Lovely Ljubljana

Hey folks,

please apologize my absence during the last week, but first, I've been busy studying for an exam and then I've been busy relaxing in Ljubljana. :) The Slovenian capital is actually the perfect place to do so, as it is not that big that one would feel obliged to go sightseeing all day long but still big enough to have a lovely time for a few days. David and I mostly strolled through the picturesque historic district (which actually reminded me a lot of Graz - there is even a castle rock too), went shopping a bit and ate tons and tons of delicious food. :)

Strasbourg in Pictures

Hello everybody,

last week I spent some lovely days in Strasbourg, France together with my mum for a little mother-daughter-vacation. :) Here are some impressions from our trip to the beautiful Alsation capital.

We took the train to Strasbourg and arrived at its very cool train station, which in my opinion is a great combination of old and new architectural elements.

Strasbourg's major sight is its famous cathedral - the Münster - which is really an impressive building from the outside as well as from the inside.

I don't know if you have seen Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris". It's one of my favourite movies and there is this wonderful scene when Adriana (Marion Cotillard) shows Gil (Owen Wilson) this beautiful carrousel from the Belle Epoque. Well, you can imagine my joy when we found a very similar one in the middle of Strasbourg... :)

La Petite France is a small and lovely Strasbourg district, where the Ill river splits up into a number of canals and you can watch the boats come by.

If you prefer the modern to the medieval architecture you should check out the Museum of Modern Art, a very cool and colourful building next to the river.

 The European Parliament is also worth a visit.

To relax a bit after our sightseeing tour to the "European district" we went to L'Orangerie. This is Strasbourg's biggest park, where you cannot only find the most beautiful flowers, buts also two small lakes and a stork breeding station. Beautiful!

  
But the Orangerie is not the only green spot in the city. Opposite the Palais du Rhin at the Place de la Republique you can also find a lovely small park with beautiful flowerbeds.

  
A fire flower for the "Fire Street".

Strasbourg is the perfect place for food lovers and fans of meat in particular. One national dish is choucrote, which is basically a plate full of sourcrout combined with differents sorts of bacon, sausages and potatoes. It's actually really tasty, altough I wouldn't recommend it on a daily basis (unless you want to get a heart attack at a young age)... ;) A great alternative to  choucrote is the tarte flambeé, a kind of very thin pizza with sour cream, onions, bacon and/or vegetables. Yummy!

If you have a sweet tooth, Strasbourg will serve you too.

Have a wonderful day!

Yours,
Tulip

All images by Stefanie Reichl/Veronika Reichl

Weekend-trip to Graz

Hey folks,

I spent a rainy but super nice weekend with friends in Graz!
We went to the "assembly design festival" and saw a stunning mix of fashion, design, art and architecture.

Unfortunately it wasn't allowed to take pictures inside, but I have this nice composition of green and pink colours from the Joanneumsviertel in Graz, where the festival took place, for you ;)

Maybe you have heard of river surfing before? At the Mur river in Graz surfers find an awesome standing wave to show off their skills. Find out more about it on murbreak.at

After so much "sports" we got hungry and checked out "Le Schnurrbart", a nice little restaurant at the foot of the "Schlossberg" castle hill in Graz. They serve crêpes and galettes (the savoury modification of crêpes) only and it totally pleased me that their dough is vegan! I chose "EL BARTO" with a delicious baby spinach-mushrooms-cherry tomatoe filling and had a crêpe with chestnut cream as dessert :)

Right next to the restaurant we found a tiny art market and spontanously bought some art :)

If you wish a stunning few over Graz, I can recommend the skybar on the famous shopping heaven Kastner&Öhler, called "Freiblick".

Isn't this house front adorable?

I love my new pair of leopard sneakers ;)

Inside Kastner&Öhler you can buy everything a shopper's heart desires: cool fashion, expensive jewellery, home accessories, high fashion, handbags and even kitchen supplies.

