Europe Archives - sateless suitcase

Life Snippets of 2019: The Before, the C-Word, the After

I was sitting outside the doctor's office waiting for my husband who had an appointment upstairs. It was an unusually warm February day and I had taken off my winter coat to soak in the early spring sun. Steffen was supposed to get some test results back. He had been having strange pains for a couple of weeks. At first I had thought he was just making up excuses to get out of our Sunday morning yoga class routine, but as the pains got worse I asked him to get checked out. It was taking long. Too long. I rolled [...]

By Julika|2021-12-12T17:45:57+01:002019/09/19|Categories: Specials|Tags: Amsterdam, Austria, Bavaria, Europe, Germany, The Netherlands|7 Comments

Life Snippets: The Second Half of 2018

Again, I'm more than several months behind with my biannual life update. You know very well that blogging hasn't been a priority in my life lately throughout the last years, although I certainly sometimes miss my regular writing routine. I've often felt bad for neglecting the audience I built with this blog. But to be honest, since the beginning of 2019, blogging has barely been on my mind at all. Sometimes, life is just so much bigger than social media updates. I will eventually write about how my life turned upside down since the beginning of 2019, but for now, [...]

By Julika|2021-12-12T17:57:54+01:002019/07/26|Categories: Specials|Tags: Europe, Germany, Montenegro|2 Comments

Five Amazing Day Hikes in Montenegro

Five years ago (when blogging was still a thing?) I probably would have started this blog post lamenting about how I spent hours trying to find great hiking tips and trail recommendations for Montenegro. While it's quite easy to research Montenegro's beautiful coastline, Steffen (the husband) and I struggled a little finding suitable information on Montenegro's mountains and national parks for our trip in the fall of 2018. But here's the deal: No one reads (or writes) blog posts like that anymore so I'll spare you the overly narrative lamenting to share a plain, good old five-best-list (at least these [...]

By Julika|2021-12-12T18:06:48+01:002019/06/03|Categories: Destinations, Europe, Montenegro|Tags: Europe, Montenegro|0 Comments

Life Snippets: The First Half of 2018

I had always been hesitant when it came to answering the question "Why do you write a travel blog?", because the commonly used phrase in the blogosphere "I just want to inspire people to travel" never sounded like the right answer to me. Deep down I knew the reasons I originally started blogging were boredom, procrastination, and escapism. But even that wasn't true. Looking back at who I was at six years ago, I understand now that my self-esteem was basically non-exsistent: I felt lost and incredibly lonely, I didn't know what to do with my life, I had lost [...]

By Julika|2021-12-12T18:16:51+01:002018/11/06|Categories: Specials|Tags: Austria, Berlin, Croatia, Europe, Germany|4 Comments

New Travel Adventures: Photographing a Destination Wedding in Croatia

It's funny how I thought travel photography was my calling when I started this blog over six years ago. As it turned out though: I'm actually a terrible travel photographer. Because I really don't like shooting landscapes. When you look at my blog content from the last years, it's easy to notice how I constantly shy away from the big, scenic frames -- I always rather focus on details like pretty coffees with blurry backgrounds. I mean, seriously, who comes home from an Iceland road trip with tons of photos of random gas station coffees, but didn't even take a [...]

By Julika|2021-12-12T18:20:08+01:002018/09/21|Categories: Croatia, Destinations, Europe|Tags: Croatia, Europe|2 Comments

Your Iceland Road Trip: The Things You Really Need To Know

Even without having any immediate Iceland travel plans for the longest time, I had known the names of famous Icelandic waterfalls for years. It seems pretty impossible to go on social media these days without seeing a mysteriously foggy Iceland photo within the first three minutes. Thus I'll spare you the "land of fire and ice" tropes and cut right to the chase: Because surprisingly, despite the numerous blog posts and social media coverage on Iceland travel tips out there, I somehow couldn't find the information I needed to prepare for the road trip on Iceland's Ring Road that Steffen [...]

By Julika|2021-12-12T18:41:32+01:002017/09/10|Categories: Destinations, Europe, Iceland|Tags: Europe, Iceland|6 Comments

Life Snippets: The First Half of 2017

One thing I could never wrap my brain around when it comes to travel blogging -- and blogging in general actually -- is how narcissistic it is. Do people really like reading an abundance of first person pronouns? Does anyone really care for random selfies in front of famous buildings? And yet, while being extremely aware about how self-absorbed the act of blogging is, I found myself wanting to share personal updates online for all these years. As you may have noticed though (I mean, who am I kidding here), I've cut back on my blogging output immensely throughout the [...]

By Julika|2021-06-01T00:04:06+02:002017/09/05|Categories: Specials|Tags: Berlin, Europe, Germany, Latvia, London|5 Comments

Five Essential Things To Do in Venice

I really thought I understood Italian cities by now. After my week-long art history field trip to Rome back in 2006, which was my first visit to Italy as a grown-up, I had returned to Italy's capital in 2014 for several days and then visited Florence last year. I can order food in basic Italian and I know the correct time frame to drink a cappuccino by now. Thus when I booked a super spontaneous trip to Venice with my mom back in March, I didn't think about buying a guide book or reading many blogs beforehand. Partly because I didn't [...]

By Julika|2021-12-13T20:57:18+01:002016/05/10|Categories: Destinations, Europe, Italy|Tags: Europe, Italy, Venice|8 Comments

Around the World in Coffees: The 2015 Edition

It's the most wonderful time of the year! And by that I mean: I get to look back on the last year through the coffees I drank! Ever since I wrote my first blog post about traveling and coffee, my yearly coffee round-up has become an article I look forward to writing the entire year. I love how a collage of my coffees always tells stories from my kitchen table in Göttingen to far-off places all over the world. The changing of scenery, light, cups, tables, or sweet treats on the side are always part of my favorite memories, because with [...]

By Julika|2016-01-03T15:57:24+01:002016/01/03|Categories: Specials|Tags: Berlin, Europe, Florence, France, Germany, Hamburg, Italy, Jordan, London, Luxembourg, Middle East, Paris, Turkey, UK|15 Comments

Photo Essay: The Best of November 2015

One Friday in November, I came home from work late. I was crashed and frustrated, because I too often feel like it's impossible to keep up with all the smart and insanely ambitious people around me. I sat on the kitchen table for an hour that Friday, still wearing my winter coat, questioning everything I had done in my life so far. I got myself together after a while, and decided to distract myself with some stupid TV shows when a news app let my phone buzz: There were reports of several shootings in Paris. There was so much uncertainty at first, but with [...]

By Julika|2015-12-07T22:49:30+01:002015/12/07|Categories: Art History, Photo Essay|Tags: Europe, Germany, Photo Essay|6 Comments