Early morning walk in Dubrovnik

September 3, 2024 By travellingoven Leave a Comment

How to get these kind of photos in Dubrovnik during Summer…?

Have you ever visited Dubrovnik? If you have during the tourist season, then you can probably guess the answer to that question. There is only one way. Wake up before the sunrise! 🙂

Every summer I’m on the vacation in Dubrovnik, my hometown, at least one morning I get up really early so I can take photos while most people are still asleep. However, I don’t do it only because of the photos. Also, because I love to experience those moments when the streets are still empty and quiet. It feels very peaceful and good for my soul. Sometimes I even put my camera away and just enjoy being there.

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Charming towns of Tuscany

July 17, 2023 By travellingoven 3 Comments

About my trip to Tuscany…

I’ve visited Tuscany a couple of times before, in fact quite a few years ago. Once it was a trip to Florence and another time a short trip to the countryside. But it was my dream to do a road-trip and visit as many charming little hilltop towns as I can. All that while staying in a beautiful Tuscan villa among the vineyards and olive trees of course! Drinking red wine and eating cheese! 😀 And this Spring my dream came true… The best part is I shared the experience with my best friend so that made everything that much more special.

This blog post is not intended to be a travel guide so I won’t be sharing tips on where to eat or what tourist attractions to visit. I wanted to do a blog post as a photo diary of all the beauty we saw on our 5-days journey and images from 12 towns we visited. Most of them are small towns as that was what we wanted this trip to be all about.

Charming towns, delicious food, best gelato, great wine, lots of walking and just taking in all the beauty that Tuscany has to offer. This time we didn’t visit Florence as we both visited it on some previous trips and as I said, this trip was all about smaller towns. But we did spent half day in Siena, a much bigger city but one of the most beautiful ones. Even if I already visited it, it’s a city that I can come back to over and over again. I hope you’ll enjoy the photos and that they will possibly inspire you for your next trip… 🙂

San Gimignano

San Gimignano is a small walled medieval hill town in the province of Siena, Tuscany, north-central Italy. It’s rich in medieval architecture and is one of the best-preserved Italian medieval towns. With city walls, gates, and 14 of its famous old towers remaining intact. These towers, characteristic of San Gimignano, once numbered 72. They were built by leading families competing with each other for prestige. San Gimignano may be small but we loved it so much that we returned few times (it didn’t hurt that our Tuscan villa was just on the opposite hill :D). To just wander the beautiful streets, exploring charming hidden corners, to admire its architecture and gorgeous little shops. I have to mention that we had a fantastic gelato in award-winning artisan gelateria Dondoli. Here are some fragments of beauty and charm of San Gimignano…

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Slovenia in winter

February 9, 2023 By travellingoven Leave a Comment

After years of dreaming about snow, I finally got a chance to enjoy and photograph true winter magic…

Just a week before my planned trip to Slovenia this January where I joined a photography workshop, the temperatures both in Croatia and Slovenia were more like spring than winter. It was way above average warm! It didn’t look very optimistic that we will get the snow and winter conditions we wanted. However, I still had hope and call it a hunch that things will change and that I will finally get the snow I’ve been waiting for years.

The last few years we didn’t have ‘real winter’ in this part of Europe and even when there was snow somewhere nearby, for one reason or another I couldn’t travel to enjoy it. But this year yes! The photos will show the best how I feel about that week of winter magic…

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Autumn trip to The Netherlands

December 1, 2022 By travellingoven 2 Comments

Recently I spent few days in Leiden and Amsterdam in The Netherlands so here are my impressions and images from the trip…

One of the best things this October was the opportunity to explore and enjoy Leiden, one of the most enchanting cities in The Netherlands and much bigger but equally amazing Amsterdam. This post in not a guide to those places but more a visual diary of my trip and some impressions I wanted to share with you.

Leiden

I’ll first write a bit about Leiden as that’s where I spent more time and I’m so glad I did. I visited it with a friend and had plenty of time to enjoy this charming city in the province of South Holland. Leiden is easily reached by train and the journey from Amsterdam takes between 30 and 40 minutes.