I love the colourful, ornated house fronts in the city of Graz - everytime I'm there, I discover new ones!

Lots of love,
Lily

All images by Katja Borlein

Better, Best, Budapest

Hello everybody,

as I already mentioned in this post I spent parts of my Christmas vacation in Budapest which I consider as one of the coolest cities in Europe (despite of all the political problems Hungary may have at the moment). It was my third visit there and I still haven't seen even half of the sights let alone all the other lovely places one may want to visit. Nevertheless I want to share my little knowledge about the city and hope you'll consider some of it useful... ;)

Living

The last two times we stayed at Art Boutique Hostel which is a really cute hostel near Andrássy út, a big boulevard that leads to Budapest's Hösök tere (Heroes' square). It's perfect if you are rather looking for a calm place. It's basically a big flat in an old building directly opposite Szent István Bazilika with two sleeping rooms (for 2 or 3 people), a cosy living room, bathroom and kitchen. The owners are really nice and will give you some good tips what to explore in the city and there are 3 metro lines within the distance of a 5 minutes walk. This was by the way the view from our room:

Szent István Bazilika

Sights

Apart from the classics such as Hősök tere, Andrássy út, the Buda Castle District (which are by the way all listed on the UNESCO world heritage list) I would definitely go see the Museum of Fine Arts as well as the big synagogue. Furthermore I highly recommend a visit of one of the many thermal baths, especially in winter. I mean, what can be better than sitting in hot water all afternoon when it's cold outside? ;) The biggest one is Széchenyi Bath close to City Park behind Hősök tere but personally I prefer Gellért Bath which was built in the early 20th century in a beautiful secession style. Another nice winter activity I can recommend is iceskating. In the city park is a big ice skating ring directly in front of Vajdahunyad castle - lovely!

Budapest's opera house

Hősök tere

Fine Arts Museum

Budapest's synagoge

entrance area of Gellért Bath

ice skating ring

ice skating

Eating and Drinking Out

dessert at Balettcipő

Budapest is full of lovely and very good restaurants, cafés and bars. These are some of the ones I've visited in the last two years and really liked. If you search for a good breakfast location I can highly recommend Briós Cafe, where they offer a great variety of breakfast and what's more cronuts. A cronut is the lovely alliance of a donut and a croissant and tastes heavenly. Interestingly enough Briós Cafe seems to import the cronuts from Vienna every morning altough I have never seen a single cronut in the city in my life before.
Another lovely breakfast location is Keksz, where you get abnormally big and very good breakfast portions. Keksz is probably also a very nice bar in the evening, although I didn't try that out. A very cool bar is however Központ, right around the corner of Keksz. 
If you are looking for something real to eat you could go to Balettcipö, a very nice restaurant where you will get among other stuff typical Hungarian dishes. Another good tip is Noir et L'Or which also serves Hungarian dishes although the name suggests something else. ;) If you like retro bars you should check out Táskáradió Eszpresszó and if you just want to grab a little something inbetween visiting sights I would recommend Hummus Bar. That's a little chain that can be found all over the city and offers really good oriental snacks. The falafel sandwiches are top!   
 

Központ

 Shopping

Ludovika

Personally I love shopping in Budapest as the city offers a wide variety of stores. Of course you can also find all the classic brands on Andrássy út but I actually prefer the numerous little boutiques and vintage shops. Here are my (so far) favourites: If you are looking for cool vintage clothes you should definitely check out Ludovika. I've been there for the first time this year and immediately felt like in vintage clothing heaven. Another nice store is Retrock where they offer a mixture of clothes by young Hungarian designers and vintage clothes. The same thing does Szputnyik which I can recommend if you are looking for extravagant hats. Another lovely young designers' shop is Printa where you cannot only buy clothes but also prints and coffee. They actually opened up a store in Vienna too some time ago.

I hope you could need some of this information. Have a great time in Budapest! :)

Yours,
Steffi