Julika, Author at sateless suitcase

How The Netherlands Detered Us From Camping

I should have known better. Camping and I have never been the very best combination. However, I thought I had improved my camping skills throughout the past years, so I convinced Steffen to go camping with me in September 2009. Yet another story to file under camping gone wrong, although I had tried to plan so much ahead this time. We had booked a gorgeous camp ground in health resort city of Zandvoort located in the middle of the dunes. And in my idea this was going to be a perfect vacation. Our tent was going to be super cozy, we [...]

By Julika|2013-02-07T18:09:20+01:002012/05/25|Categories: Destinations, Europe, The Netherlands|Tags: camping, Europe, road trip, The Netherlands|2 Comments

Hamburg – Two Days in Germany’s Coolest City

After traveling mainly as far as possible (though mostly within the European borders), it was about time I would go get to know my home country a little better. Of course, I moved around a lot already, and had made trips to Munich, Berlin, or Schloss Neuschwanstein with school and my parents, but there was one place that I had been dying to see for a long time: Hamburg. So, the boyfriend Steffen and I decided to plan a fall getaway weekend to Germany’s second largest city back in October 2008. Steffen dug up a cheap hotel, located on the Reeperbahn, [...]

By Julika|2014-06-10T22:47:59+02:002012/05/21|Categories: Destinations, Europe, Germany|Tags: Architecture, Art, churches, Europe, Germany, Hamburg|0 Comments

Portugal – Love at First Sight

My good friend Carola and I had been thinking about a grand vacation for a while back in 2008, when she remembered that she met a Portuguese girl at an international youth event a few years back: Cláudia had invited her to come visit her in her home town Porto, in the north of Portugal, and we more or less spontaneously booked our flights. We naturally also wanted to spend some time in Portugal's capital Lisbon, so we booked a one-country Eurail ticket to be able to spend some time in both places, and get around easily. In Lisbon, we explored all [...]

By Julika|2013-09-05T08:30:28+02:002012/05/15|Categories: Destinations, Europe, Portugal|Tags: Architecture, Europe, Lisbon, Porto, Portugal|1 Comment

Barcelona, Baby!?

To be honest, this trip was one of my first real city getaways and I've made a few mistakes back then: Choosing the wrong accommodation, the wrong flight company, the wrong priorities when it came to food. But traveling is something you can only learn along the way. This trip was still a lot of fun, but I know we should have done some things differently. What do you think? After our disastrous road trip to France Iris and I decided that we needed to do something a little more structured for our summer 2007 vacation. However, we still were very budget [...]

By Julika|2013-03-28T14:20:32+01:002012/05/07|Categories: Destinations, Europe, Spain|Tags: Architecture, Art, Barcelona, churches, Europe, medieval, Spain|1 Comment

“Monstrous” Road Trip through The Netherlands

After finally having survived our written finals and the very last day of high school in May 2007, one of my favorite travel companions, Carola (she is one of those artsy nerds like me) and I decided that we needed to do something real crazy. So, Carola's family used to have this large Volkswagen van, which had a little hippie vibe to it, but they were about to get rid of it, since it was rather old. We felt like owing that car one last adventure, and thus came up with the idea of a road trip to the Netherlands - [...]

By Julika|2013-05-07T05:01:26+02:002012/04/30|Categories: Destinations, Europe, The Netherlands|Tags: camping, Europe, road trip, The Netherlands|2 Comments

The Future Art Historian’s Guide to Rome

A little flashback - The trip to Italy was planned by my school as a senior field trip with my art class in September 2006. Art was my major in high school, and I just couldn’t wait to go to Rome to spend one whole week full of visiting churches, museums, palaces, and gardens in Italy’s ancient capital. I mean, how could I attempt to be an art historian and not be beyond excited about going to Rome? My teacher took her job seriously, and I am pretty sure that we have seen basically everything of art historical relevance in [...]

By Julika|2013-05-07T04:57:53+02:002012/04/24|Categories: Art History, The Art Historian’s Guide to…|Tags: Architecture, Art, Europe, Italy, medieval, Rome, The Art Historian's Guide to...|1 Comment

The Insane Road Trip through France Part III: Mediterranean, here we go!

The Insane Road Trip through France Part III: Camargue region and the Mediterranean! After Iris and I had spent our second night in the Avignon area, we left to drive further south, towards the Mediterranean. On our way, we stopped to see the Nîmes, which used to be a relevant dwelling during the time of the Roman Empire, which still can be seen by several Roman relics such as the prominent amphitheater in the city center (where we fortunately didn’t even have to pay an admission fee to see it from the inside!). After the two days of culturally motivated traveling, we [...]

By Julika|2013-06-14T13:08:46+02:002012/04/21|Categories: Destinations, Europe, France|Tags: Architecture, camping, Europe, France, road trip|0 Comments

The Insane Road Trip through France Part II: Provence

The Insane Road Trip through France Part II - Onward to Provence! After our first night stop in the Rhône-Alpes region we drove further south. Slowly, but steadily it was getting hotter and hotter. At some point on the road south we had 52 degrees in our car -- which did not have air conditioning! Even with the windows wide open and a constant air flow, it did still just feel like sitting in front of a blow-dryer. We stopped at gas stations along the road every once in a while, because they sometimes had cold water drizzle showers, but that [...]

By Julika|2013-06-14T13:01:46+02:002012/04/19|Categories: Destinations, Europe, France|Tags: Architecture, camping, Europe, France, medieval, road trip|0 Comments

The Insane Road Trip through France: Off to the Rhône-Alpes

I had to split this story into three parts, because it would have been too long otherwise... This first post covers the trip through the Rhône-Alpes; from there we drove on to the Provence, after that we were headed for the Mediterranean -- Beware, this is a road trip tale of epic misadventures! Now this is just a slightly manic story. Maybe one of my favorites – although absolutely not my most glorious one. But it sure is hilarious, because we were so young, inexperienced and so out of it… But this trip definitively shaped me for the rest of my life: Let’s [...]

By Julika|2013-06-14T12:55:24+02:002012/04/17|Categories: Destinations, Europe, France|Tags: camping, Europe, France, road trip|0 Comments

The Future Art Historian’s Guide to Paris

I have to be honest, this trip was actually trip organized by my school back in June 2006, which offered all students in my class, who were taking courses in art or French, a trip to Paris. A once in a lifetime chance to go to Paris for a small amount of money to improve my French and see the probably most important art museums in the world?! How could I not say yes to that! You now probably think that I am just showing off some “been there, done that”-attitude, although I had to sit through boring guided tours, [...]

By Julika|2013-05-07T04:58:18+02:002012/04/01|Categories: Art History, The Art Historian’s Guide to…|Tags: Architecture, Art, churches, Europe, France, medieval, Paris, The Art Historian's Guide to...|1 Comment

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