cake. After 3 days, I took a bus to Dusseldorf, Germany to visit a former schoolmate but unfortunately he had some emergency so we weren’t able to meet. I only stayed their for a couple of days before I decided to move to my last stop in this leg, Brussels in Belgium.

In Brussels, I stayed at a couchsurfer friend, met with a former student of mine who isnow a doctor in Bruge, and she and her husband took me around eating waffles and drinking beer. From Brussels, I flew my way back to Viljius to spend the remaining days of my Europe trip just slowing it down, eating g, walking around, and sleeping.

10 weeks of wanderlusting it was a vacation slash adventure of a lifetime. And the best part of it, it wasn’t the last time I got to travel around Europe. In the next 4 years, I managed to visit Europe again.. ugh, so lovely visiting this particular memory lane.